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John Oxian, President South Bend and St. Joseph County HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION 227 WEST JEFFERSON BLVD. SOUTH BEND, IN 46601-1830 _ Mr. Ted Foti MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 707 North Michigan Street South Bend, NI 46601 Dear Ted: Phone: 219-235-9798- - Fax: 219-235-9578 - e-mail: historicOmichiana.org A Certified Local Government Wednesday, February 13, 2002 Rhonda Saunders, Director Thank you for your helpful response to our letter regarding the Junior League House at 130 Park Lane, and for taking the time to discuss the matter with me in the absence of our Executive Director. As I understand your thoughts, the hospital has an agreement with the Junior League that the League may use the house in its present location in perpetuity, or as long as they like, and present plans involve improvements to the night lighting for the house and landscape. Moving the house is not a part of any present pians. I also under- stand that you feel that, should the house be moved at a later date, the land that it is on should remain non- commercial, and be preserved for a use compatible with the neighboring park. There are a couple ways that these goals could be accomplished. The simplest is probably to ask the Com- mon Council to adopt an ordinance designating the house, garage, and landscape design at 130 Park Lane a local landmark. This way, if one or more of the elements of the landmark were removed, the other would remain. As you know from the example of the Remedy Building, and others, moving of historic landmarks is fairly common, though it is becoming increasingly expensive. A zoning restriction limiting usage to eleemosynary purposes, or a grant of a fagade easement to HPC would, of course, be perfectly fine with us. However, the usual reason for such things is tax exemptions for the grantor, and that would not likely benefit the hospital, since you are already tax exempt. Landmark status would not restrict future use quite so much, but it would probably be enough for the goals you and we have presently in mind. We have discussed the above with John Oxian, and he is in agreement. We enclose a proposed Ordinance, for your comments. If it meets with your approval,, we will add it to our agenda for a First Reading. Please do let us know what you think, and feel free to play with the proposed language! Yours, Karen R. Hammond -Nash, - Assistant Director Rhonda Saunders, Executive Director COMMISSIONERS Martha Choitz Richard Helmus Jerry Wiener (Treasurer) Mary Jane Chase Catherine Hostetler (Vice -President) Gerald Ujdak (Secretary) Richard Morrison Joann Sporleder (Historic Architect) Thomas Bodnar(Attomey)