February 2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Portage, would be used along with the existing intersection to accommodate the round -about was owned by the city itself anyway, but I'll yield to Ms. Hostetler's comment that whatever they needed from Highland cemetery, they've already obtained. The staff report also indicates, as you may know when you read it that "other uses for the building would be able to support the building economically." We don't believe there in any factual basis for that conclusion of the staff. There's none attached to the staff report, and we're going to address in more detail later through our two appraisers and some other comments that I'll be making. Among other reasons that we do not agree with that statement is that the property in question is not zoned properly for many of the uses suggested by the staff. It is' zoned A-1 Residential in the city. Uses named by the staff would require at minimum an 0 -Office or even a C -Commercial zoning. I've been doing re -zonings in the city and the county for 35 years and I can assure you that you would have considerable difficulties convincing the city counsel, let alone, or the Planning Commission and the City Counsel to rezone this site to accommodate as restaurant for example with a C -Office zoning or something of that nature. Usually, those types of rezoning only occur if there is a contiguous C - zoning district or use next to it or something like that. There is none. It would be unadulterated spot - zoning to have an O -Office there or a C Zoning District, a one -lot district. Secondly, as all of you know that have driven down Portage Avenue, Portage Avenue is a very narrow right-of-way and although the neighborhood ... is a rather nice neighborhood ... it has stayed rather established neighborhood, it is definitely not a growth area in the city. And thirdly, the building is adjacent to and probably deemed in the eyes of most members of the public as part of the cemetery. I would suggest to you ... and of course in addition to that there is a second cemetery across the street from the property. I would suggest to you that anyone who might consider putting an upscale restaurant on that site, would be deterred by the presence of those two cemeteries. We also have to take serious exception, for ... at least for the purposes of the record, to the statement in the staff report that "this is a case of demolition by neglect." The building was built in 1900, so it's over 100 years old. We only acquired the building in 1996. It was owned by a different company previously. We can assure you that we have not neglected the building for purposes of obtaining a demolition. Instead, we do agree with the statement in the report that the building does not simply serve our needs. In fact we have absolutely no need whatsoever for the building. I already mentioned that we acquired the property in 1996. We believe the building has been neglected for decades. We can't dispute that; however, we dispute the fact ... err... the suggestion that we are intentionally neglecting the building. Rather what the real situation is: it's cost prohibitive for us to restore it. We cannot under any scenario justify investing the monies needed to rehabilitate the building for our use or for anybody's use. The staff report also says that the building may "not be beyond repair." Theoretically, any building is not beyond repair if you've got enough money to throw at it. I mean, if you've got millions you could probably rebuild anything. But, I would suggest to you that that's not the issue or the standard before this Commission. You use a different standard and your standard is based on the economic feasibility of rehabilitating a historic structure. I'm looking at particular your 1992 standard that I understood was adopted by a prior board in 1992. It tracks very much the standard used in the 1977 State Statute and there has to be some economic viability before you can insist that a building be rehabilitated, and I would submit to you based on what ... in particular... the appraisers are going to share with you in a few minutes this particular building because of its location - the three rules of real estate being: location, location, location — I think the two gentlemen who are going to speak in a minute, are easily going to be able to demonstrate that this building, even if you did restore it, even if you had $1.8 million to restore it, $1 million to restore it, or $800,0000 to restore it, it's not going to be economically viable. Your standards, I won't bore you with those, I assume you're somewhat familiar with those, but they do basically say, it has to be economically viable, and this entity, or this structure, simply cannot be made economically viable. 23 January 2006 HPC Meeting Minutes [Corrected Version] rol