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Klusczinski: Catherine would you read Certificate of Appropriateness 2007-0405 please? Moved: Choitz Receipt of C of A 2007-0313A Application Number: 2007-0405 Property Location: 115 East South Street Property Owner: Abandoned House Landmark or District Designation: Taylor's Field LHD Rating: Contributing Second: Sporleder Approved 8-1 Patrick dissenting STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE/HISTORIC CONTEXT: This 1910 Queen Anne was built for Mr. Charles H. Layton on property that he purchased from Sarah Taylor. The house remained in the Layton family until 1923. It was owned by various homeowners until its purchase in 1998 by Diane and Norman Northcutt. APPLICATION ITEMS: The house is abandoned. The City of South Bend Code Enforcement proposes to demolish all the structures, fill the lot and resurface with top soil and seed. RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends approval. There was a major fire at this home in October, 2004. Staff and the Commission along with Code Enforcement have been attempting to work with the property owners since November, 2004. Mr. Stan Molenda's opinion in 2004 was that it was a close call between demolition and repair of the house. The HPC Preservation Specialists toured the house and documented the damage in March, 2005. COA 2005-0505 was issued for repairs to the house and a complete tear off and re -roof after a review by the Standards and Maintenance Committee. The work was never initiated and the house has remained open to the elements since its partial destruction by fire in 2004. The house has not been occupied since October, 2004 and is considered abandoned; and is now considered to be deteriorated beyond repair. Klusczinski: Is the petitioner present? Hostetler: And we do have pictures, Lynn... if you want to see pictures. Toppel: I'm Catherine Toppel, I'm Director of Code Enforcement with offices here on the 13`x' floor, 227 W. Jefferson. Right now I'd like to submit some pictures, I actually never thought that I'd be before and in fact that I'd actually prefer saving structures much over demolishing structures. In this particular case, as was mentioned, the fire occurred in 2004. The pictures that I'm sending around are from March '05 and it's now considerably worse than that now. We, Code Enforcement, did file for a hearing for demolition in 2005, excuse me, 2004 after the fire. However, that was modified to a repair order, to work with the owner to get the property repaired in May of '05. The Hearing Officer gave him time to make repairs and to submit a performance bond to insure that the repairs were made and to move forward. The owner, Mr. Northcutt contacted us on several occasions and said that he was trying to come up with the money for the performance bond. We extended the deadline on numerous occasions for him to do this. It has not been done. This particular home has been open to the elements this entire time without any attempts to tarp it, to protect anything on this particular home. At this point, we feel that it has become a huge safety issue for the neighbors; the people around it are continually complaining that they can't enjoy their property because of the destruction of this one. That's why we wish for approval to go forward. Klusczinski: I need some clarification. You're not the property owner? Toppel: No, sir. Klusczinski: I'm under the impression that all Certificates of Appropriateness must be submitted by the property owner. Is that true to form? 4