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REGULAR MEETING JULY 22, 2013 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter: They have paperwork to for auto repair currently? <br /> <br />Christa Nayder: Yes, service is considered repair. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter: Ok, well, is there a percentage of for that business, car sales, legal car <br />sales and repair? Is it 50, is it. <br /> <br />Christa Nayder: Are you asking what the business currently does or if there are any restrictions. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter: Restrictions, because as I look at like I said earlier, it looks like, not that <br />they sale bad things, but cars are stuffed in their like sardines, it doesn’t look like you can walk <br />through the lots, you know you have to walk over cars to get to look at a car, it’s not like a car lot <br />where you can walk around. <br /> <br />Christa Nayder: The use is the use, it is automobile sales and service, you can sell cars, you fix <br />cars. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter: What if they stack everything in there again? <br /> <br />Christa Nayder: Not based just solely on the use. If you wanted to regulate it through a written <br />commitment or something to say “number of cars” they can have <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter: What is currently there? <br /> <br />Christa Nayder: The use doesn’t limit it to being 50% of one or the other. <br /> <br />Kimberly Clendenin, 56659 Windsor Avenue, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she is the <br />representative for Azteca Auto Sales. Mr. Dieter to address your question, the zoning itself is for <br />automobile sales and service. There is no distinguishing between one and the other. The main <br />concern that Jose (the owner of Azteca Auto Sales) and I have had with respect to this business is <br />that congestion that happens between his business and the car wash. Just about any time when <br />you go there, his customers are parked on Chicago. Nobody likes that, nobody wants that, and <br />hopefully with the expansion of the lot adjacent to his that problem will no longer exist. The <br />vehicles that Mr. Consuelo purchases from the auto auction on the west side of South Bend are <br />wrecked vehicles. He has another facility called T&T Auto Sales and Services farther along <br />Western Avenue. His current plan and what he has implemented with the last month and since <br />we started this process and heard some of the concerns of the neighbors as well as some <br />Councilmembers is those vehicles that are purchased are taken to the T&T Sales and Service <br />once the repairs are made, then the vehicles are brought back to the auto sales location. To <br />answer Councilmember Dieter, yes you are absolutely correct the cars are packed in their like <br />sardines. He doesn’t have a place to park the vehicles that are for sale other than that lot, hence <br />the reason that he purchased the adjacent lot to expand his business. Once I had turned into you <br />what I call written commitments which are the enhancement beautification plan. This is what I <br />hope the Council is looking for the Western Avenue Corridor. This is just not the expansion of <br />the lot in which we are rezoning is today; it is a continuation of the whole block. It’s going to go <br />from Illinois to Chicago, and what’s going to transpire is that the vehicles that he has for sale at <br />the car dealership can be moved over to the vacant lot once all the repaving for both lots is done, <br />all of the fencing is done, and the landscaping is finished. Then there won’t be the congestion <br />that you have on Chicago for those vehicles which are customers and employees. They will <br />parking inside the fenced in area, and all vehicles for sale will be around the perimeters. Any <br />vehicle that would need to be repaired any more so than a broken window or replacing a <br />window, a light, a fuse, a battery, those repairs would be done down the street at his other <br />business. I am hoping to get a favorable recommendation from all of you so that Mr. Consuelo <br />can expand his business and continue to thrive on the West Side of South Bend. If by chance the <br />Special Exception is not passed, the lot will continue to look as it does, if not worse. But I hope <br />that you could see fit to allow Mr. Consuelo to expand his business, to beautify Western Avenue. <br />I understand that it may not be in the extended plans that the Community Investment Department <br />is beginning to institute but we do have a fellow businessman now who is willing to invest those <br />dollars in Western Avenue in the fashion that it is going to beautify the area, enhance the area <br />and help the community especially the Western Avenue Corridor in this particular area. Because <br />10 <br /> <br /> <br />