01-26-09 Common Council Meeting Agenda & Packet

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Board of Zoning Appeals -December 18, 2008 50's. So again the Jesuits have probably been here for at least 30 years and they're not envisioning going anywhere. Again this location is ideal for them. It is right across from the baseball field. Father Paul gets to achieve or have the opportunity to achieve his goal of eliminating the need for cars for the students. It's pretty much a college atmosphere there. Everything around there is multi family, condo. It's a high density area. Just on the eastern side of the campus. IN FAVOR MR. CRAIG TAELMAN: I'm with the builder of Stadium Village and my address is 1212 S. Walnut Street, South Bend. We're in favor of this as a developer for maybe a different reason than they're in favor of it for. Presently all of our owners are out of town owners and they only come in town periodically for the games. And it would be nice to have a local presence there and living there and who can monitor the units daily for us. And if we have local people living in that unit within Stadium Village I think it would be an asset for the whole community of Stadium Village so we have local people there to monitor the facilities on a day by day basis. So we are also in favor of having the Jesuits move into the Stadium Village complex. REMONSTRANCE MR. RICHARD DEAHL: From Barnes and Thornburg, located at 100 N. Michigan Street here in South Bend. I. have the pleasure of representing Joseph Lombardy who is an owner of an individual townhome unit within the Stadium Village development. We do wish to express a couple of concerns of Mr. Lombardy to the Board today.. As you note there's four standards that you as Board evaluate when granting or issuing a recommendations in favor or against or no recommendation for Special Exceptions. In this case the Special Exception goes beyond really a density issue. The Special Exception goes to the core issue of how many people and whether a household or a single family occupy unit. Mr. Lombardy acknowledges that this is certainly a higher dense area. It's a multi family one zoned area which permits single family units to be very close together and with additional variances there are zero lot line property. And Mr. Lombardy in this case has no issue and actually supports the idea of the future development and sale and occupancy of the unit so as by the Jesuit priests. His main concern is that this Special Exception, if it were to be granted, would apply to allow non families or non households to occupy these units on a go forward basis after the Jesuit priest's ownership. And therefore we're respectfully requesting that the Board consider either no recommendation or an unfavorable recommendation unless the Board were to consider imposing some conditions on this Special Exception, such as, the Special Exception would apply only for so long as owned and occupied by the Jesuit priests or their organization. Because without that this Special Exception would create two separate group residences which are basically two units within a single family, high density, but a single family developed area. It would allow two of these units to be used basically by students for rental housing or other uses in that fashion. And that could very well have an impact on values of the property within Stadium Village as well as property values right around there. So we respectfully request that that the Board consider either making no recommendation to the City Council in this matter or an unfavorable recommendation unless conditions were imposed on the Special Exception to limit it solely to the Jesuit priests for their ownership and their occupancy of these two units. Thank you. REBUTTAL: