Special Exception - 121 North St. Louis Blvd.

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Board of Zoning Appeals - .lanuary 18, 2007 the United States where we fix them and send them back sometimes over night. It seems as industry has left the City of South Bend we have had to travel Farther plus we have had to diversify. Plus the robotic division Ot OUI' Company Is Only 10 yeal'S Old. But this dlVel'SIflCatl011 has brought to the City of South Bend some ve--y, very high tech support people here to support high tech industry that might want to come into the City of South Bend plus what's already here. My goal has always been to put us in a new facility. But over the years I have purchased many other pieces of property around our building thinking I might build there. I own the infamous Boat Club bUlldlllg. I also own the IJasl R1CC Sel'VICe Centel' C10Wn On the Othel' COI'ilel' Along with this 110111e. I Own the Whole ~2 block bCtWCen WashlllgtOn and CO1faX Stl'eet. And this home that's 111 gtleStlOn is right behind my facility. And this home is why I'm here. In the last few months we have had a renter move out and I tools the opportunity to completely remodel the house. We put a new roof on. We cleaned the interior. All neW carpet, all neW appliances, washer, dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher. We put new counter tops on. And it's in the process of being re-carpeted today and I was in hopes of being able to change this into a group residence. At the time I was investigating the money [didn't realize what I would have to do to go through that. And once I realized then I started my petition for the group residency. If you look at the mathematics of the group residency right noW the going rate for a bech-oom is $400 per bech-oom. That's what the students are willing to pay. And that generates $1,600 a month for $19,200 return per year. With the income from this house [would have a three year pay back if you take into consideration paving the parking lot that's required for off street parking. As the landlord and owner of other property in the area we will make sure that the property is well maintained. In fact I have contracted people to take care of the grass and we're back there all the time making sure everything is in good condition. The area is well suited for rental t0 college students with five major universities here in South Bend. You have St. Mary's, Holy Cross, Notre Dame, hidiana University and Bethel College. Indiana University recently is putting a strong drive on to attract people from out of town to come to work. It used to lalown as a local university and they want to change that. And when people come from out of town, they do not have on campus housing. They're getting ready to build that bttt you're going to find that some of your students, especially seniors don't want to live On campus. I have read your response to my group letter request stating that there are now five group homes on St. Louis and that you might propose a two year probation period thinking that might be appropriate to monitor what happens in the neighborhood. The problem is that I'm required to have off street parking, paved parking one spot for each resident and it also has to have water retention. I have a bid for close to $12,000 to have that put in. If you do go with the two year probationary period I would ask if it is possible to only gravel the lot for that two year period rather than invest the $12,000 then I might not be able to turn the home back into a single family residence, because the yard Would be paved. One point I would like to make is that in the same two block area there is also ftve vacant lots. These lots had homes on them. I remember them being there and they are now torn down. And there is also one vacant home that is in very serious state of disrepair and one home in disrepair. Using the basic income figures from a four bedroom group residence that I tall<ecl about a minute ago, it would be entirely feasible for someone like myself to come in and buy two lots and put a brand new home up and rent this out to students and rejuvenate this neighborhood. There's a home just some of mine that is vacant and is the one that is in very serious disrepair. This home has become a haven for several homeless men. They're living in the garage and using the back yard as a bathroom. They're also performing scraping at night and just last week somebody cut the copper pipe that goes from my house to the air conditioning unit. That piece of pipe probably generated to them about $5.00 worth of scrape metal It is going to cost me between $300 and $500 to repair it. So these homes do not help otu- neighborhoods. And scraping as we all have come to realize is not a harmless activity and since it is mostly clone at night and under the cover of darkness. This isn't the only problem we've had in our neighborhood. So the policing of the neighborhood and enforcing of security in that neighborhood, or lack of is probably the number one demise of the neighborhood in my opinion. While watching a news cast just this week I learned that six per cent of the 6