09-28-09 Common Council Meeting Agenda & Packet

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Area Board of Zoning Appeals -September 2, 2009 petitioner about the veracity, the things they want to bring to this. Group homes are great. In fact these special service facilities, we have four within a half mile of this location. In the very back of your book there is a map that shows those locations. These are social service facilities. Some of these are as close as 1100' to this particular location. So we are not against in general group homes or social service facilities. In fact we embrace them and there are a number of them in the neighborhood already. Are concerns are more basic. The petitioners first bought this house at the end of 2006, early 2007. It sat vacant basically till this year. Since that time, long before this petition was ever filed, the neighbors had complained about the neglect and the problems with the particular neighborhood and there's a copy of the letter that was sent in 2007 from several of the neighbors. Also in your book there was two Code Enforcement violations brought by the City of South Bend for code violations at this property. The first one, the petitioners, Mr. and Mrs. Gurrola failed to even appear before it. They were fined $1500. The second one, Mr. Gurrola appeared and if you look at that, it's interesting, the home was sealed and vacated until these repairs could be made. In addition by the petitioners, they have indicated that they have spent $100,000 making improvements to this house. They have not pulled a building permit. They've been doing this work without a building permit. I think it's absolutely intrusive to the fact the people that are telling you today that they want to be a good neighbor have not been a good neighbor since they've owned this house. Now Mrs. Gurrola said that she doesn't want to travel anymore. The house on Pokagon Street has been for rent and the contact person there is Mrs. Brimmer. So apparently she's doing double duty as a real estate agent and is going to be a house mother as well. I don't know where Mrs. Gurrola now lives because the house on Pokagon is for rent and has been for rent for some period of time. She says she doesn't live there anymore and she doesn't live in this house. So apparently she's still traveling. Mrs. Gurrola by the way also did have another home in Illinois called Hope Organization and that was dissolved. One of the letters that I think Mr. Fedder read from, Ostego, or Mr. Urbanski you read from, Ostego, one of the letters in favor from 1309 Ostego. That home is owned by Mr. Hines. Mr. Hines owns at least two other properties in South Bend as well which did not come out. But one of the letters is from of his tenants apparently. You know you cannot separate the actual use of the property from the people who's going to be using the property and there have been complaint after complaint after complain about the property, the way they're going to use this. A number of the neighbors that I represent went to an open house and Mrs. Gurrola mentioned that they changed the petition in response to that open house. In fact if you look at the State application, which a copy is enclosed there, there is going to be girls from 11-19. That's what the State said they would approve, 11-19. The handout says 8-18 and the petition says 10-18. We don't know who to believe. We don't know who these girls are going to be. They don't know the names of the schools these girls are going to attend. They don't know anything about the neighborhood. They bought this according to their own words for a weekend get away originally and now it's going to be a business. And that's exactly what this is. It is nothing more than a business. Mr. Hines, Mr. and Mrs. Gurrola also were investors in a company called Integrated Investment Realty, LLC. That business was involuntarily dissolved by the State of Illinois. Mrs. Gurrola is also shown as being a principle in another social services entity in Chicago as well, called Comfort Homes with the elder care. The petition, it's interesting that they're going to talk about this house mother Mrs. Brimmer and Mr. Newell and if you look at the petition it says, Mrs. Brimmer and Mr. Newell will teach the girls household budgeting, banking and money management. Well let me tell you something about Mr. and Mrs. Brimmer, they filed bankruptcy in 2007 and again in 2008, both cases were dismissed for lack of a payment plan. They filed again in 2008 and that case was dismissed because they had no money. However, both Mrs. Brimmer and Mr. Newell were asked by the court and required by the court to go to personal financial management course which they finished up in January of this year. And these are going to be the people teaching these young girls 8, 9, 10 and 11 to 19, they're going to be teaching money 21