08-22-16 Zoning and Annexation - Laserfiche WebLink

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David Matthews, 215 East Coflax South Bend, stated he is pretty sure this bill relates to what his company has done in the past. Four (4) years ago there was a group of seven (7) guys who wanted to live in the Central Business District and approached him to see if we could get a building or apartment for them to get into. The zoning, by not allowing a special use, prohibited group homes. Mr. Mathews stated he read the rules and found a loophole and discovered that if he placed all of them as domestic servants they could all move in. That group went on to become EnFocus which has done great work for South Bend. The text amendment change would take that option away. The ability to have the path for a special exemption is potentially appealing but if we look back at recent activities it would have prevented the EnFocus guys from moving in. That property was located in the CBD and had been vacant for years. They had to be in very quickly. This process as written would take spending the three- hundred dollars ($300) but then we have to notify everyone within three- hundred (300) feet, go through public notice and an ABZA meeting and then finally the City Council meeting and public notice. It seems odd to make a group residence a special use in the CBD. It will be easier to buy a building in the CBD and put in a night club or bar and they don't have to go through the City Council for permission but if somebody wants to change that same building into a house and have three (3) people living there they have to go through the City Council. He was talking to someone at Art Beat who asked him if he would be willing to house foreign exchange students at Adam's High School for six (6) weeks and that would be a great opportunity but with this rule he couldn't do that because the process would be longer than the time the student would be living with him. If we are trying to protect the property values in the CBD we should make it easy to do business. We have low- income housing, subsidized housing, and million dollar houses and everything in between that spectrum in the CBD. It is the most cosmopolitan and diverse area in the City. A special exception makes sense in a Single - Family or Mixed -Use neighborhood but not in the CBD it should just be allowed or raise the limit to three (3) or four (4). When we were doing the EnFocus housing there is no way we could have made that work with the forty -five (45) day process set up in this ordinance. Committee Chair Davis asked Mr. Mathews to clarify if he was for or against the bill. Mr. Matthews responded he is in support of the bill with the slight modification of changing as a special use in the CBD to an allowed use. If you make that amendment to the proposal than it is great. If that amendment is not approved then he is not in favor of the bill. Bill Stems, 1020 East Colfax, stated he is definitely for this bill. We have been dealing with this group home problem in the Northeast Neighborhood forever. There have been many new group homes that have sprung up because of the interpretation of the wording of what consists of two (2) people. Mr. Stems stated that our current building administrator considers that if you have four (4) apartments or (4) bedrooms but each bedroom has a hotplate and a kitchen or a compact refrigerator they can still share a kitchen among all four (4) bedrooms and be considered four (4) separate units even though they do in fact all live together. That is the critical thing in the writing of this ordinance that defines what really more than two (2) unrelated people is if they do share a common kitchen and recreational area. The Northeast Neighborhood Council is in favor of this and there will be others to speak in favor. Changing the language to what the state building code 7