09-28-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING September 28, 2015 Sam Centellas, 746 S. Meade St. - We’re excited, La Casa de Amistad has been promoting a lot of development on the Westside, so we are just glad to see a business investing on the Westside of town and putting in a great facility. It shouldn’t just be the other side of town that has great facilities. We are thankful to Rob and his team who are continuing to support the Westside. Mark Neal, 112 W. Jefferson Blvd.- When I first moved to South Bend in 1979 my Martin’s was on Portage Ave., the original Martin’s. When we moved again my Martin’s became the Erskine Plaza Martin’s. My Martin’s now is SR 23 and Ironwood and the quality of our community is in part the strength of our local businesses. I think Martin’s has been a tremendous corporate citizen. When you look at the all the things that they promote, the pride that they take in our community and in their stores, I think that they’re just an outstanding local corporate citizen and deserve our support. Those wishing to speak in opposition: Eric Kazmanski, 56921 Hollywood Blvd. - All these people that were in favor that’s a great thing that they’re in favor, the thing they didn’t mention is they don’t live on Hollywood Blvd. and they don’t live on Elmer St. The reason I am here today is because of concerns we have with the new Martin’s store coming into our neighborhood. Our neighborhood now is a quiet neighborhood and no doubt will be greatly impacted by this Martin’s. Mr. Oliver Davis and Mr. Henry Davis were at our neighborhood meeting so they already know our issues that we were concerned and all that we brought up at our neighborhood meeting, the biggest problem is the back entrance off of Hollywood. It’s really an unneeded traffic problem in our neighborhood. No other Martin’s has a back entrance into a residential neighborhood I brought this up before they said 23 and Ironwood has one. I took a ride there they have one little gate up about ten (10) feet off of Ironwood that goes into a neighborhood that’s the back of their complex into a condo situation. There’s no residential house down in that neighborhood and they’re not being impacted, they don’t have Grant Dr. slippage, all the people coming from the west slipping into that street to cut through that gas station parking lot to get into the Martin’s. Martin’s say they put a back entrance for the residents in our neighborhood. The resident don’t want it. I think my wife mailed you a package with a petition showing we don’t want that. So if they are doing it for us they’re doing us no favor. As far as the tavern customers go they don’t live in our neighborhood either for the bulk of it. They don’t need a little traffic thing to sneak out through our neighborhood. At the end of the county council meeting County Council President Raphael Morton told Martin’s engineers he understands our concerns and told him to call the City Engineering department and address these issues. He said he did and I did talk to City Engineering and they told us it’s a county issue. I am little bit confused on why it’s flip-flopping both way. I understand it’s a county road and a city property possibility. The biggest thing is this back entrance, Mr. Danch says that they want a portion of the traffic to slip on our road we don’t want that portion of that traffic. Why would we want that? I can stand in my street for half an hour at a time and don’t have one car. I don’t want all those people down my neighborhood. If you want to go to Martin’s you go around the front. As far as emergency, okay, there is a place by UP mall where they had the same issue where all the traffic was cutting through the neighborhood they put a crash gate up. If you have an emergency they can snap the lock drive through it whatever they have to do. They don’t need this entrance open all the time just for everybody to cut through our neighborhood. That’s really all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Diana Kazmanski, 56921 Hollywood Blvd.- Good evening members of the South Bend Common Council. I hope you’ve had an opportunity to review the package of information I provided to your office. In addition to Martin’s petition to annex and rezone the property located at Western, Mayflower, and Hollywood Blvd., I’d like to bring up for your consideration preventing Martin’s from having an access off of Hollywood Blvd. Allowing Martin’s to have an access off of Hollywood Blvd., would jeopardize the safety of the residents living in the area and cause major traffic problems. As you can see from the diagram Martin’s plans to build a drive-thru service for customers to purchase coffee. As we all know traffic the drive-thru can back up quickly. As a result drivers will have to wait on Hollywood Blvd. before accessing Martin’s. The residents who live directly behind Martin’s will have to witness and deal with traffic congestion all day. The second traffic problem is at the intersection of Hollywood Blvd. and Western. Holy Family 11