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Area Board of Zoning Appeals -April 7, 2010 <br />surprised he doesn't have any noise violations with regard to his property. We have the residents, the <br />students, we have asked them numerously if they could please quiet down. And even after they have not <br />responded to our "please be quiet" and even after the police have left the scene they would be quiet for five <br />minutes and then five minutes after they knew the police would be gone, the music goes back up. 1 often <br />have wandered over the years haw has this property been able to remain.? And why would you give it <br />exceptions that would continue to bring dawn the quality of life in our neighborhood? We should strive to <br />bring families back into the neighborhoods, not drive them out. Thank you very much for your time. <br />MR. URBANSKI: Anyone else wishing to speak in apposition to? <br />MR. 3OE QUEENAN: Live at 912 N. St. Peter Street and 1 too have made a significant investment in the <br />neighborhood although I decided to live there. When we built our house there was absolutely no question an <br />complaining with the zoning ordinances. We decided to make our home in South Bend we invested our hard <br />earned money to build a house on St. Peter Street because we believed there was a shared vision between the <br />City of South Bend and the residents of this transforming Northeast Neighborhood community. While there <br />is a need for affordable, multi unit rental housing across the country, the petition submitted by Mr. Matthews <br />stands in direct contrast with this vision specif tally in direct contrast to the stability and long term outlook <br />that can only be provided by permanent family residents. When we first moved in to our new home my wife <br />and I would often walk past this area and many times we were almost hit by cars coming out of this alley at a <br />rate that you think they're running the Indianapolis 500. Now we walk across the other side of the street so <br />we don't get hit. As we walk past there we constantly ask ourselves "how can what our neighbors call the <br />"Barracks" have ever been passed in a zoning ordinance like what we're talking about here today. And to <br />this day we often wonder how emergency vehicles could ever respond to a fire or other emergency situations <br />at this property? It seems there is neither street front access nor an alley setback that would a11aw adequate <br />access for emergency response and rescue teams. We are very concerned that by granting Mr. Matthews <br />petition you would essentially confer legal standing to something which should never been built in the first <br />place and the safety of the families in the surrounding homes may be placed at permanent risk. We strongly <br />feel that the home owners and permanent residents of St. Peter Street would not be well served by the <br />committee forcing our neighborhood to take a step back in time and permit additional multi unit transient <br />rental properties. I feel bad that Mr. Matthews jumped the gun and spend the money that he had but <br />however, we strongly appose the petition submitted by him and urge you to reject his request for variances <br />and Special Use Exception an the St. Peter properties. Thank you. <br />MR. GREG HAKANEN: Pm the Director of Asset Management and Real Estate Development for Notre <br />Dame. I guess more importantly in this context the University has worked very closely over a long period of <br />time with the NNRO, NENC and neighborhood residents to help re-establish this neighborhood as a quality <br />family neighborhood. And it's in that context, and I'll keep my comments brief because the local <br />homeowners have said much more eloquently than I. 1'Il start with the concern we don't have which is in <br />isolation the structure that's being proposed, we don't object to. lt's a modest 1,100 square foot home. <br />That's fine. We want diversity of housing in the neighborhood. Architectural style while modest is <br />traditional and so we simply don't object to the structure itself. Our concern has to do with use and <br />occupancy. And it all starts with the duplex building, that several people have painted out is built at the <br />intersection of two alleys. And the relevance in my mind is that is it's location itself will always diminish <br />the type of people who will want to live there no matter how much money has been spent inside the <br />77 <br />