07-08-19 Zoning and Annexation - Laserfiche WebLink

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n,CITY OF SOUTH BEND ( OFFICE OF THE CLERK principles to downtown development. I wanted to highlight this graph showing the land value from an assessment perspective on a per-acre basis. The taller the bar,the higher the value. So, you see the downtown is where those bars are high. So, that is where the City captures a lot of its value from a tax perspective. So, what we have here are primarily modest rule changes. So, since our ordinance went into effect in 2004, this will be the forty-first (41st) text amendment to it. I think about the seventh(7th) one(1) for downtown. We worked in conjunction with a design expert and an alumna of Opticos Design,one(1)of the premier urban design and code-reform companies and consultants in the country. With that consultant, we tested a lot of the scenarios behind the rules you see here. I also wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything, and we had this vetted by a group of developers, especially ones that work in the downtown market. That included architects, real estate professionals and the Home Builders Association. This, again, shows, as part of the development, many scenarios were looked at to make sure the rules we're proposing make sense and work well for real projects. That is the overview I wanted to cover here. He went on, We've had questions that require more explanation than others. One (1) is the proposed ordinance does propose a fifteen (15) foot setback to the river and the East Race. Some of the reasons for that are here (referencing a slide in the presentation). One (1) is to preserve the river bank, so you don't have development right to the edge of the water. Maintenance of the retaining walls is important there. I think it adds an additional safety and resiliency factor. We've seen in recent years some major flooding events and bank erosion as part of that. Mr. Corcoran stated, So,over the last year and a half to two (2)years,the bank stabilization issues we are seeing,this is just north of the dog park area along Niles Avenue(referencing a slide in the presentation). The cracks don't look like much but what happened and what I've been talking to Engineering about is that, in this particular location, the bank is actually sliding into the river. We've seen this in other areas outside of downtown but that is a brand new path and that crack is showing what is happening there. The City is in the process of going through and getting some engineering studies done to investigate how to stabilize the bank in that area, but what's showing here is during the recent events we've had in the last couple of years, this is becoming a greater issue. Also,just near Tuesley Hall, that hole on the lower left is a sink hole that developed over the last year.The picture on the right is them pouring thousands of metric gallons of cement to fix that sink hole. These are real things that are happening. They are unpredictable at the moment and we want to make sure that as these things happen, as we are sure they will probably happen again, that we have the ability to fix these things. The City Engineer, Kara Boyles, sent an email supporting this set back (which is available in the City Clerk's Office) for the reasons she stated in the letter. The City Engineer has to deal with these issues. Helping that out is an important part of this. He continued, The fifteen (15) feet is actually pretty general and is what is there today. So, the blue and yellow lines (referencing a slide in the presentations), given these two (2) buildings are further apart and that is why the distance between the buildings are different, but from the face of Stevenson Mills to the boundary is about twenty-two (22) feet. From the face of the AM General Building to the river is about eighteen (18) feet. So, we see this as a pretty modest setback. This preserves, also, the character of the area that I think we all enjoy as we walk down and utilize the East Race. EXCELLENCE j ACCOUNTABILITY j INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Bvld!South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 1574 235.9173 1TD 574.235.5567,www.southbendin.gov 10