THE AREA PLAN COMMISSION OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, INDIANA MINUTES. 3:30 p.m. County-City Building, South Bend, IN

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1 THE AREA PLAN COMMISSION OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, INDIANA MINUTES Tuesday, April 18, th Floor, Council Chambers 3:30 p.m. County-City Building, South Bend, IN MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: ALSO PRESENT: Dan Brewer, Oliver Davis, John DeLee, Adam DeVon, Robert Hawley, Elizabeth Maradik, John R. McNamara, Matthew Peterson, John Leszczynski, Jordan Richardson, Dr. Jerry Thacker Debra Davis, Martin Madigan, Steve Vojtko Larry Magliozzi, Angela M. Smith, David M. Stanton, Jr. Jennifer S. Parcell, Staff; Mitch Heppenheimer, Counsel PUBLIC HEARING - 3:30 P.M. 1. REZONINGS: A. A proposed ordinance of Cantinas Properties LLC to zone from SF1 Single Family & Two Family District to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District, property located at 1248 and 1258 N. Twyckenham Drive, City of South Bend - APC# ANGELA SMITH: The petitioner is requesting a zone change from SF1 Single Family & Two Family District to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District and seeking 6 variances from the development standards. On site are two single-family homes. To the north across S.R. 23 is a vacant lot zoned U University. To the east are single family homes zoned SF1 Single Family & Two Family District. To the south is a single family home zoned SF1 Single Family & Two Family District. To the west across Twyckenham is a single family home zoned SF1 Single Family & Two Family District. The MF1 District is established to protect, promote and maintain the development of urban style multifamily dwellings and to provide for limited public and institutional uses that are compatible with a multifamily residential neighborhood. The development standards are designed to promote the establishment of: multifamily dwelling projects (including apartment, townhouse or row house style developments); and, high density two family dwelling developments located along a block face, in developed areas of the community which are served by a full range of public amenities. The preliminary site plan includes 9 townhomes. In order to break up the massing, the project is broken up into 2 buildings. The building that fronts S.R.23 has 3 units. The building that fronts Twyckenham has 6 units. In addition to the parking provided within the attached 2-stall garages for each unit, 9 visitor parking spaces are provided behind the buildings. The petitioner is proposing a 6' privacy fence starting at the front building façade on S.R.23 and continuing along the side and rear property lines. Additional landscaping is provided to add additional buffering to the single family homes to the east and south. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, several properties along S.R. 23 were converted to office uses, with a commercial node located at the intersection of S.R. 23 and Edison. Twyckenham has remained single family residential. S.R. 23 (South Bend Avenue) has 4 lanes plus a center turn lane. Twyckenham has 2 lanes plus a designated bike lane and on-street parking. The site will be served by municipal water and sewer. The Department of Community Investment offers a favorable recommendation subject to several site plan suggestions designed to strengthen the project and mitigate any negative impacts on surrounding single-family properties. The Department of Public Works recommends approval subject to completion of a

2 utility verification form; approval of sidewalk, curb cut, lighting and overall site improvement to reflect the Master Plan for the surrounding area; replacing the curb that closes off the approach; coordination with South Bend Water works; approval of a draining plan, and verification of required (if any) waivers. The staff recommends the following written commitments: 1) The southern two units along Twyckenham should be setback a minimum of 20' from the property line; and 2) A cross-access easement be provided at the east end of the project for future access to Lot 36 of Wooded Estates Subdivision. The petition is consistent with City Plan, South Bend Comprehensive Plan (November 2006) Objective H 1: Ensure that an adequate supply of housing is available to meet the needs, preferences, and financial capability of households now and in the future. The future land use plan identifies this area as low density residential. The Northeast Neighborhood Development Area Development Plan (October 2011) identifies this area as OB: Office Buffer. S.R. 23 (South Bend Avenue) east of White Oak is largely non-residential with a mix of office and commercial uses. The north side of S.R. 23 between Corby and Edison has had a significant amount of revitalization since 2011 with single family residential, office, and university related uses. The area south of S.R. 23 along Twyckenham has remained single family residential. The most desirable use for the land is one in which provides a buffer between the more intense uses north of the site and single family to the south. With proper buffering, screening, and site design, adjacent property values should not be adversely affected. It is responsible development and growth to allow for the redevelopment of the site for medium density residential supported by the pedestrian connection with Notre Dame. The staff has no additional comments. Based on information available prior to the public hearing, staff recommends the rezoning petition be sent to the Common Council with a favorable recommendation, subject to the written commitments. Staff recommends approval of the variances. Rezoning the property to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District to allow for the development of single family townhomes will provide a buffer and transition from the university related uses to the north and the single family homes to the south. The strong urban design principles of the Northeast Neighborhood Zoning Overlay ensure the development is appropriately integrated into the overall character of the neighborhood. DAN BREWER: Do you have any idea what is going on with Notre Dame s property directly across the street? ANGELA SMITH: We have not seen any proposals yet. ROBERT HAWLEY: The situation on the mailbox, just to clarify that. It is not going to be a standalone, but it will be a central location. ANGELA SMITH: I believe Mr. Danch can talk about that more. I do not think it is nine individual mailboxes. The subdivision will have one box. It does not prevent them from putting fake mailboxes on the front of the units, but it is something that is required in the Overlay District. JORDAN RICHARDSON: What is the coverage of notification for a hearing? ANGELA SMITH: Everyone within 300 feet of the subject property receives a letter from the Commission. Then it is posted in the newspaper. MIKE DANCH: I am with Danch, Harner & Associates. Offices located at 1643 Commerce Drive, South Bend. With me today is Ashley Penn, she is one of the owners of this project. After I finish, what she will do is give you more of the oversite of what they are envisioning for. As the staff mentioned, what we are basically asking to do is to do a townhome development. We have single family zoning right APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 2

3 now. What we are asking to do is to go to the MF1, which is the Urban Corridor District to allow for the development that you see here. It is right on the corner of South Bend Avenue and Twyckenham. The site itself is just under an acre. It is about eight tenths of an acre. What they plan to do is nine townhomes. These would be single family attached townhomes is what they are planning on doing on this site. As Angela stated, the way we had done it is we had been working with the staff both with the Area Plan Commission and Community Investment and they had asked if we could possibly do a couple of things: 1) Break up the building size so we just didn t have one street scape for the buildings. So we broke it up so we have three units that face onto South Bend Avenue and we have six units that face onto Twyckenham. Each of these townhomes will have double stall garages. What we have also shown as part of this project is that there will be visitor parking spaces when you are doing these types of things. With the driveways you want to make sure if you had visitor s come over we have a place for them to park because Twyckenham doesn t have any adjacent parking and we don t want to be parking on either side of Twyckenham. We are close to the intersection. Same thing with South Bend Avenue. That is a heavily traveled arterial so there is no parking there. It only makes sense to provide even though it is not required by the Ordinance. We are still going to do it. We would be providing on-site parking for guests. The east side of the site that we are showing we are keeping all the buildings toward the west side. We are keeping that as open area. One of the things that Angela had mentioned and what we are willing to do as part of the written commitments is that we were not going to be putting any buildings of any type along that eastern portion that backs ups to the single family homes in Wooded Estates. We are going to leave that open. That is just going to be grass area for right now. What we have done down at the southeast corner, that is still outside the setback area, is we put a dumpster in there. That would be screened per the city requirements as well. Again, there are no structures that will ever go in that area. By making that part of the written commitments that would also make sure that no buildings could be placed at that location. That is one of the concerns that the residents had. They didn t want the building too close to where their single family homes are so we kept everything toward Twyckenham and South Bend Avenue. The Staff had also mentioned a portion of the site is in the NNZO Overlay District, which has its own regulations as well for development. What they had asked us to do is to bring the entire site under the same category for the NNZO. We said we would do that if it would make it more consistent with what is enforced between the South Bend Zoning Ordinance and also that overlay district so there is no inconsistency on the type of development or how you do the development within the area so we are fine with that. This plan reflects that particular request from the staff and also from Community Investment. The six variances that Angela had mentioned are because we are in the NNZO. Sometimes the NNZO, the overlay district, does not envision what we are doing here for townhome type developments. What we are asking to do is also have variances from certain aspects of developmental standards for that overlay district. Angela kind of went over them. The first one was the massing. Even though it sounds large, what we are asking for from the massing is from two times to nine times. The difficulty is not really addressed too well in the NNZO is what the adjacent buildings are to the property. When you are looking at massing for the buildings that we are proposing on these particular pieces of property, the closest houses that we have, we have a small single-family house that is right at the corner of White Oak and State Road 23. That is the home I have to go up against as far as massing for ratios. Since it is only a single family home and we have the smallest face of that building facing towards us that is what I have to use for the ratio. If someone had built a two-story house on that corner and had met the requirements and had the typical two-story house my massing would have gone from nine times down to three, three and a half. It shows you what the difference is by having a town home project that you are designing and doing a three story against a one-story house. Nothing says that the home that is on the corner of White Oak and South Bend Avenue at some point in time couldn t be knocked down and a different house going up and be allowed to do a two story, two and a half story house as well so the massing s would change. Again, on the south side along Twyckenham, we have a similar situation. There is a ranch style house that sits there, because it is single story, the pitch on the roof I think is 4/10 so it does not have a lot of APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 3

4 elevation that use to determine massing and the ratio. That is one of the variances that we were asking for. The other one that they talked about was that all front doors be oriented toward the front with the mailboxes. What we were planning on doing here is the U.S. Postal Service prefers to have a central location when they pull in with their vehicle. So what we would have along the southeast where the trash dumpster is, there would be an area set aside there for the nine mailboxes, that way they don t have to the individual mailboxes for each of the units which the postal service does not want in these types of development so the other item we are asking for is a twelve-foot wide drive to a twenty-foot wide. Again, the Ordinance for the NNZO either assumes that you are going to have developments that are going to have access to an alley. So they prefer not to have a large driveway. There are no alleys that we could access the development from. We only have Twyckenham. We cannot come out to State Road 23, which is close to the intersection right there. We have the smallest amount of frontage so what we are asking to do is for our driveway that you see at the south end of the site to have that be a twenty foot wide instead of twelve foot wide. It just makes sense from a standpoint to be able to get vehicles in and out so that you don t have a pinch point. We are at the farthest point from State Road 23 for staffing cars. The fifth one was the fencing. Again, there is a discrepancy between the NNZO and the Zoning Ordinance for the City of South Bend. NNZO allows you up to a five-foot fence. What we are asking to do if it is permissible is to put a six-foot fence. That is a standard fence. Five foot fence is not standard it is more of a custom type fencing. Then we have some questions on why we have those particular standard was put in the NNZO. It was where they wanted to have separation between the property so you could still look over. We have a situation where, usually when we are doing these types of things that the residents if you could take a look at area out there the standard is six feet. We would prefer to have that. I believe Ashley met with the owners if that is a problem, then we could do the five, but we prefer the six. We didn t hear anything that was against having the six-foot fence compared to a five-foot fence. The building setbacks, again, the NNZO requires you to put the buildings right up against the street right-of-ways. A ten foot setback is a maximum setback. When we were working with the staffs, both the Plan Commission and Community Investment, they had asked us what we could do here: is stagger the buildings. The reason for that is, if you take a look at the adjacent structures for the single family, they are set farther back from Twyckenham and also from South Bend Avenue. What they asked us to do if it was possible was to stagger the units to make it appear that they fit in a little better. So as you come down from the corner of South Bend Avenue and Twyckenham the buildings step back and as they step back we get to our very south end of the site we are now getting consistent with the single-family houses which are farther along on Twyckenham. They thought by doing that, that kind of opens it up, you don t create a wall between where single-family houses are and where these units are. You have a little bit more open area and it looks like it blends better. We were fine with that. What that requires us to do is ask for a variance for those setbacks. I would like to bring Ashley Penn up now. We had meetings with the NNRO, NENC and she also met with the Wood Estates residents. Even though we are doing a single-family development here, we are going to do a subdivision for these individual lots. This is still part of the Wood Estates Subdivision. They did meet with those residents so she could go over that. ASHLEY PENN: I am with Cantinas Properties. Offices located at 5095 Hunter Valley Lane, WestLake Village, California. We have worked with several organizations in the neighborhood to try to make this project work for the neighborhood to all stakeholders involved. We have been working closely with the Wooded Estates residents, some of whom are here today on a variety of topics. Some include the site changes that Mike discussed and also landscaping and architecture and how we plan to make this development fit into the neighborhood in those ways. Additionally, we met with the NNRO and NENC and we had meetings with them to present our proposed project and also most importantly collect feedback from them in terms of development in terms of what they would like to see to make this work better for the community. Again, some of those changes are incorporated in the site plan. Some of the feedback resulted in the written commitments which you have the latest version in front of you. We feel APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 4

5 like we have gotten to a point where we are happy and alleviating some of the concerns that the neighborhoods brought to us at the start. We also plan to continue to work with representatives of the neighborhoods. If it is alright with everyone, I would like to quickly bring up Greg Kil, who is working on our design. GREG KIL: I am with Kil Architecture. Offices located at 1126 Lincolnway East, South Bend. To supplement what Ms. Penn and Mr. Danch had indicated, our office attempted to design a townhouse project that addressed their programmatic needs for development of the site, but also address some of the issues that were brought up from the neighborhood organizations. I won t repeat what Mike had said, but I think the elevation addresses a couple of points that I think are important to know. The staggering in the plan also reflects the roof lines of the buildings at the far south end and the north end. We have a roof line that comes down to a second floor even through there is a full third floor that helps provide a transition to the scale of the neighborhood. We realize that the scale of the adjacent buildings at the northeast and the south on the adjacent single-family residential parcels are one-story ranches. We are not trying to duplicate that scale but we are trying to transition to that scale. In addition to that, the offsetting of the buildings and the material transitions from the lower level where we are showing masonry in the upper level of siding. This is a preliminary design, but I think a number the issues are worth pointing out. Breaking down the scale of the access phase we are proposing metal roofs, the lower masonry although I think we are showing in the elevations of brick, there were some comments from the neighborhood associations to possibly use limestone because that is a material that is used in the Wooded Estates neighborhood. That is something that our client is interested in considering. The materials all the way around would be a highly durable finished material. It would not include any vinyl siding. It would be a hardy panel or a wood siding up above with some shingle siding on the upper roofs along with the masonry down below. Landscape is a concern of the neighbors, but it is also a concern of our client. We received the survey that shows the major trees and it is the intent of our client to save as many of the major trees as possible. We know that a number of them are going to be coming down because of the location of where the building is and the over dig for the excavation. Our intent is to salvage as many of the large trees, because that is the character of the neighborhood. That is the name of the neighborhood. In addition to planting additional vegetation for compliance with landscape ordinance, it would transition in terms of foundation landscaping as well. Clarification in terms of massing of the adjacent buildings that some of the earlier designs approached a higher percentage of the massing factor that Mike had indicated in our calculations based on the design right now, we are just under six per one as opposed to the nine per one for both the north and west side. So we are working well within the variance that has been requested. The other note regarding that last variance, the entry encroachment into the side yards, I think Ms. Smith is right. That variance as per the plan does not encroach into that as some of the earlier discussions that we were anticipating that they might be required that but it does not. OLIVER DAVIS: When people come to visit, parking issues for guest parking? MICHAEL DANCH: That is one of the things that the ordinance does not address and we do. So what we are doing is we are adding nine visitor spaces and those are along the eastern part of the site opposite of where the units area. ASHLEY PENN: In addition to the two stall garages, each unit has an individual drive. So for each townhome you are allocating 5 parking spots. OLIVER DAVIS: And when there are big sporting events? MICHAEL DANCH: We should be fine for what we are doing here. We are actually providing more on- APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 5

6 site than most of that whole area. I think we would be fine. That is one of those things that I had mentioned because you have Twyckenham and South Bend Avenue. We don t want anyone parking in front. I know there is the bike route and I don t remember specifically where the actual on-street parking starts but I think it is farther south. That is why we prefer to have it on our site. Between the garages that we have and driveways that we are doing, we also have the nine visitor spaces. ROBERT HAWLEY: The three units that are on South Bend Avenue and then the six units on Twyckenham, are those connected in any way? MICHAEL DANCH: Those are actually separate. Because of the way the building code is ASHLEY PENN: We had some sort of decorative arch built in, I am not sure ROBERT HAWLEY: What is that? Is that a walkway to get back? MICHAEL DANCH: Because you have to keep the building apart for building code purposes and for fire codes, the closest you can have two buildings together without having either windows or whatever for fire codes is twelve foot. That is why we have the separation. OLIVER DAVIS: How many meetings did you have with the neighborhood associations? ASHLEY PENN: We attended one NENC board meeting, one NNRO Executive Committee Board meeting which was at the request of the NNRO, and then we have had a conference call that was publicized to all of those groups, and then we had one additional meeting just last night actually with the Wooded Estates homeowners association. OLIVER DAVIS: Of anyone that has been opposed, have you been able to rectify their concerns as much as possible? ASHLEY PENN: Yes. I will let the Wooded Estates residents speak to our progress. I feel like we have done everything that we can up to this point and we plan to continue to do things as I said continue to work with the neighborhood groups to make sure this makes sense to them. OLIVER DAVIS: I appreciate that. ROBERT HAWLEY: Do you know if there were any plans to have coach lights in front of each unit? That would light up automatically because it would throw some light on the front of the units but also be decorative. ASHLEY PENN: We haven t considered lighting at all in our designs, but that would be a consideration. IN FAVOR STEPHEN HAYES: I reside at 1219 White Oak Drive, South Bend. I am one of two Presidents of the Wooded Estates Neighborhood Association, we are an informal association, we are not charted or whatever the proper term is. I don t know if I am for it, but I am here to advise you as the discussion that we have had. It has been pretty positive. Ashley and her group have listened to our concerns and I will articulate our concerns so you know what they are and I think going forward we will continue the discussion. Our first concern is any expansion of housing that increases the potential of more students in APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 6

7 the Estates is not favored. Additionally, an increase in owners who do not reside in South Bend the majority of the time is not a trend supported by the Estates. Game-day residents who fly in for a game and then fly out leaving the property unoccupied is not something that we feel benefits the Estates. Second, the Estates is composed of single-family homes. The introduction of multi-family is met with apprehension. If this development is the beginning of a trend to townhouses, condominiums or multifamily housing it is not welcomed by the Estates. A significant fear is such development will march south on Twyckenham heading south and replace the single-family homes remaining at the South Bend/White Oak intersection. Third, the look and feel of the Townhouses as dictated by the overlay is not the look and feel of Wooded Estates. The appearance of a wall of townhomes, similar to the wall of apartments that line the east side of N. Twyckenham across from the Notre Dame tennis building is not supported by the Estates. In addition, Cantinas indicated that they would be willing to use an arborist regarding the trees that will be affected by the proposed development. In terms of preserving the feel and vibe of Wooded Estates, the trees and preserving as many of them as possible should be a strong consideration with the project and of critical importance of the Wooded Estates. Fourth, any increase of traffic directed onto White Oak is opposed. In particular the required cross-access easement to White Oak is firmly opposed. The emphasis of including this easement now is a concern. With the easement in place, it seems that the addition of a driveway or other type of vehicle access to the property would become easier. This is even more a concern with the developers owning the property at 1323 White Oak currently. The Wooded Estates Neighborhood Association strongly opposes access of any type of the proposed development from White Oak Drive. I believe there had been very good faith discussion between Ashley and her group and the neighbors within there. A majority of the neighbors have remained silent on this. REMONSTRANCE MIKE SEARFRING: I reside at 1311 White Oak Drive. Speaking on behalf of a number of my neighbors who were not able to be here. Frankly, a lot of them did not know about this. The 300-foot notification is somewhat inadequate. Many people are not able to be here today because they had to work and could not get out of their work obligations. The first thing I will say in regards to the neighbor located at 1242 Twyckenham Drive, that is Phil Dixon, that is the third house down so that is basically the first one after immediately south of the proposed development. He is extremely concerned with the proximity of the townhouses to the street and the fact that they would basically completely block his view out from there. He would be far more comfortable seeing them setback about 45 feet so they would be closer in line to his setback. It should be noted that 45 feet would still put them a good couple of feet ahead of his setback. That would at least be a compromise to where they are situated now would completely block his view of campus and the surrounding area. He is also concerned that with space for 45 vehicles going in and out of that complex that that increased traffic flow would have a detrimental effect on his property and its value. Those are the comments from Phil Dixon of 1242 Twyckenham Drive. I will also be speaking on behalf of the neighbor that owns the property on the corner of White Oak and Twyckenham. That is 1325 White Oak Drive, that is owned by the Simiri family and myself, I am the second property in, so we are both immediately affected by this proposed development. Generally speaking, Wooded Estates and the surrounding area are south of S.R. 23 is made up entirely of single family homes made up of single family one and two story homes, a majority are one story homes. These proposed townhomes, regardless of what type of siding they may have on them or what kind of look they have, they are going to be out of character of the neighborhood. When you have 40-foot structures next to 14-foot structures, it does not fit. If approved, the proposed development would set a major new precedent for new three story townhomes to be built. The entirety of Twyckenham will probably become a feeding ground for speculation by developers. It will continue to have an evasive effect proceeding back further on White Oak Drive. In light of the rarely used and rarely occupied new multifamily APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 7

8 developments that currently exist north of S.R. 23 and the Eddy Street complexes as well as the six or seven that have sprouted up over the last ten years north of S.R. 23 and east of Twyckenham, one would question why adding mostly vacant unoccupied homes that are only used by out-of-towners. How that is actually something that is a prudent thing for the City to approve and is more of this development something that the City really wants? Those are two questions I would really like you all to consider. With the NNZO overlay the first property facing S.R. 23 both in the proposed development as well as 1323 White Oak Drive, they were suggested to rezone as office space back in Currently, there is an occupant of the house at 1308 White Oak Drive and has no intension of going anywhere. Whether they are office space or single family residential, it really doesn t make a difference. The problem is when you allow the door to be kicked open to allow multifamily development the whole area is going to change. The entire reflection is going to change. If this is approved it will clearly be the beginning of the end of the Wooded Estates neighborhood as we know it. In fact the developers have already approached the third house on Twyckenham, which is 1242 Twyckenham owned by Phil Dixon and asked him if he was interested in selling. What you are looking at today will just be the tip of the iceberg because once this gets approved, other people might want to bail as well, obviously, their quality of life will decline when there are 40-foot buildings blocking out their views. It has to be considered that we are approving the tip of the iceberg of what will end up becoming far more rapid development. As I have said already the height of these 3 story buildings is just way too tall given the adjacency of the ranch homes. The singlefamily ranch homes gives you an approximate. They about feet tall and they are proposing putting 40-foot structures right next to them. That is nearly three times the height. They will obviously stick out like a sore thumb. That is a major concern. Specific to other concerns there are issues of privacy and noise concerns. The petitioners claim that the noise would be mitigated by the street, that these buildings will help mitigate the noise and act as a buffer. I would characterize a lot of the noise comes from the street is bike noise. These units as admitted by the developers already by themselves would largely be occupied by out-of-towner s, rich people with money to burn that fly in for the game and fly out. They have big parties and may have children that go to the University and can live in the townhomes and have parties. Basically you are creating a party zone. I myself and many people in the neighborhood would far prefer to have the light noise of traffic then the noise of football weekend warriors occupying the townhouses and getting drunk and having parties and such. Additionally, these houses are intended to have balconies off the backside of them. Balconies on the second floor. These balconies would obviously be looming over the top of neighboring houses behind us. These balconies are a privacy concern and also a congregating and partying area concern. Instead of keeping the party indoors it would welcome outdoors. They have to their credit, the developers have proposed a six-foot privacy fence which is nice consideration. Unfortunately it does absolutely nothing to mitigate noise coming from a balcony or nothing to mitigate privacy concerns when a 40-foot structure is hanging over a 14-foot structure. There is also a lot of traffic concerns, but with that intersection of Twyckenham and S.R. 23 being extremely busy as it is and people having to make a left turn off of Twyckenham in that development would create lots of bottlenecks and backups and chaos at the busy times of day. It should be pointed out that the busiest times of day is when there is football weekends when all these things are full. That is the busiest time when these will be maximally occupied and that is just going to wreak havoc on that intersection. Specifically myself and the neighbor at 1323, Tony Simiri, we strongly object to the proposed location of Unit 9, which is the northern most unit. It is north and east on the site plan there. The proximity of that 40-foot structure relative to that one story home is only 15 feet from the rear of that property line. I realize there is a caveat in the building rules that when you have a corner lot there is technically two fronts and not a front and a back. But this structure being 40 feet tall and 15 feet away from his property line would be extremely evasive to that house. So in addition to the privacy concerns the placement will cast a long shadow over the home and making it further detrimental the his quality of life and the occupants of that home. It will also make it less attractive for potential buyers in the future in the events that he wants to sell it. Basically, by allowing a structure to be 15 feet away, it will certainly APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 8

9 affect his property and substantially in a reverse manner as the proposed complex is currently designed, and as such we believe that is grounds for not approving the current complex of design. I should mention that a possible compromise or solution to this would solve a number of problems would be that there could be a driveway positioned like a right turn only access drive that would serve three purposes. It would increase the setback on the neighboring house from the back. It would maybe push that back to a more appropriate 25 feet. The vehicular traffic coming from Downtown South Bend and traveling northeast on S.R. 23 could make a right turn directly into the neighborhood. It would also satisfy the very, very strong stated desires of the Wooded Estates neighborhood to never have access on White Oak Drive to this neighborhood. So if they actually had a little drive between the east boundaries of the property line. In closing, it should be noted for all of you that the owners also currently own the third house down on White Oak Drive, that is 1305 White Oak, I think in the interest and full disclosure so you can all make an educated decision you should require them to go on record and have them state what they intend to do with that property. It s right there and it says it is parcel A, which to a normal person might imply that in the future there will be parcels, B,C and so forth. So is 1305 going to be parcel B? They claim they want to build a single-family house on that property, however, people change their minds all the time. I am wondering if they are willing to commit to a written commitment to not build additional multi-family units on this lot. The same goes with the future access at 1323 White Oak. I think these are really important questions that really need to be answered in light of the fact that they have already approached the owner of 1242 Twyckenham Drive and asked him if he would consider selling his house. REBUTTAL MICHAEL DANCH: We are not asking for a height variance. The buildings shown on this site plan fall within the standards of the NNZO and Urban Corridor District. So we are not asking for anything that cannot be built there for the type of project we are doing. The corner lot that is at White Oak and South Bend Avenue. That particular gentleman, that house has been there probably for several decades. That house was built very close to the property line. We are taking that into account with landscaping, the fencing that is there, because of the way that house was situated at that corner lot in the City of South Bend. We are actually meeting the setback requirement. We worked with the Staff on that particular one because of the height of the building. The way the ordinance is written is that if you are building these larger your setback gets larger. That is why we pulled the building back to where you see it so that we are actually matching the zoning codes for the setback distance. It is just that when they built that particular house, they built it very close to their property line. I don t know at the time the house was built whether or not a ordinance was in affect for side yard setbacks but basically his yard is south of the house. The access point that we have onto Twyckenham Drive is required by the ordinance. When you read both the NNZO and also the Zoning Ordinance for the City of South Bend standpoint, they prefer to have your driveways as far as possible from any intersection. That is what we have done here. That is not going to be increasing in traffic along the front of the properties. Twyckenham and South Bend Avenue are already arterials. The one mentioned about only making a right only off of a state highway into this development right past the light. I would seriously doubt that the State of Indiana Highway Department would approve that. I would think that with a traffic conflict standpoint, that would be very difficult and they would prefer not to have it. They would ask us to have access only off of Twyckenham. The point about the land use zoning. We have had discussions not only with the staff but also Community Investment. From a land use standpoint, this area is a transitional area. You have two arterials. You are right across the street from the University of Notre Dame. We have commercial developments right across the street from single-family development. The intent of this particular development is to at least provide some mitigation between higher intensity commercial development, the university properties and the single family, which they would like to keep in Wooded Estates. Any point going further south going from our comments and discussion with the staff of Community Investment, they would not like to see APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 9

10 that. They would not give a favorable recommendation moving down Twyckenham and start moving to where the single-family houses are. If you are going to see any transition for land use it is just going to be along the State Road 23 maybe going farther southeast but not down into the single family. From the landscaping standpoint one of the things that we heard from the adjacent residents is that they would like to have as much landscaping as possible. They would like us to keep as many trees as possible. We have even agreed to basically have an arborist go out there because a lot of the trees that are on the property right now are not in the best of condition. Some of the large oak trees that are there are partially dead and most likely are going to have to be removed. We have agreed that is the case and the arborist takes a look at those we would remove them and replace. What we would like to be able to do is replace them with larger trees that would breed back to the neighborhood and have that canopy affect with Wooded Estates. So we would work with the neighbors on that landscaping. ASHLEY PENN: To follow up on height. As we have the buildings designed now and with the 40 foot height limitation at the very top point of the sloped roof, we are still about six to ten feet lower than the adjacent office buildings on State Road 23. Given our side yard setbacks we are within that single family height requirement for these particular lots at 40 feet. Additionally, in terms of front setbacks, especially in regards to units on the south on Twyckenham, it would be setback at 25 feet. The porch would have to be setback 20 feet. The single family code calls for a setback of 25 feet, so we would be very close to being in line with the single family setback requirements there. We do have a little bit more wiggle room there. We were trying to compromise on not making the units look too removed from the rest of the development while also providing an additional setback. Those are in the Wooded Estates organization know this; we are still working with our architect on staggering the setbacks a bit more for those units that are on Twyckenham. So some of them might be set back farther. You can see that we do have room for that on the site plan. In regard to traffic, one of the things that we believe really mitigates that concern is the target buyer for these townhomes based on compareable communities in the area some of which Mike spoke about. We suspect that the make-up of the community will be approximately 20 percent full time owner/occupiers and 80 percent part time owners who are coming in for weekends. Because of that and because those owners tend to come in approximately three to ten times per year on weekends only, we don t believe there will be a big concern of traffic. Currently there are two single-family homes on the site as you have heard, so there is already traffic going in and out of the site and there would with singlefamily homes; we believe there would be one to two full time occupiers, which would not change the traffic for 350 days of the year approximately. In regard to noise and overall behavior in the community, I realize that people who are in for football games do like to have fun and enjoy themselves. Part of the way that any community regulates that close to campus is through a homeowners organization. As I mentioned, we will be creating that homeowners organization as part of the development and we have some written commitments in place that require the homeowners organization to communicate with the Wooded Estates homeowners organization in the event that something is impacting the Wooded Estates neighborhood. The development/owners/occupiers would be subject to city noise ordinances and everything. Mike touched on most of my other points here. Just in reference to the owner on the South, Phillip Dixon, 1242 Twyckenham, we did speak with him. We approached all the adjacent owners and knocked on their door or dropped a packet in their mailboxes. We spoke with Phil a couple of times about the project. He did not express any reservations to us. He told us he had no problem with the project. I wish he would have come up to us if this is truly how he felt because we really do want to work with neighbors and adjacent homeowners and try to work with homeowners and try to make this work for him. We have tried to do that. We have no plans of acquiring his lot. It is possible that we made a joke about land acquisition in the area. Many homeowners had talked to us about that and joked about it with us. We absolutely did not approach him to purchase his lot on any sort of basis. OLIVER DAVIS: How close are you in negotiations in terms of the last documents that he said you all were talking. How close are you to negotiating the final agreements that you all would like to. APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 10

11 ASHLEY PENN: So, we had a conference call on Thursday. Mike was on the phone for that. We went through a lot of the editing to pass of the written commitments. Those were then provided back to Wooded Estates HOA and we had a public HOA meeting last night to further make progress on those written commitments. We feel like we have reached a compromise point on those. I am not sure, I know Mike mentioned a few things about development on other lots but I don t think those would be able to be included. This application is only for this land. He knows that we do not have any plans for multi-family development on the other lot. That was purchased as a package to get OLIVER DAVIS: Everything in your mind has come to a compromise, meaning there are good handshake agreements. Everything is done through that standpoint? ASHLEY PENN: I guess. Not with Mike. He was not at our meeting last night. He did not me or call me regarding any additional issues that he is not happy with. We are happy to keep working with him. OLIVER DAVIS: My only concern is well, a couple of things. Having a whole group of people that he seems to represent show up to another meeting and create a lot of havoc. Would it be possible or wise for us to deal with that or do you want us to proceed and deal with that later? I don t know if it was just him or other neighbors, I don t know. How much control do we really have in keeping people who are Notre Dame Alums or fans from purchasing properties? We don t have any control over that do we? ANGELA SMITH: If you will notice that is why we proposed the last three commitments, not be entered as land use written commitments. We don t really have the authority. OLIVER DAVIS: So basically, it goes back to the other issue. Do you really see that this is going to be more of an issue that we are going to have a fire storm in a week or two? ASHLEY PENN: I am not sure. My preference would be to proceed only because we have made very substantial efforts over the course of a month and a half to receive feedback. We have sent countless s, we met with neighborhood groups, we provided contact information to everyone. We made it very clear that we are available 24/7 weekday/weekend and we really wanted to and still want to discuss these issues. Unfortunately it seems that some of these issues are just being raised at the last minute. My preference would be, because we feel like we have given the neighborhood adequate time to digest this and respond and tried to make ourselves available, I feel like there is nothing more I could have done. My fear would be if we were to wait another month, is that a very similar thing would happen, we wouldn t hear from anyone until the hearing. I understand and believe it is important that people speak about their concerns. We were very supportive of the Wooded Estates homeowners speaking about their concerns. ROBERT HAWLEY: What would be your goal to start construction? ASHLEY PENN: We haven t thought too much about that, but I guess it would be by August. The thing we are struggling with is we have already spent significant money working towards this development and if we don t get rezoning approval we would have a hard time continuing to spend money at the risk of the project never being approved. ROBERT HAWLEY: I ask because of the Notre Dame Football schedule and what goes on at that time of year. ASHLEY PENN: Oh concerns about construction going on at that time? We haven t thought about that in detail yet. APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 11

12 JORDAN RICHARDSON: I would just personally like to interject that if this gentleman is sitting here and saying that he has some concerns that they haven t been addressed, I would like to hope that you would make a best foot forward and communicate with him and solving his issues. It doesn t seem like they are.some of the issues that were raised, you can t solve those. However, it would be nice to know that there will be some kind of mutual work in the neighborhood going forward. After due consideration, the following action was taken: Upon a motion by Oliver Davis, being seconded by John DeLee and unanimously carried, a proposed ordinance of Cantinas Properties LLC to zone from SF1 Single Family & Two Family District to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District, property located at 1248 and 1258 N. Twyckenham Drive, City of South Bend, is sent to the Common Council with a FAVORABLE recommendation, subject to the following written commitments: 1) The southern two units along Twyckenham should be setback a minimum of 20' from the property line; and 2) A cross-access easement be provided at the east end of the project for future access to Lot 36 of Wooded Estates Subdivision; and 3) No dwelling unit shall be located on the south or east side of the Community Drive for the real estate s parcels. Rezoning the property to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District to allow for the development of single family townhomes will provide a buffer and transition from the university related uses to the north and the single family homes to the south. The strong urban design principles of the Northeast Neighborhood Zoning Overlay ensure the development is appropriately integrated into the overall character of the neighborhood. Upon a motion by John DeLee, being seconded by Oliver Davis and unanimously carried, the variance(s) 1) from the requirement that the height and massing shall be no more than twice the height and massing of the immediately abutting building to nine times the massing; 2) from the requirement that all front doors and mailboxes be oriented toward and visible from the primary street to allow for a stand-alone mailbox for all units; 3) from the maximum driveway width of 12' at the front property line to a width of 20'; 4) from the maximum allowed height for a decorative fence of 3' along front and side property lines that face a primary street and 5' along the side and rear property lines to allow a maximum 6' high solid decorative vinyl or wood fence, except within the 10' front yard as shown; 5) from the required maximum building setback of 10' to 25'; and 6) to be allowed to have a covered porch and balcony to encroach into the required 6' interior yard around buildings and be allowed to be as close as 5' to a front property line as shown property located at 1248 and 1258 N. Twyckenham Drive, City of South Bend, were approved subject to the rezoning being approved by the Common Council. B. A proposed ordinance of First Church of Christ, Scientist, South Bend and Raymond and Donnamae Schmidt to zone from SF1 Single Family & Two Family District to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District, property located at 1237 & 1303 N. Ironwood Drive, City of South Bend - APC# DAN BREWER: We have a request to table this one to the May 16, 2017 meeting of the Area Plan Commission. After due consideration, the following action was taken: Upon a motion by Oliver Davis, being seconded by Robert Hawley and unanimously carried, a proposed ordinance of First Church of Christ, Scientist, South Bend and Raymond & Donnamae Schmidt to zone from SF1 Single Family & Two Family District to MF1 Urban Corridor Multifamily District, property located at 1237 & APRIL 18, 2017 AREA PLAN COMMISSION 12