I guess we may as well just pitch the Land Development Code. It doesn’t appear that city commissions have any interest in actually enforcing it.

The Zoning Board of Appeals met Thursday to consider the case of 819 E. Fairoaks (corner of Fairoaks and Illinois). You may recall that the builder of this house submitted one plan to the city, then built something completely different. Specifically, the attached garage was supposed to be set back 6 feet from longest plane of the street side facade, but instead it was built 12 feet in front of the facade, a difference of 18 feet. This puts it out of compliance with the Land Development Code, and it means the house is not consistent with the other homes in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, on a 4-3 vote, a variance was granted. The City could appeal the decision to circuit court; that possibility is under review according to Planning & Growth staff.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the ZBA meeting on Thursday, but I did listen to a recording of it. The builder (and his representative) employed what I’m going to start calling “the Bradley defense.” He said that it was an “honest mistake.” You see, the original plan he submitted to the city wasn’t compliant, so he made several changes, and the revised plan was approved. But then — whoops! — doggone it if he didn’t accidentally give the original plans to the excavator.

To compound matters, when the city inspector came out for a footings inspection, he signed off on the project. I caught up with City Inspections Manager John Kunski this past Tuesday and asked him how that happened. According to Kunski, the policy is that the builder is supposed to have a copy of the city-approved plan on-site. When the builder is ready for the footings inspection, he calls the city, and a city inspector (who’s usually out in the field) goes directly to the site to inspect it — he doesn’t have time to go back to the office to get copies of the site plan. In this case, the builder did not have the plans on-site, and the inspector didn’t have the site plan either; but in an effort to be customer-friendly, he signed off on it anyway because everything else was in order. Kunski said he’s strictly enforcing the policy now.

After that, I talked to at-large councilman Gary Sandberg, who used to be over the Inspections Department himself before he became a councilman. He said that there’s no need for the inspector to go directly to the site when called. The builder is supposed to give 24-hours notice — plenty of time for the inspector to gather all the site plans of the properties he will be inspecting before heading out to the site.

At the ZBA meeting, however, it was explained that enforcing the site plan was a secondary concern of the building inspections department. The primary concern is that the site is prepared properly so that whatever is built will be safe and stable. Ultimately, however, even the builder acknowledged that, while the city’s miscue compounded the problem, the builder was ultimately responsible for the error in construction.

So, now the house is almost all built. What to do? Of course the builder wants a variance. His basic argument is that this house is better than what was there before, and the neighbors approve of the house as is. The house “improves the character of the neighborhood” and it would be too costly to correct the mistake. He went on and on about how all the neighbors were thanking him for making the neighborhood so much better, and how grateful they were that he got rid of that rundown house that was there. It was “a simple mistake,” he said, adding, “just like Bradley.”

I should mention that the builder is not actually going to live in the house or the neighborhood. He bought the property and built the home just to turn around and sell it again, and hopefully make a little money on the deal. That would explain why he might not have noticed or cared that the contractor was building it wrong.

Judging from the recording, it sounds like the ZBA made its decision in favor of the variance based on the argument that this new house is better than what was there before (reportedly a rundown house everyone was pleased to see razed).

So, I guess that’s the new standard. We didn’t really need to spend all that time and money in charrettes, consultants, experts, etc., writing a complicated, legally-defensible zoning code based on the Heart of Peoria Plan. Really, all we needed was what I like to call the “Unwritten Development Code for Older Neighborhoods”:

Unwritten Development Code for Older Neighborhoods:
(based on decisions by Zoning and ZBA commissions)
Build whatever the heck you want. We’re desperate, and we’re willing to sell out whatever ideals we have if you’ll just build something… anything… please!! We’re begging you!

Last November, the Zoning Commission and the City Council voted to disregard the LDC for some development next to St. Ann’s Church. Now the ZBA has shown they’re willing to toss it aside as well. Bradley’s parking deck issue was a little different (not a design issue like St. Ann’s and the Fairoaks house; it was self-reported and compensated for with an improved pedestrian streetscape). Nevertheless, it was an exception to the LDC, and it’s already being invoked as a precedent to justify non-compliance.

The exception is becoming the rule.