When residents of Irving Park got wind of the plans hip-hop label owner Rudy Acosta had to build a 42-foot-high castle on the vacant lot he owns overlooking the Kennedy Expressway, they went on the attack, castigating city officials and lawyers for failing to give them adequate notice. Now they’re battling on a second front: in their efforts to kill the castle they’ve made provocative accusations against John Fritchey, a well-connected state representative who’s threatening to sue them for defamation. “This has struck as raw a nerve with me as anything in my 41 years on earth,” Fritchey says.
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Over two years passed, and Acosta still hadn’t built anything on the lot. (Acosta, whose label the Legion has a distribution deal with Warner Music Group and has released an album by the influential west-side rap group Do or Die, also declined to comment for this story.) Then in January he asked the city’s zoning board of appeals to approve another variance that would allow him to build from lot line to lot line. As required by law, the board sent a letter notifying residents of Acosta’s new proposal. This time the street erupted.
“It’s a neighborhood of yentas–people talk to each other,” says Sharon Sears, who lives next to Acosta’s lot. “When we got the notice for the variance we asked to see the plans. When we saw the plans we were horrified–absolutely horrified.” Acosta was planning to build a four-story, 6,700-square-foot structure complete with parapets and the crest that serves as the logo for his label. “It’s 16 feet taller than the other houses on the block–it dwarfs us,” Sears says.
As Jordan and her neighbors have learned, it’s up to residents to be vigilant when they receive notification of a zoning change. The letters alone are of little use. They don’t tell people they can register opposition or support at a hearing–they don’t even say there will be a hearing. They offer only as much information as the notification law requires. The law didn’t require Fritchey to specify exactly what Acosta intended to build on his lot.
The residents, he says, may not have read the notices. They might not even have received them in the mail–but he mailed them, just as he stated in his affidavit. “They say there’s one person who got the notice,” he says. “Did I pick and choose who’ll get the notice–I’ll notify this neighbor, but I won’t notify that one? I love their position: ‘I didn’t get it.’ Oh, suddenly they can recall what letters they did or didn’t get almost four years ago? Listen, I have offices filled with returned green cards–letters that were never delivered because the people didn’t sign for them. It’s not unusual at all for people not to respond to one of these notices. But if they don’t like the zoning change they shouldn’t blame me because they didn’t pay attention to the notice.”
