Neighborly Love

I never knew I could love a home that I didn’t live in so much. But I do. I fell in love with 105 Michigan in my hometown of Valparaiso back in 2015.

That year, I read about her in the newspaper. She was 89 years old and under threat by the current owner. The county library board had purchased the home and some other buildings around the corner. She was vacant for several years by then. They planned use the land to expand a parking lot. And an arrangement with a local businessman to move the home to a vacant lot down the street had just fallen apart.

Feeling concerned and powerless, my neighbors and I launched a David-and-Goliath struggle against the library board to save her. It started with a few of us getting together and asking some questions. Why is this happening? What can we do? Who do we know on the board of trustees? When do they meet next? How can we fight with merely a slingshot and some pebbles?

Civic Engagement 101

I had never done this before. I was too busy making a living, I thought, to get involved in these one-off, local disputes. But this issue–the home, what it represented, and to whom it mattered–struck a chord in me.

I was nominated president of our reinvigorated neighborhood association and I got to know the family who lives next door. They moved there in 1997. They became best of friends with their neighbors. A year later, their twin daughters were born. The girls grew up there and learned to ride their bikes in the old library parking lot when it was empty on Sundays. And, this fall, they were heading off to college.

I asked them how it felt living next to an abandoned home for the past few years and what they thought it would be like when it was finally gone. “The toughest part has been not having any neighbors to connect with,” they said. It was heart-breaking. If 105 Michigan was torn down, theirs would be the only house left standing on the entire city block.

So we put up a website, created a petition, and published our first neighborhood blog post called Library Of Conflict. The response from the community was overwhelming. Within the first day, 100 people had signed the petition. Within a few weeks, more than 300 did so. Then I got the call. A library board member invited me to sit down and talk about the home. I happily and hopefully accepted.

The conversation, over some wine at a local bar downtown, was casual and cordial. Two neighbors and two board members talked about our love of community, how we came to live here, and what drove us to serve in our different capacities. One of the board members, a school teacher and education lobbyist, was recently elected to the city council in Valparaiso. She told the story of how, once on a lobbying trip to Indianapolis, she was flippantly dismissed by an elected official. The experience, she said, motivated her to run for political office. I had voted for her.

While the the conversation was friendly, the gap between the two sides concerning the home remained. We wanted the home intact, in-place, and lived in once again. They wanted the land for parking or future building expansion. So it ended with a commitment to continue the conversation. The board members accepted our invitation to attend the next neighborhood association meeting. I thought, at the very least, that we had bought some time before any further actions would be taken.

I was wrong. The very next evening was the regular monthly library board meeting. The home I was falling in love with was on the agenda. And a handful of neighbors spoke about what it meant to them. I rose to speak and simply thanked the board members for hearing us out and for agreeing to attend a future neighborhood meeting. The public hearing was closed. Then they ripped my heart out.

The other of the board members we had met with less than 24 hours prior, made a motion concerning the home. His recommendation was to create a monetary incentive to reduce the cost for any developer who would move the home off its current site. With little discussion, the motion passed. It felt like a sucker punch. One night prior we agreed to open the door to future dialogue. But it was full steam ahead with the parking lot plan.

A Turnaround

With trust now broken, the next year was filled with contentious meetings, emails, and phone calls. Our wine meeting board representatives did attend the neighborhood meeting. But the school teacher, turned city council member, seemed to flippantly dismiss us during it. She had, apparently, not taken her own experience of feeling rebuffed by a public official fully to heart.

At every twist and turn, the neighbors stayed informed, spoke up, and pointed out flaws in the parking plan. But the plan was in full swing. Detailed drawings were drafted and shared–some where the home remained and others where she was gone. We didn’t give up. But we were clearly losing the fight. I began preparing myself for the sight of a rusty backhoe knocking her down into a pile of rubble.

Then an official from the City reached out and asked a few neighbors to come by. The City played a role in the plan because of the public right-of-way impacts and the site plan approval process. We went down to City Hall to voice our concerns once again. The City listened carefully. They made no promises but seemed to see their role as being an honest broker between the two sides.

A week later, for reasons of which I am still not certain, I received a revised drawing for the new parking lot. The home was saved! The library still owned it. She was still vacant. And her fate was still in limbo. But, for now, she was saved.

A couple months later, a library board member’s term was expiring. It was the seat held by the school teacher turned city council member. Despite her application for reappointment, the county council appointed a different person to the board in her place. Then, a couple months after that, the library board agreed to sell the home. And a couple months after that, somebody new moved in to the home I love.

If you ask the experts, which I did, they will say that there’s nothing particularly “noteworthy” or “historic” about this home. But if you ask the neighbors, it was certainly worth fighting for. Today when I walk by 105 Michigan, particularly in the evening, and I see the soft glow of light that reveals a home lived in and loved once again, my heart swells with sense of gratitude, accomplishment, and neighborly love. We did that!