Neighbors and town upset after Quincy car dealership fails to comply with order

QUINCY (WGEM) – Neighbors in 24th and the Locust Quincy area said recent construction at a local car dealership would disturb their peace and violate an ordinance created 29 years ago.

The ordinance states that at one end of the Shottenkirk Chevrolet building there can only be four overhead doors that can operate at certain times of the day for cars to enter and exit. Plus other restrictions the owners agreed to in 1993.

Well after weeks of meeting with the city and the inhabitants of the district, the current owners have chosen to go through with a project that now does not comply with the ordinance.

“I look out my door every day and you see it and you rub it in my face,” said resident who lives right next to the new doors, Kathleen Huner.

Kathleen said the two new overhead doors that Shottenkirk Chevrolet installed on the side of their building will add even more noise and nuisance.

“We argued and fought last time and got the four doors at the back of the building and it was a compromise then and we didn’t like it then, but it was a compromise , so we got what we could,” Kathleen’s husband said. , said Gerald.

Gerald said that brings the total to six doors, at their car dealership’s property where cars can be heard driving in and out of what’s supposed to be the comforts of their home.

“They knew they weren’t supposed to. We told them, the city told them,” he said.

The general manager, the contractor and the architect said they didn’t know.

“Did you realize you couldn’t do this?” asked Mike Farha, Alderman of the 4th District of Quincy.

“No, I thought I had the green light from the city,” said Shottenkirk Chevrolet general manager Lonnie Schuyler.

But 2nd Ward Alderman Jeff Bergman read notes from the planning commission meeting indicating otherwise. He read the notes which the commissioner said: “The city asked you to stop, and you didn’t. Why?”

“Your answer was that the openings were already cut and the doors were already ordered and the elevators inside were already installed. The commissioner asked you, so you ignored the city. Your answer was basically,” said Bergmann.

“You have to have consequences because otherwise if they don’t obey the rules. What’s stopping them from continuing to do that,” Gerald said.

Now that the gates are already there, Director of Planning and Development Chuck Bevelheimer says they can’t be used, even if they are.

“The next step is for the city to provide or send a letter to Shottenkirk Properties and tell them that we expect them to comply with the ordinance that was passed in 1993,” Bevelheimer said.

Bevelheimer said if they still fail to comply, the matter will be taken to a judge in court, where the judge will decide what consequences they will face. It will not be something the city will determine.

He said Shottenkirk Properties LLC has a year before it can go before the planning commission again to try to change the 1993 ordinance.

In the neighborhood, WGEM stopped at Shottenkirk Chevrolet but the general manager was unavailable.

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