Dispute continues over handicapped-accessible garage in Old Town Triangle

A family trying to renovate their dream home to accommodate their daughter and her wheelchair. A community group aiming to preserve the architectural character of Chicago’s historic Old Town Triangle.

An increasingly bitter, months-long dispute has pitted neighbor versus neighbor in the upscale corner of the city’s North Side, where Lisa Diehlmann and Bill Deakin bought a home in the 1800 block of North Lincoln three years ago.

The couple say the house was “disintegrating” while languishing on the market before they bought it and began rehabbing to make it accessible for their 13-year-old daughter, who uses a wheelchair due to a degenerative condition.

Key to their rehab plan was an attached two-car garage, with a ramp and an elevator, that would face out onto Lincoln Park West and allow their daughter to avoid taking her wheelchair through snowy walkways.

The family received a building permit and was on track to move into their finished home by Christmas — until the Old Town Triangle Association caught wind of the plan for the garage this past July.

“You drive around the primary residential historic streets, you will not see one — one — front-facing garage on any one of those streets. And we don’t intend to have it happen now,” resident and association member Karen Pfendler said on Friday, after the city Zoning Board of Appeals passed on making a ruling — for a fourth time — on the family’s request for a zoning change.

The association has objected to the garage, saying it violates zoning ordinances for a historic district. The Old Town Triangle, with its lines of 19th century Victorian homes west of Clark Street and north of North Avenue, was declared a city landmark 1977, a state landmark seven years later and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

“It’s a wonderful neighborhood, and we do not want it destroyed,” resident Diane Gonzalez said.

In a letter to Ald. Michele Smith (43rd), association president Steve Weiss questioned the family’s decision to “buy a house in a Landmark Zone when you have these needs.

“I don’t mean to be heartless or uncaring, but this is not the neighborhood for that,” Weiss wrote.

Diehlmann called the ordeal “heart-wrenching.”

“It’s just not a neighborhood for everybody. It’s only a neighborhood for a select few. That’s not acceptable to me. We should all be included, whatever our ability is, color of skin, gender. Everybody should be welcome in Chicago … It’s not appropriate to segregate where people with disabilities live.”

The family previously won approval from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the city’s Historic Preservation division, and the city Department of Buildings initially issued permits, though Smith said Friday the agency acknowledged it “made an error” in granting them.

Smith said the dispute, first reported by Block Club Chicago, has “thrown our community for a loop.

“My job is to try to bring a community together not apart. And having litigation — if we can avoid it, is a much better option. This is not a simple business kind of an issue,” Smith said Friday.

For her part, the 13-year-old girl, who asked not to be identified, called the conflict “eye-opening,” adding that she’s at work writing a play based on her family’s experience.

“I realized that my physical disability may present some challenges, but I never expected this kind of pushback from the community,” the girl said.

Zoning Board of Appeals chairman Blake Sercye said they would make a ruling at their next hearing Dec. 21.