The city finally ruled in our favor and our lot access is secure. It has been a grinding fight to protect this building but we kept our parking and the maintenance work can finally begin. Thank you for staying with me through the long months of obstruction.
January 16, 2017
Help Cha Cha Beauty & Barber Save Our Parking Lot and Allow Building Maintenance
Final supporters
Chuck Chvala, Louis Fortis and their new apartment building at 906 Williamson St. are responsible for the potential loss of long established off-street parking for Cha Cha Beauty & Barber, and disrupting the maintenance of historical neighboring properties.
Please sign our petition to help save access to our lot, and allow maintenance to our historic building. We are asking that the city allows Cha Cha’s current parking lot as it has been since the owners of the property purchased it in 1952, a gravel lot where 6 vehicles are allowed to park.
Issue #1
Chuck Chvala and Louis Fortis are in the position of keeping a hundred and twenty-five-year-old historically landmarked building from being maintained. Everyone should have access to maintain their properties in a tight urban area like Williamson Street. Chuck Chvala will not allow the property owner of Cha Cha to fix the brick wall on the property line between Madison Sourdough and Cha Cha (a historically landmarked building at 912 Williamson St) unless his development next door with Louis Fortis is given free parking behind Cha Cha. In tight urban areas a free mutual maintenance agreement between property owners is a given and should not be a part of any other negotiations or used for leverage to gain something for one party as Chuck Chvala is trying to do. It is even more important when one of the buildings is historical in nature.
Issue #2
The new Chuck Chvala and Louis Fortis apartment building on the corner of Williamson and Paterson St. is trying to leverage away the six parking spots behind Cha Cha (912 Williamson St.) that have been in use since 1952. When the Chuck Chvala/Louis Fortis development at 906 Williamson St. was proposed to the neighborhood and the city, the developers signed a letter of intent to give Cha Cha’s property access to the existing parking lot from Paterson St. and an ingress easement (on about a 5 feet strip of land) to allow legal parking for Cha Cha since the new development was taking away their access from Williamson St.
22.Applicant shall provide for review reciprocal easements and agreements including, but not limited to, access, parking and storm water management (drainage) that are necessary to accomplish the development as proposed in cooperation with the adjacent property to the east. The document(s) shall then be executed and recorded and recorded copies provided prior to building permit issuance. https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=347753&GUID=158A5F95-F0F7-4B32-90AE-D40A951DB6E7
Once the city approved the project, Louis Fortis and Chuck Chvala backed out of the agreement and tried to renegotiate use of Cha Cha’s lot for their new development in addition to free parking from the neighboring property (303 S. Paterson) also owned by the family that owns the Cha Cha building. Their latest demands are 2 free parking spots 24 hours a day, free parking in the 50 spots on the neighboring property for 14 hours a day, and that they are allowed to put their snow on the Cha Cha property in the winter. We are asking that the city allows Cha Cha’s current parking lot as it has been since the owners of the property purchased it in 1952, a gravel lot where 6 vehicles are allowed to park. It is an extremely bad precedent if neighboring properties and businesses are diminished as a result of new development.
(November 21st is the planning commission meeting where Chuck is going to ask the city to allow him extra capacity for his restaurant without any parking.)
Updates
Reached 250 supporters
November 4, 2016
November 4, 2016
The silence from the developers is heavy but it does not mean we are stopping. I am spending my afternoons studying property ordinances to prepare for the upcoming hearings. This fight is taking much longer than I expected but the history of this building is worth the exhaustion.
Reached 100 supporters
November 4, 2016
60 Comments
This is a historical district and the building should be maintained in spite of the completely inappropriate development of The new building.
Holding small business owners hostage for leverage on an un-built property is unacceptable. These developers have a long history of shady deals and should not be able to bully people to get what they want.
Either we support local businesses or we don't. Either we maintain historic buildings or we don't. To use one to extort the exploitation is, quite frankly, despicable.
Please allow this wonderful landmark to keep access to the limited parking and maintenance spots available to it.
Gentrification needs to be tempered by the right of existing businesses to continue existing. Anything else is tyranny.
This is Louis Fortis. I would like to present the real story. Let me start off by saying that Cha Chas is a great neighborhood business.When we opened our apartment building on the corner of Willy Street and Paterson, at Cha Chas request, we gladly distributed Cha Chas marketing bags to all of our new tenants and we encourage to patronize them. However Kris Warren,their landlord through his family's business, is a different story. The concern is access to the parking lot behind Cha Chas which needs an access agreement through our property. Kris Warren is currently getting access by violating city rules on parking and accessing the parking with a cut-through from another one of his family's property holdings. For over a year, prior to construction of our project, we tried to work with Kris Warren. We tried to act as a good neighbor by advancing a solution that would enable his tenant, Cha Chas, access to the parking behind their building through our property in return for use of Warren property parking in the evenings, when it was not being used by Warren tenants, for the restaurant that would eventually be opening in the retail space of our building. This simple neighborly solution would benefit two neighborhood businesses as well as the entire neighborhood by reducing or eliminating any parking impact on neighborhood streets. Cha Chas employees and their customers would have easy, legal access to their parking lot through our property, while restaurant employees and customers would be able to access the Warren commercial property in the evening. Kris Warren continued to oppose this proposal and on the final afternoon of the last day for submission of our project to the city he demanded that we pay his family's business $5,000 and also provide access to his business to have the right to cross our property at no charge for their parking while at the same time refusing to allow the restaurant future access to parking in the Warren commercial lot a
Less gentrification, more Cha-Cha!
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Share this petition to help it reach more people.
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The city finally ruled in our favor and our lot access is secure. It has been a grinding fight to protect this building but we kept our parking and the maintenance work can finally begin. Thank you for staying with me through the long months of obstruction.
January 16, 2017
Help Cha Cha Beauty & Barber Save Our Parking Lot and Allow Building Maintenance
Final supporters
Chuck Chvala, Louis Fortis and their new apartment building at 906 Williamson St. are responsible for the potential loss of long established off-street parking for Cha Cha Beauty & Barber, and disrupting the maintenance of historical neighboring properties.
Please sign our petition to help save access to our lot, and allow maintenance to our historic building. We are asking that the city allows Cha Cha’s current parking lot as it has been since the owners of the property purchased it in 1952, a gravel lot where 6 vehicles are allowed to park.
Issue #1
Chuck Chvala and Louis Fortis are in the position of keeping a hundred and twenty-five-year-old historically landmarked building from being maintained. Everyone should have access to maintain their properties in a tight urban area like Williamson Street. Chuck Chvala will not allow the property owner of Cha Cha to fix the brick wall on the property line between Madison Sourdough and Cha Cha (a historically landmarked building at 912 Williamson St) unless his development next door with Louis Fortis is given free parking behind Cha Cha. In tight urban areas a free mutual maintenance agreement between property owners is a given and should not be a part of any other negotiations or used for leverage to gain something for one party as Chuck Chvala is trying to do. It is even more important when one of the buildings is historical in nature.
Issue #2
The new Chuck Chvala and Louis Fortis apartment building on the corner of Williamson and Paterson St. is trying to leverage away the six parking spots behind Cha Cha (912 Williamson St.) that have been in use since 1952. When the Chuck Chvala/Louis Fortis development at 906 Williamson St. was proposed to the neighborhood and the city, the developers signed a letter of intent to give Cha Cha’s property access to the existing parking lot from Paterson St. and an ingress easement (on about a 5 feet strip of land) to allow legal parking for Cha Cha since the new development was taking away their access from Williamson St.
22.Applicant shall provide for review reciprocal easements and agreements including, but not limited to, access, parking and storm water management (drainage) that are necessary to accomplish the development as proposed in cooperation with the adjacent property to the east. The document(s) shall then be executed and recorded and recorded copies provided prior to building permit issuance. https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=347753&GUID=158A5F95-F0F7-4B32-90AE-D40A951DB6E7
Once the city approved the project, Louis Fortis and Chuck Chvala backed out of the agreement and tried to renegotiate use of Cha Cha’s lot for their new development in addition to free parking from the neighboring property (303 S. Paterson) also owned by the family that owns the Cha Cha building. Their latest demands are 2 free parking spots 24 hours a day, free parking in the 50 spots on the neighboring property for 14 hours a day, and that they are allowed to put their snow on the Cha Cha property in the winter. We are asking that the city allows Cha Cha’s current parking lot as it has been since the owners of the property purchased it in 1952, a gravel lot where 6 vehicles are allowed to park. It is an extremely bad precedent if neighboring properties and businesses are diminished as a result of new development.
(November 21st is the planning commission meeting where Chuck is going to ask the city to allow him extra capacity for his restaurant without any parking.)
Updates
Reached 250 supporters
November 4, 2016
November 4, 2016
The silence from the developers is heavy but it does not mean we are stopping. I am spending my afternoons studying property ordinances to prepare for the upcoming hearings. This fight is taking much longer than I expected but the history of this building is worth the exhaustion.
Reached 100 supporters
November 4, 2016
60 Comments
Cha cha and the building had parking for decades. A new development comes in, restricts parking for Cha Cha unless the development is given free parking in Cha Cha's and the neighboring lot. How is Cha Cha or the owner of the building doing anything wrong? Lou and Chuck are clearly trying to extort the situation. I hope the paper shines a light on these guys. Go Cha Cha!
This is a historical district and the building should be maintained in spite of the completely inappropriate development of The new building.
Holding small business owners hostage for leverage on an un-built property is unacceptable. These developers have a long history of shady deals and should not be able to bully people to get what they want.
Either we support local businesses or we don't. Either we maintain historic buildings or we don't. To use one to extort the exploitation is, quite frankly, despicable.
Please allow this wonderful landmark to keep access to the limited parking and maintenance spots available to it.
Gentrification needs to be tempered by the right of existing businesses to continue existing. Anything else is tyranny.
This is Louis Fortis. I would like to present the real story. Let me start off by saying that Cha Chas is a great neighborhood business.When we opened our apartment building on the corner of Willy Street and Paterson, at Cha Chas request, we gladly distributed Cha Chas marketing bags to all of our new tenants and we encourage to patronize them. However Kris Warren,their landlord through his family's business, is a different story. The concern is access to the parking lot behind Cha Chas which needs an access agreement through our property. Kris Warren is currently getting access by violating city rules on parking and accessing the parking with a cut-through from another one of his family's property holdings. For over a year, prior to construction of our project, we tried to work with Kris Warren. We tried to act as a good neighbor by advancing a solution that would enable his tenant, Cha Chas, access to the parking behind their building through our property in return for use of Warren property parking in the evenings, when it was not being used by Warren tenants, for the restaurant that would eventually be opening in the retail space of our building. This simple neighborly solution would benefit two neighborhood businesses as well as the entire neighborhood by reducing or eliminating any parking impact on neighborhood streets. Cha Chas employees and their customers would have easy, legal access to their parking lot through our property, while restaurant employees and customers would be able to access the Warren commercial property in the evening. Kris Warren continued to oppose this proposal and on the final afternoon of the last day for submission of our project to the city he demanded that we pay his family's business $5,000 and also provide access to his business to have the right to cross our property at no charge for their parking while at the same time refusing to allow the restaurant future access to parking in the Warren commercial lot a
Less gentrification, more Cha-Cha!
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Cha cha and the building had parking for decades. A new development comes in, restricts parking for Cha Cha unless the development is given free parking in Cha Cha's and the neighboring lot. How is Cha Cha or the owner of the building doing anything wrong? Lou and Chuck are clearly trying to extort the situation. I hope the paper shines a light on these guys. Go Cha Cha!