Whoops - Gemini: for-profit; Planned Parenthood: nonprofit

by Jill Stanek

Opponents hammered the following information over and over at last night's Aurora City Council meeting.

Disovered by a pro-life attorney yesterday was Aurora zoning ordinances specific to nonprofit medical buildings. The rub is that Planned Parenthood's created front company, Gemini Office Development, LLC, is a for-profit company, and PP is a nonprofit company.

Eric Scheidler told me the Aurora Zoning Administrator corroborated that as a nonprofit organization, PP requires a "special use permit" to occupy and operate in its building.

According to Aurora zoning ordinances, a special use permit requires public notice in a local paper and public hearings, and property owners nearby can raise objections to the use. If 20% object, a supermajority of the City Council (2/3) must approve the use. See zoning ordinances here.

Wrote Eric, "We now know the real reason PP came in under the for-profit Gemini scheme - to avoid any public hearings about their 'special use' of this land. Everything about this building is illegal. It ought to be torn down, and that's what we're asking for tonight."

Indeed they did. NBC5 quoted Eric last evening as stating, "We're out here today to ask the city of Aurora to to demolish their building that they were illegally operating. We discovered just this morning that Planned Parenthood failed to obtain a special use permit as required by law for a not-for-profit medical facility."

From the Chicago Tribune, late tonight:

Planned Parenthood did not get a special-use permit required by the City of Aurora for non-profit organizations before building its controversial new clinic, opponents said at a City Council meeting Tuesday night, adding it was the "silver bullet" that could keep the clinic from ever opening.

Peter Breen, an intellectual property lawyer who directs a network of crisis pregnancy centers in Lombard and Downers Grove, is credited with finding the zoning provision, which was confirmed by city officials.

"Every brick, every sheet of bulletproof glass is illegal," Breen said outside the meeting, punctuated with chants both for and against the clinic by some 500 demonstrators. He added that he intends to seek destruction of the 22,000-square-foot, $7.5 million clinic at New York Street and Oakhurst Drive....

Aurora zoning law requires a special-use permit for a non-profit medical clinic. To acquire such a permit, the applicant must schedule a public hearing, notify property owners within 250 feet of the proposed building and advertise the hearing in a local newspaper, [Aurora spokeswoman Carie Anne] Ergo said.

None of that happened in this case....

From the Aurora Beacon this morning:

On Tuesday, Aurora-based lawyer Vincent Tessitore, an anti-abortion activist, approached the city with his discovery - a section of the Aurora zoning code that seems to mandate a special-use permit for health facilities operated by not-for-profit entities....

Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is a not-for-profit corporation. However, the facility was approved through a subsidiary, Gemini Office Development, a limited liability corporation, and no special-use permit was applied for or granted....

City spokesman Carie Anne Ergo said that Tessitore's concerns had been forwarded to Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti, who is completing a review of two independent investigations into Planned Parenthood and Gemini Office Development's approval process.

That review is expected to be wrapped up Friday, and Ergo emphasized that this question would be part of the investigation.