May 20, 2009 10:37 pm US/Central
Neighbors Upset Over Giannoulias Brother's House
State Treasurer's Brother's New Digs Causing Structural Damage To Neighboring Buildings
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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George Giannoulias is building a new house that is causing structural damage to neighboring buildings.
CBS
Imagine this: your neighbor is building a new home, but you end up having to move out of yours for six months. That's because your home now needs $1 million worth of repairs because of their project. As CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, what's more, the construction is being done by one of Chicago's well-known family names.
"It's huge structural damage, and I'm not sure that it can actually be fully corrected," Gordon Siegel said.
His trouble began after George Giannoulias, brother of State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, started building a new house right next door to the Siegels.
Now there are large cracks inside the garage and inside the home of Gordon and Clari Siegel. The floors slope causing more problems.
"The drawers don't open and close," Clari Siegel said. "We can't open the doors, and this does not open anymore either. Nothing works anymore in our house."
The Siegels showed George Giannoulias some of the damage done to their house.
They recall what he said.
"He has every right to build a new home, and it is not his responsibility to be responsible for damage done to our house as a result of that," Gordon said.
But that's apparently not true. A city ordinance says the property owner and contractor must protect any home that's within five feet of excavation work; clearly the case here.
Giannoulias' architect signed this excavation certification. It asks if "this project requires any reinforcement or bracing of the adjacent property?" Yes, the architect said.
Neighbors say Giannoulias did take care to demolish the old building almost by hand, and shored up his foundation with metal plates.
But construction experts have told the Siegels that Giannoulias "should have underpinned the house, our house, before they did anything else to protect it," Clari said. "The city should not have allowed what happened."
The city also approved building plans that created serious code violations for Giannoulias' other neighbor Judy Edlund.
The west wall of the new house is now right up against Edlund's building, blocking windows and obstructing bathroom vents on all five floors.
"So now we have to figure out how to rectify the situation," Edlund said.
And the Siegels have to move out of their house for six months so it can be stabilized and repaired. The estimated cost is about $1 million.
"We've lived here 25 years and its killing me, I feel like they're killing my house," Clari said.
Insurance companies are expected to pay much of the cost for repairing the Siegel house.
George Giannoulias declined to comment.
A spokesman for Alexi Giannoulias says this has nothing to do with the treasurer's office.
Since CBS 2 inquired about the case, the building department sent inspectors to the scene and determined that not enough was done to protect the Siegel home. Citations against both George Giannoulias and his contractor are a possibility.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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