This information came to me late this afternoon, and pro-lifers hammered on it over and over at the Aurora City Council meeting tonight, which finished about 11p.
The deal is 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 this 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.”
UPDATE, 9/26, 1:05a: 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….

Read entire Trib story below.
UPDATE, 9/26, 7:18a: 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.

Read entire Beacon story below.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-auroraclinic_a-mattersep26,1,6527545.story
Chicago Tribune
Foes: Clinic lacking permit
Agency says it didn’t require special-use approval by Aurora
By Rhianna Wisniewski
Special to the Tribune
11:34 PM CDT, September 25, 2007
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.
The clinic, though completed, has been prevented from opening by Aurora officials who have asked the Kane County state’s attorney’s office to probe whether the permitting process was proper. That review is expected to be completed by Monday and the results will be released to the public next week, Aurora spokeswoman Carie Anne Ergo said.
Planned Parenthood has acknowledged applying for permits for the clinic under the name of Gemini Office Development LLC, a for-profit subsidiary. It insists it did nothing wrong.
Sara Knaub, a spokeswoman for the agency, declined to answer questions at the meeting but issued a statement: “Officials from Gemini Development discussed this [special-permit issue] with the city. It was determined that this project did not require a special-use permit,” she said.
“This project was part of a planning and development district whose underlying use was already zoned for medical use. If Gemini needed a special-use permit, the city would never have issued a construction permit without it,” the statement said.
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, Ergo said.
None of that happened in this case.
Vince Tessitore, an Aurora-based attorney who is a critic of the clinic, sent a memo to council members and the state’s attorney Tuesday afternoon outlining the special-use permit argument.
“I am pro-life. If I had a legal basis to overturn Roe v. Wade right now, I would do it,” he said of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. “I don’t do anything unless I have a legal basis.”
More than 180 people signed up to speak about the clinic at the meeting.
The council limited debate to 3 hours.
Bonnie Grabenhofer, president of Illinois NOW, defended the low-visibility approach taken by Planned Parenthood.
“If they had waved a flag and announced themselves, surely we would have seen harassment and intimidation of construction workers at the clinic, at their homes and at their businesses and perhaps a boycott similar to that in Austin, Texas,” she said.
Ald. Rick Lawrence, a critic of the clinic, said earlier Tuesday that either Planned Parenthood committed fraud, or the city’s legal and planning departments are incompetent if they didn’t inform Gemini of the permit requirement. In either case, he said, a majority of the City Council has to approve a permit.
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
_______________
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1121284983
Aurora BeaconLawyer challenges clinic with zoning code
September 26, 2007
By ANDRE SALLES Staff Writer
AURORA — Did Planned Parenthood need to apply for a special-use permit before starting up its new clinic?
That’s what one attorney is asking the city. 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.
Special-use permits require several things, according to Ed Sieben, Aurora’s director of land use and zoning. Most notably, they require a public hearing at the plan commission level, for which notification must be sent to all property owners within 250 feet of the facility in question. The special-use permit also needs City Council approval to be granted.
RELATED STORIES• Protesters flock to council meeting again
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.
The code also states that if, during the course of the public hearing, 20 percent or more of the surrounding property owners object to the new health facility, then it takes a super-majority vote of the City Council to grant a special-use permit. That means eight of the 12 council members would need to vote yes.
Tessitore, who said he was tipped off to this part of the code by Lombard-based lawyer Peter Breen, spoke with Sieben Tuesday.
“He brought up that section of the zoning code,” Sieben said, “and I said it was of interest, and we would review it with the law department.”
Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, told The Beacon News Tuesday night that he hadn’t seen that ordinance requiring a special-use permit and city public hearing.
“We have no idea what he’s talking about,” Trombley said.
But Alderman Rick Lawrence, 4th Ward, is convinced that this discovery could prove a turning point in the legal battles over the new facility. He said it could explain one reason why Planned Parenthood came through the city’s process under Gemini Office Development — disclosing the parent company name might have meant a public hearing early in the process.
City officials cautioned that this is one section of the zoning code, and how it applies to this situation is still unclear.
However, 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.
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