If Vincent Anzalone painted the metal thing in front of his house in bright colors, it might look like a piece of modern art.
But he’d still have to step around it or over it to get through his front door. If he wasn’t paying attention, he could easily trip over it.
There are gas regulators all along Anzalone’s block of West Barry in the Lake View neighborhood, but none quite like his. Most of them are in the shadows of a gangway or tucked neatly off to one side at the front. Anzalone’s is right in front of a door to his new house.
“I can tell you with 100% certainty that I would not approve that. … It’s just a crazy idea to put a gas line in front of my house,” said Anzalone, a 50-year-old Chicago real estate agent.
The regulator belongs to Peoples Gas. They’ll move it somewhere else, but it’s going to cost Anzalone about $8,000.
“I just don’t think I should have to pay $8,000 for something I never agreed to,” Anzalone said.
Anzalone bought the property in October 2020. His wife plans to open a fitness studio on the first floor, he said. The couple plans to live above the studio.
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Peoples Gas installed the regulator — it ensures the gas is under the correct pressure before it enters a building — a few months later. At the time, there was only a sheet of plywood over the space, not the door that’s there now.
That, says the gas company, is the crux of the issue.
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“As the photo we are providing shows, the door was not in that location when our equipment was installed in March of 2021. The building renovation later added the door behind the equipment. When renovating, building owners and their contractors need to account for the location of utility equipment. If utility equipment needs to be moved due to a property owner’s construction, Illinois law requires the owner be responsible for the costs. We are working with the property owner,” Peoples Gas said in a statement.
Anzalone recently posted a comment and a photograph of the regulator on his Facebook page, although he says it was unintentionally misleading because it doesn’t mention the door was installed after the utility’s equipment.
But why is Anzalone only complaining about the regulator now, some two years after it was installed?
“Frankly, I didn’t say anything right away because my contractor said he would manage it,” Anzalone said. And, Anzalone added, he hadn’t received the bill then.
The utility also sent the Chicago Sun-Times a copy of a document that appears to show either Anzalone or one of his representatives approved the regulator’s placement. In the space for a signature, it reads: “Not avail., verbal OK.”
But Anzalone said no one ever called him to discuss the location, and neither he nor anyone else ever approved it.
A spokesman for the Citizens Utility Board, an Illinois consumer affairs watchdog, took a look at the Peoples Gas paperwork for the Sun-Times.
“It doesn’t seem like Peoples Gas communicated clearly with the customer,” CUB spokesman Jim Chilsen said. “In a situation like this, it’s the gas utility’s responsibility to be crystal clear in its communication — especially when Peoples Gas is installing an expensive piece of equipment that could be so disruptive to the property.”
Chilsen says Peoples Gas should “do the right thing” and move the regulator without charging Anzalone.
That’s what Anzalone wants, too.
“My plan is to hopefully change their mind,” he said.
In the meantime, major work inside is on hold. Anzalone said he can’t put in hardwood floors until he has heat in his house — a sudden change in temperature could cause warping during installation. And he doesn’t want to connect the gas to a regulator that has to be moved.
“There’s no good aesthetic look having a huge gas line directly in front of your house,” he said.
