Julie Cassetty Tuesday night scored a huge victory in her drive to operate a home-based pallet liquidation business on Ranchero Drive in Dorr Township.
Her business, very similar to garage sales, was shut down last October by the township’s ordinance enforcement officer, who insisted she was operating a home business outside the scope of yard sales or garage sales. Professional Code Inspections made the move after it received a complaint about traffic, parking and safety concerns along Ranchero Drive.
But Tuesday evening Cassetty earned unanimous approval from the Dorr Township Planning Commission for her special use permit request.
Almost three dozen people attended the meeting, with most speaking out in favor of Cassetty’s operation.
The home business will have to meet several regulations, most notably permission to sell pallet goods 12 times between May and October from dawn to dusk. She may have an additional sale in December during the Christmas holiday.
Jason Derry of PCI noted that Dorr Township hasn’t done well in the past determining just what regulations should be for garage sale-style sales events. Therefore, he said it’s a good idea to tread lightly on establishing rules.
Many of Cassety’s neighbors testified that it’s not true that children were running amok on Ranchero Drive during pallet sales and they acknowledged parking on the side of the road, but said garage and yard sales present the same issues with nothing done about them.
There were hints by detractors that trash during and after the sales could be an issue, but she and her neighbors countered that Cassetty does a good job cleaning up.
Township Board Trustee Pat Champion cautioned that more than just one woman had complained about traffic and safety concerns, noting that sometimes there were motor vehicles parked on both sides of a narrow street.
One woman in the audience characterized Cassetty as a good businesswoman… “I’ve never seen garbage in her yard nor more than two cars on her property.”
Cassetty said about 90 percent of her customers see items for sale that she posts on her web site and then make arrangements to come to her house to pay and pick up the merchandise.
“I do this because I love what I do and I want to serve the community,” she said.”
Another defense was presented by a local man who said he and his wife sell produce on the side of the road in warmer weather. If the pallet business was shut down he would worry about the same fate for his roadside produce sales.
Cassetty said she would like to do her pallet sales twice a month on Fridays and Saturdays only.
Derry, who shut down the pallet sales last fall, told the Planning Commission, “We’ve heard that garage sales are dangerous, so why are we regulating this?… Let’s put limits on it just like garage sales.”
He surveyed regulations in this area and acknowledged he liked what Wayland Township does, three days in a row twice a month.
So that led to the stipulations the Planning Commission adopted.
