If you don’t succeed at first, try try ag
ain.
The well-worn advice eventually worked for a request to rezone a parcel in the 600 block of North Main Street, across Oak Street from the Michigan State Police post. Dave Hager and Rita Martin have asked over the past two months to have their property and four buildings rezoned by B-1 business to I-1 industrial.
The Wayland City Council at first voted it down 4-3 Monday night, but later in the evening agreed on a 4-3 vote to allow the change if it applied only to the current buyer, Denny Meyers of Tool & Die Inc. The rezoning is contingent on successful sale of the site by Hager and Martin to Meyers.
The request was recommended 4-1 for approval by the City Planning Commission at its meeting May 12.
Councilwoman Jennifer Antel raised the most vocal objections to the original request.
“Unless we know what’s going in there, I’m not in favor of it (rezoning),” she said. “We have no set businesses in there. It opens up a whole new ball of wax. I don’t think it (rezoning to industrial) meets the criteria of the area.”
Mayor Tim Bala said he disagreed and suggested the property owner would have to come to council for changes, “so we’d have some measure of control.”
City Manager Mike Selden said, “The property isn’t well suited for B-1. I don’t know that the buildings are compatible.”
“We got burned before,” Antel said, “and I’m trying the learn from our mistakes.”
She noted that a developer in the past asked the city for a rezoning and the site later permitted toxic chemicals to be used legally as a result.
But Selden said, “I don’t know if we have zoning that fits that property.”
In the first vote, Antel’s opposition was joined by Rick Mathis, Tim Rose and John Sloan, with Lisa Banas, Bala and Tracy Bivins voting in the affirmative.
Hager then told the council, “We’ve got existing buildings that don’t fit your zoning. We’ve got tall ceiling and overhead doors… We have a current buyer.”
Because council pressed him to learn what would go in at the site, Hager identified Meyers and the tool and tie operation. He said Meyers needs to know about the rezoning decision right away because otherwise he will put his business inside the Dorr Industrial Park.
But Hager said Meyers would prefer to move into existing buildings rather than build from scratch.
“It’s a startup company,” Hager explained. “He needs to know where he can go.”
He told council there would be some stamping in the operation, but not for production. Besides, the business would have to meet noise restriction rules.
Bivins then moved to allow the rezoning on the condition that it apply only to Meyers and his tool and die business. If the sale does not go through, the property will revert back to B-1 zoning. It passed 4-3, this time with Antel and Rose still opposing and Banas joining them.
PHOTO: The property and four buildings in the 600 block of North Main, which will be rezoned from business to light industrial if Dennis Meyers buys it for a tool and die operation.
