COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The Coldwater Board of Zoning Appeals backed City Planner Dean Walrack’s interpretations on Wednesday to two out of three zoning ordinance violations concerning the property at 86 Preston Street.
Petitioner Roger Dubois requested the interpretations after he was cited on March 11 for improper parking of a motor vehicle on residential property, the parking of semi-tractor trailers within a residential neighborhood and storing industrial materials and equipment within a property zoned A-1 One-Family Residential District.
Walrack was backed by the Z.B.A. on a motorized industrial crane that had no license plate which he felt was parked in violation of the city’s Zoning Ordinance. The ordinance requires vehicles on residential zoned property to be parked on an improved surface consisting of a parking strip, parking bay, driveway, and garage.
The board also backed Walrack on his interpretation of the storing of industrial materials and equipment.
But the board has issues with Walrack’s interpretation of two 40 foot transportation containers being removed from their semi tractor-trailer chassis and put on unimproved ground. Board member Joe Hayes said they had no evidence that the containers were ever attached to a chassis. It was also felt during the discussion the language of the ordinance had to be cleaned up.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, a half dozen nearby property owners wrote e-mails to Walrack which took Dubois to task with some saying the property had become an eyesore.
Dubois said the two containers will be used to make a house and he needed the crane to lift the building material up on their piers. He felt a variance should be granted because, “If you build a house you will order your wood, steel, and other building material and drop at the building site. This is exactly what I did. I dropped off two sections of the new house I plan to build on the lot. I wanted to move them around to see where the best place to build on the lot.”
Walrack said in his report to the Z.B.A. there has been no building permit applied for nor issued for this property and “with the absence of such, Staff has interpreted the presence of the crane and containers as industrial storage taking place on an otherwise vacant residentially zoned property.”
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