COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Coldwater Interim City Manager Keith Baker said in an e-mail Monday afternoon that it will be recommended to the City Council Monday night to cancel the scheduled public hearing concerning the proposed conditional rezoning at 95 South Fremont.
A public hearing and action on an ordinance to rezone over nine acres of land from A-1 One Family Residential to A-3 Multi Family Residential was on the agenda for the Monday City Council meeting.
Plans by the NRP Group of Ohio to building a housing development on that site has been the source of a big controversy over the last three months in Coldwater.
In a letter to Interim Planning Director Dean Walrack that arrived at City Hall last Friday but was dated on March 17, 2017, the NRP Group requested that the public hearing be tabled until further notice. They requested the tabling “in light of additional information we have received and more due diligence we would like to pursue.”
Baker also said in his e-mail that the NRP Group’s Mary Hada has confirmed that she will not be present for Monday night’s meeting.
Baker points out this does not prevent a petition from coming back before the City Council in the future but at this time the petition is not moving forward. He went on to say, “if and when a revised petition were to be submitted, the City Council or Planning Commission (depending on the nature of the change or scope of the project) would schedule a public hearing with the appropriate required public notification.”
This latest development also puts a proposed sale of the land from Coldwater Community Schools to the NRP Group in limbo. The land still belongs to the school district. The NRP has offered to buy the land for $425,000.
The Coldwater School Board was scheduled to take action Monday night on a purchase agreement with NRP.
