BZA OK's southside Portland business (07/11/07)

A local man's business now has room to grow.

A city board voted Tuesday to allow Bob Brown, owner of Riverside Auto Sales, Portland, to expand his business to another location.

Brown asked members of the Portland Board of Zoning Appeals for a special exception in an area zoned neighborhood business.

Board members Vicki Tague, Ken Walters, Susan Schutz and Larry Petro approved the request with some stipulations proposed by Brown. Board member Ron May did not attend the meeting. Brown will sell scooters, all-terrain vehicles and high-end imported used automobiles on a lot located at 802 S. Meridian St. He already sells vehicles on a lot located at the corner of Ship and Water streets.

The stipulations are that Brown gets his dealer's license for that location, keeps the lot free of trash and junk, paves the lot within one year and does not sell motor homes, boats or trailers. Brown also will have a limit of having five cars for sale on the lot at one time.

Before board members approved the special exception they debated whether Brown should pave the entire lot or just where customers would park.

Brown said part of the customer parking area is paved, but the area where the vehicles that are for sale will set is stone. He has a one-year lease for the lot and building.

Tague said the city's zoning ordinance requires parking areas to be paved within one year. She and other board members were unsure whether the ordinance would require the display area for the vehicles to be paved.

Bill Milligan, Jay/Portland Building and Planning administrator, and city attorney Bill Hinkle reviewed the zoning ordinance during the meeting. Hinkle said the ordinance states that any area used for the temporary parking of a vehicle must be paved. This would include the area where the vehicles that are for sale would be parked.

There currently is a building on the lot. Brown said the building will house the business office, a computer repair shop and a bail bond business. Brown said another man will repair computers in the building, and his wife will train to become a bondsman. The most recent business at that location was an antiques shop, he said.

Milligan said after the meeting that Brown applied for the special exception in June. Milligan said he gave Brown permission to begin selling vehicles at that location before the exception request went to the board.

No one in the audience voiced opposition to the request, and the building and planning office has received no written or verbal complaints.[[In-content Ad]]