Zoning request tabled (4/9/04)

A request for local approval of a communications tower that has already been erected has been delayed for at least a week.

Members of the Jay County Planning Commission were scheduled to hear a re-zoning request Thursday evening for property where the tower is located at 5183 North 450 East, about four miles southeast of Bryant. The tower was completed in early February.

Property owner Ralph Godwin, a resident of Celina, Ohio, was not in attendance at Thursday’s meeting as required under Jay County’s zoning ordinance, so members of the planning commission continued the meeting with no action taken and said they would resume the meeting Thursday, April 15, at 7 p.m.

Jay/Portland Building and Planning Department director Bill Milligan said this morning that he had talked to Godwin this morning by telephone. Milligan said that Godwin was not pleased that the matter was tabled and that Godwin did not believe he was required to attend Thursday’s meeting.

Members of the planning commission were not pleased to learn that the request for local zoning approval was being heard after the tower was constructed.

Godwin obtained the necessary permits and paperwork from both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Godwin’s request is to re-zone a total of four acres around the tower as commercial, from its present agricultural status. He has also filed a petition with the county board of zoning appeals for a variance in the county’s 100-foot height restriction.

The tower is approximately 250 feet high.

That BZA meeting, which was scheduled for April 15, will be rescheduled.[[In-content Ad]]