FR council approves rezoning request

FORT RECOVERY — An event center on Elm Street is getting rezoned.

Fort Recovery Village Council denied a recommendation Monday from Fort Recovery Planning Commission, instead agreeing to rezone the property at 105 S. Elm St. to commercial.

Adjacent property owners Brandon and Amanda Wyerick have been renovating the former Christ Chapel church into an event center called Elm and Ivy. Plans are to utilize the downstairs as an Airbnb and the upstairs as a venue.

Fort Recovery Planning Commission recommended the village deny a zoning map amendment petition from the Wyericks to change the property from a residential to a commercial. It suggested a zoning text amendment to allow for event centers on a conditional use within the residential district with the requirement the property must abut a commercial district. (The Elm Street property abuts both commercial and residential districts.)

Fort Recovery village administrator Randy Diller shared a list of permitted building uses in the commercial district, which included various potential public, recreational, business, retail, service and entertainment uses.

Mayor Dave Kaup, who also sits on Fort Recovery Planning Commission, explained the board had no issue with the Wyericks’ plans for the building but worried about future development on the lot. Neal Spencer, a planning commission member who also lives across from the property, noted if the Wyericks were to sell the property in the future the new owner could turn it into any of the permitted uses in the commercial district zoning rules.

“That’s what we were thinking in the planning commission by going to conditional use,” he said. “Let them do what they’re planning to do, but if it would get sold, the next owner has to come back and say, ‘this is what we want to do.’”

Amanda Wyerick shared her appreciation for the community’s support and to planning commission for considering the amendment and offering a conditional use for the property. However, she and Brandon Wyerick disagreed that property should stay zoned as residential and asked council to rezone it as commercial.

“Here’s the reason — history and location,” Amanda Wyerick said. “It hasn’t been a single-family residence in all of its history, over 120 years.”

Edna Heitkamp — she and her husband, Jack Heitkamp, own the empty lot directly south of the former church and a house southwest of the lot — shared concerns about whether the property has enough space for parking and potential liabilities such as children playing outside.

Kaup said the planning commission discussed the parking issue, pointing to the parking lot located on the east side of the property.

Brandon Wyerick added that if the property is rezoned as commercial, the owners must set up buffers — fences, shrubbery or other barriers — along property lines abutting residential properties. 

Edna Heitkamp requested property owners complete a professional survey to make note of property lines, with officials pointing out a survey will need to be done in order to set up screening.

Council members Al Post, Cliff Wendel, Scott Pearson, Greg Schmitz, Luke Knapke and Fiely then denied planning commission’s recommendation and instead decided to rezone the property to a commercial district.

Also following the public hearing Monday, village council agreed to a recommendation from the planning commission to prohibit first-floor residential use in central commercial district buildings.

During council’s regular meeting, council members approved an ordinance consenting to and setting forth services for a proposal to annex approximately 7.417 acres in Gibson Township.

Discussion about the annexation has been ongoing for months. Properties included in the annexation are Miracle Lanes, Mercer Health Medical Group, a portion of Wendel Poultry’s property and a lot owned by Fred Westgerdes. The decision will return to Mercer County Commissioners in about a month.

In other business on Monday, council members:

•Agreed to amend the wage ordinance to hire new police officer Don Bird. The Fort Recovery resident has about 13 years of experience, previously working for Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and St. Henry Police Department.

•Transferred $12,192.80 from the general fund to the village share project fund.

•OK’d a request to close Wayne Street from Butler to Boundary streets from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 26 for Psi Iota Xi sorority’s Brick Street Market event.

•Authorized using internet auctions to sell unneeded personal equipment.

•Heard Ohio Department of Transportation has scheduled a scoping meeting on Feb. 13 for projects involved in the Safe Routes to School grant in Fort Recovery.

•Authorized fiscal officer Roberta Staugler to execute an Ohio Public Employees Retirement System conversion plan. (The resolution is approved annually.)