Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Jerusalem Township officials voted at the latest trustee meeting on June 24 to reject allowing shipping container usage for longer than 30 days on residential property, although they did agree to allow them for accessory use on commercial land.
The decision, which was a 2-1 split decision, brought a conclusion, at least for now, to a debate that started with a citizen-initiated request from Heather Prokopow in November.
“I think it's a good middle ground,” Prokopow said following the decision. “I don't think anything they did tonight could have made everyone happy. Because even if they voted to just say yes, people were going to be upset. If they voted to say no, people were going to be upset. So, it's a good middle ground.”
The township’s three trustees – Alex Lytten, Beau Miller and Dave Bench – went through the long process that included four public hearings. The debate came to a head on June 24 as approximately 30 citizens filled the town hall building to make their voice heard.
“I do think that the trustees did a good job of leading the discussion and making sure that they heard everyone versus just one or two people,” Prokopow said. “I think the zoning board did their best and tried to come up with a solution. Again, it's not perfect, but nothing is going to be.”
The Ohio Revised Code currently doesn’t give township trustees the ability to regular zoning in relation to shipping containers on farm and agricultural land or parks. That leaves residential and commercial.
A percentage of the township’s residential area is believed to be on a flood plain, and Lucas County doesn’t want storage containers on flood plains because they float and aren’t stuck to the ground like a shed, for example.
They are popular, however, according to some township officials, and they aren’t sure there’s any commercial property on a flood plain.
Miller, who was essentially the swing vote, said he believes this was the first citizen-initiated zoning change request in the township’s history.
“It went through a process,” Miller said. “We had the meetings. We had the public's input. And the residents spoke very loudly on it, at least the residents that spoke to me. We knew that with three of us on the board, Dave Bench was a hard no on shipping containers, Alex was a hard yes, and I was pretty much the swing vote.
“I listened to the residents. I can't listen to the loudest. I have to listen to the most. And that's what I did. I listened to the most residents that reached out to me. This is our community. I born and raised here, raised my family here. My children have families here now, in the same community. And I'm looking at the long-term of this township and (trying to) keep it nice and as wholesome as we can.”
Residents against the residential use of shipping containers as storage pointed to how they aren’t taken care of and become blight.
“I'm very happy with the result,” Jerusalem Township resident Philip Jakubowski said. “Of course, I was completely against containers to begin with because we're trying to make a better community out here. It's a very unknown community, and the residents I think are starting to sway more towards a better look and a better feel.
“Between the birders and all of the marinas we have here, the fishermen and stuff, I think we could make this a great place for everybody to come. The containers are just something that we hear from people just driving through the community saying, ‘Oh God, look at that, it's just terrible.’”
Adding to the current issue is that Jerusalem Township is also looking to replace their zoning inspector. Former inspector Linda Rossler is gone, as is her replacement, Wendy Jaquillard. The interim inspector, Rob Gearhart, is typically the assistant – among other duties.
At the council meeting, the trustees voted to recommend hiring Jacob Barnes as the new zoning inspector should he officially accept.
The current ban dates back to 2017 when township trustees voted to not allow shipping containers for more than 30 days.
“(Back then), they were considered blight, and that's why the regulations were changed,” Jakubowski said. “Basically (they) called them blight and said they wouldn't be here anymore. Most of us still feel they’re blight, and we don't want to see them around. We have enough blight here, and I hope with the new zoning inspector we have he gets rid of a lot of the blight that we have here. We’re just trying to clean up the community and make it look nice.”
Lytten, who attempted to add some amendments to the zoning change proposal before it was voted on during the council meeting, was the lone vote for adding residential usage.
“Do I think some of the provisions are a little stringent and strict?,” Prokopow said. “Yeah, a bit. Four inches of concrete (foundation) - not everyone is going to afford concrete in an entire base. I also think that's going to be hard to check down the road, especially depending on how the permits go.
“But overall, it's a pretty reasonable solution that kind of finds a middle ground. And the other thing is, if someone is in a residential area and really wants a shipping container, they just have to go through the application for a variance. And then they can make sure that they go through the board of zoning appeals, and they can get their variance granted and still have their shipping container.
“It's one of those things that doesn't solve everything, but there are avenues to help people that still are in residential areas and want that.”
Miller, meanwhile, believes the topic could be revisited down the road once the new 40-hours-per-month zoning inspector is hired, which may help concerns of some residents in terms of enforcement and restrictions.
“We don't have a real good way to police this right now without having a full-time zoning inspector. Rob has stepped in and is doing a great job for us, but it's not what he wants to do. So maybe by hiring Jacob Barnes, he may have a suggestion.
“If I could have been guaranteed an enforcement that the residents were to abide by this and there was no getting around it, I may have had a little bit of a different opinion. But (I decided based on) knowing that we've already got them here, they’re not being policed the way they should be, and we have issues. Everything is a fight in the township. I do think it will come back up. I don’t think it’s a dead issue.”
Miller had one final message.
“The residents are the ones that run the township,” he said. “They put us in here to pay bills and make some decisions for them, but ultimately it's the residents' township. Everything here, everything that we do, I do it based on what's the best for the township.”
