Lake Township rezoning request process extended

Due to a three-vote majority not occurring in the township’s zoning hearing on April 23, Lake Township administrator Mark Hummer said the public hearing on the potential rezoning of 508 Union St. will have to be redone.

Thus, the township will host a second public hearing on the matter June 10 at 6:30 p.m.

Hummer said the zoning commission’s 2-1 vote on April 23 did not meet zoning resolution standards. There were only four members present. Zachary Jenkins and Rick Rowland each voted to deny the request, while Matthew Schober was in favor. Steven Welling abstained due to a personal conflict, and Ann Mentor was not present.

Jenkins made a statement at the beginning of the meeting that they were looking for applications for new members.

Hummer hopes to have more than four members, or three eligible voters, at the next hearing.

 “The goal is to have all members and alternates at the meeting to avoid such an issue as we currently face,” Hummer said. “If we appoint any new members, I will certainly hope they listen to both parties and come to their own conclusions.”

As far as adding new zoning commission members before the next hearing and the potential preconceived notions they may have on the topic, Hummer said he doesn’t wish to speculate on that.

 “My goal is to convene a meeting of our zoning commission as required by our zoning resolutions and let the process be adequately applied,” he said.

Once the zoning commission makes its choice, the final decision will rest upon the township’s trustees during a later meeting.

April meeting packed, contentious at times

On April 23, approximately 30-40 people filled the Lake Township administration building for the zoning commission hearing.

Zoning inspector Linda Rossler, who has since left her position, opened the meeting with five concerns that the Wood County Planning Commission reported with the property after its April 8 hearing, which had resulted in a unanimous denial of the rezoning request.

The first concern was that it’s on the floodway, specifically the regulatory floodway that runs with the stream that traverses the middle of the property.

 “Per FEMA and Wood County floodplain regulations, no development can occur in the floodway unless a full hydraulic and hydrological study is done, stating that the proposed activity won't raise the base flood elevation of the stream,” she said. “This would include building a bridge across the stream or rebuilding the existing one. The stream, while small, is a major drainage feature of the area. Development and obstruction of it would result in more flooding and drainage problems in both Lake Township and the village of Walbridge.”

Next was the fact there are wetlands located on the property in addition to the floodplain.

 “These are regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers, and they would need to be involved in any development of the parcel,” Rossler said. “As with the floodplain, any action occurring in the wetlands would likely result in flooding and drainage issues.”

The third one was that the makeup of the area around the property is a residential area.

 “There are no other industrial or commercial uses in the immediate area,” she said. “Industrial use would bring in more noise and other conditions that are at odds with the residential nature of the area. It could also be construed as spot zoning. In that there are no other commercial or industrial zoned lands near it.”

The fourth issue was the heavy truck traffic that industrial use may generate considering the primary road is residential and may not be able to handle heavier traffic.

The fifth issue was access to the property, which is only a 170-foot strip located between two existing residences on Union Street.

 “Heavy traffic would be detrimental to the residential character that currently exists on these two parcels,” Rossler said.

Following Rossler’s statement on behalf of the county, zoning chairman Jenkins said the village of Walbridge also sent a letter opposing the rezoning request.

Kepler’s statement

Thomas Kepler, who said he originally bought the property with the intention of building a family home on it, decided to sell or lease the property because the last 18 months have been tough financially for his trucking company. While he didn’t provide that detail at the April 8 county hearing, he said the trucking industry has been in a recession. He would like to cut down on his debt, and he’d like to get it sold and have a say in it because of an SBA loan he’s currently paying.

“If things get bad and I default on that loan, it goes to public auction, and then I have absolutely no control what happens at that point, so this is, I guess, the closest thing I can come up with to a controlled landing for the property, and it still remains in local control,” he said.

In another detail that wasn’t provided at the county hearing, Kepler said he was initially approached by Zach Hillabrand, who intends to purchase the property for his company, Hillabrand and Sons Construction.

While there may have been conversations behind closed doors, neither Kepler nor Hillabrand made their potential business relationship public until Kepler confirmed it with a comment on a Facebook post from the village of Walbridge on April 22. Earlier that afternoon, after learning who the mystery buyer of the property was through a source, The Press asked Hummer if Hillabrand was indeed the one who turned in the application for Kepler.

At the April 23 meeting, Hillabrand said he initially contacted Lake Township, and officials there recommended an M2, or heavy industrial, designation.

 “I don't know if M2 would be appropriate for the zoning use because there's a similar parcel on the opposite side of the highway that Miller Construction owns, and they essentially did the same thing (that we’re trying to do), and it's still zoned R2,” Kepler said. “I’m not a zoning expert, but I'm guessing they had a similar situation come up before, and they found a resolution for it that took care of Miller Construction and the community.”

That property in question, however, doesn’t sit on a floodplain with the other issues Rossler outlined at the beginning of the meeting. It is located on the other side of the I-280 corridor.

Residents speak

Every resident that spoke at the meeting was against the rezoning.

Kelly Yetter, who lives next door to the property in question, spoke first.

 “We've enjoyed it because it's nice and quiet,” she said. “Obviously, there's nobody living on it. I want to apologize to Mr. Kepler because it is a great property, but clearly not a good investment for you. And I understand you want to unload it. I totally do. But my house and everybody between me and 280, this would literally be in our backyards --- the smell, the sights, the sounds, the whole thing. I find it interesting that he leapfrogged right over light industrial and requested heavy industrial. That's even more alarming. I would not have been happy with light industrial either. It's a residential area, it's a neighborhood. I know a few people in it.

 “One of the reasons I bought my house in Walbridge here was because it was peaceful, it's quiet, it's safe, and I like all of those things. I'm a big fan of them. There's no way in hell, frankly, that our property values would go up with this if it were approved. They would not. They would go down. No one would want to buy in and live next to this or behind it or in front of it or whatever. I'm very, very against the whole idea … perhaps we could help Mr. Kepler find some other possible venues for usage apart from something that's heavily industrial.”

Marilyn Baker of East Perry Street, right down the road from the Walbridge Fire Department, which is next to the property in question, said she’s lived there a long time and likes the peaceful nature of the neighborhood.

 “I've lived there a long time, and it's a quiet, peaceful neighborhood, lovely neighbors, and we all enjoy our community,” she said. “We'd like it to stay the same. Also, I have served for three terms as Wood County Commissioner. And during that time, I was a member of the Wood County Planning Commission. I can tell you that when the planning commission makes a recommendation, it is very well researched. And in this situation, they have come to the conclusion that it should stay residential. So tonight I'm here to ask trustees to please follow the recommendation of the Wood County Planning Commission.”

Hank Buzza spoke about the heavy nature of the trucks that would be coming down the road and the access road to the property not being ideal.

 “I'm sorry about his luck. He's in debt,” Buzza said. “I could see why he wants to get out of debt. But make it some other way, because there's a lot of stuff to be done before he can do anything. They (have to) go through the Army, clean the ditch, build a bridge, the whole 90,000 pounds or better on each truck … you get 10 of those a day, what's going to happen to the road? It's going to be a mud hole.”

Dudley Yetter also spoke, discussing how the bridge on the property has been under water many times, and that’s without it being used as a dump site.

“Three times this month, the bridge has been underwater,” he said. “Last week, it was underwater. A question would be is there going to be a concrete crusher back there? I mean, do you just fill this place up with concrete and then how do you get out of there? Concrete crushers are loud, and the lime dust from the concrete … we've got outside air conditioners, we've got cars.

 “I guess I would want to ask you guys, what's the benefit to Lake Township? Is there a benefit to you guys? Is it tax money? Is it money? There’s no guaranteed benefit to the residents, and that would be my big issue with the whole thing.”

Hillabrand responds

Greg Hillabrand was in person for the meeting, and the first thing he said was that he’s probably going to take more than the allotted maximum of three minutes, but said he can address the issues quickly after being reminded of the limit.

 “Ninety thousand pounds is a false claim,” Hillabrand said. “That's an illegal weight on the road. (That it’s) 8,000 tons to build a driveway … (that’s a) baseless claim. (Buzza is) obviously not in construction. I am. Let's start this from the beginning. Opening process. We identified this property. We reached out to Lake Township directly. Lake Township is who told us to request the zoning as is at M2. Do I think it needs to be M2? No.

 “You guys have several properties within the vicinity of this property doing the exact same thing that is not zoned M2. So, we can have that conversation if you would like, and I'm willing to pursue that conversation as well.

 “Secondly, there are claims that ‘We're just kept out of the loop.’ We directly reached out to (Walbridge) mayor (Ed Kolanko) and tried to talk about this on April 8. He said he was going to get back to us, (but he) never set up a time. We don't do anything discreetly. Everything we do will be to your face and it will be direct. This property will be used as a dump site, as Mr. Kepler specified.

Someone in the crowd then tried to interrupt Hillabrand.

 “Did I interrupt you when you were talking? Really, are we serious here? This property … I hear spot zoning. We use those terms. There is a junkyard,” he said. “I'm going to give you guys some stats about this property. There's an airport 1.1 miles away. It averages 248 flights a day. Those are louder than dump trucks. That is factual. This is not opinion. I'm giving you facts. There is an interstate 0.2 miles away from this property (and) 25,000 to 35,000 vehicles pass per day that are louder than dump trucks. There is rail traffic. This town is an industrial town. It was built on railroads late 1800s, early 1900s. That's why the 280 corridor is there. (There’s) 60 to 100 trains per day. I grew up in this town. I lived here my entire life. I know this town better than most people in this room. Those trains have a decibel point of 140, which is almost double what a dump truck is. I don't see anybody in here saying that we need to take the trains off the tracks.

 “This property... is a good property. It is unique. You cannot see this property from the road. We approached the township and told them that we were only planning on using the south side of this property. We have talked to the county. And to fill everybody in on how the planning commission works … the planning commission does not dictate Lake Township. Lake Township is dictated by the people of Lake Township, the trustees — they do not care if they approve or disapprove. And I will give you factual (information), because they approved my building on Woodville Road. They changed their mind. They disapproved it. And then this township approved it. That is all speculation, not facts.

 “It is consistent. I just named you the things that are going on in that property. You guys have several properties and several businesses that are doing the same thing within one to two miles. Lake Township's own building is 1.1 miles away and they have similar operations going on. This is all factual information.

 “We have been transparent the entire time, and we will be transparent. We are members of this community. The road can handle the weight. There is a fire station right next to several houses that gets 1,600 calls a year. The most recent data you guys have is from 2021. From 2014 to 2021, your calls went up significantly, averaging more than four to five a day.

 “I'm going to just leave it at this. We have been open. I have spoken to half of the residents. The Horton family lives directly in front of that (property), and they have nothing and no issues with us doing what we're doing. We have spoken to everyone. I want that to be known that this has not been a secret. Lake Township has been involved. Walbridge has been informed of it. The homeowners that have been willing to reach out to us and respond back have been notified of our plans, and we have never had one bad intention. And you talk about Walbridge's service.”

At that point, Jenkins cut Hillabrand off.

“I appreciate it, Zach, but I'm going to keep going,” Hillabrand responded.

Jenkins said there will be questions later from the zoning board, and Hillabrand ended his speech.

Kolanko previously said he wasn’t notified of the potential rezoning until two days before the county’s hearing, which would have been April 6, and that came via a resident notifying him. Hillabrand said he reached out to the mayor first on April 8, which was the day of the county’s hearing on the matter. The rezoning application was originally signed by Kepler on Feb. 23, however, and the township stamped it approved on Feb. 25, which was over 40 days prior to the date Hillabrand said he reached out to Kolanko.

More residents

Two more residents then spoke.

Lake Township’s Wendy Matlock asked for denial.

 “I did not come with a speech. I'm not well-polished,” she said. “But I am a citizen, and I just appeal to you, sitting up in front of us, that you listen and you do what is best for the residents. I don't know why the property can't be kept as residential. Do you really need to make a huge profit to turn it over? Why aren’t you keeping it as residential? All I'm asking is that you guys who have power and control to make this decision that you listen to the Wood County Commission on the zoning, and that you do what's best for the community and what's best for the environment.”

Martin Cox was the final resident to speak.

“The vastness of Lake Township, I can't believe that's the only property that you find viable for your business. I mean, really? What's so special about that property?” Cox said.

“I'm going to stop you. Let's keep this civil in between everyone here, please,” Jenkins said.

“I went back there. There’s deer and wildlife,” Cox said. “There's a fishing pond back there, and it should be maybe donated or purchased by the Wood County Parks and made it into a park for village people to enjoy. Just an industrial wasteland? There's brown fields all over the place. Have you been through Toledo lately? There's no viable property out there with acres just waiting to be used?”

Someone commented from the crowd: “You realize there’s a landfill, correct, (already) in Walbridge?”

“That’s right, and why would we want another one?” Cox said. “Just because they have one means it's open season on Walbridge? ‘Well, they don't care. They got a landfill. Let's put another one in.’ Really? Is that how it works? I don't think so.”

Q&A session

Jenkins asked Hillabrand if he’s planning on filling in the pond. If so, he wanted to know what type of material he was going to use and how high the mounds would be.

Hillabrand said that only clean fill dirt would be going in.

“We would not do any work in the floodplain,” he said. “We are aware of that floodplain. The mounding aspect of it … what we were hoping to do, which is a very challenging thing to do in this town, is to have conversations with the residents about things that would appeal to them to make this work for them. What I mean by that is mounding on the adjacent properties, whether there's mounding or fencing to block them. On the south side of the creek, if we drove over to that property right now, you cannot see the south side of that creek. We are still and have been willing to build dirt mounds along that to give an even larger barrier if necessary. We are okay with that. That is something we are fine with doing. To be honest, I think it would be a strong benefit to the property to have that.

“With the grade … the grade would not change on anything back there. The existing grade is 6:10 or 6:11, which doesn't mean much to you guys. But what it means to me is that nothing will rise above that zone in any of those spillways, floodways, or whatever you would like to call them. All of our things would be taking part in the area outside of those paths.”

Jenkins said he was still a little confused.

“I mean, you answered those questions. I appreciate that, but I don't think you've hit on the mounding,” he said. “Where are the mounds going to be? How high are the mounds going to be? What material is going to be in the mounds?”

“Like we said, that would be the concrete, crushed concrete, or crushed asphalt,” Hillabrand said. “I'm not saying that there might not be stone, but it would be very rare for us to have virgin stone on that site. But if we owned it and we needed to bring it there, I'm not saying we wouldn't be.

“The height? That would be, I mean, truthfully, those are questions we would talk about with Lake Township. I don't know what the height restrictions are. There's no data. There's no requirements. There's nothing like that. Those are things that we can talk about with the township, if this would continue to proceed forward. We can use the tree line and say we're not going to get higher than that.

“And we don't want this to be some big waste site, okay? Let's be very clear here. I'm 34 years old and we own a very successful construction company. We are members of this community. We are going to treat it as such. And anybody can sit here and speculate and tell you what they want. This is coming from my mouth, and I'm telling you this. I am spending over $2 million building a building in this town. We care about this place. So, the last thing we're going to do is make it look like crap and all of the things that were speculated.

“That's why we have specifically in our permit and application, and with the conversation we have had with the township, we said we are not doing anything on the north side of that creek. This is an 18-acre property … 11 of those acres are on the north side of the creek. So, 11 acres of that is still going to remain the same. The brush, the trees, everything is there, and we will make it look better than what it is. I see the surrounding stuff. We will make it look better than what it currently looks like today.”

Jenkins asked how many trucks would go down the street per day and at what times.

Hillabrand said that would be speculative. He did say it would be during normal business operations between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“We are not a 24-7, 365 apparatus,” he said. “When it comes to that, it would be strictly based on what the job is. But on a normal day, a normal day where we're using the property, if we have four trucks running, you're probably talking 20 to 30 trips in there. And I would like to add on that, it is a commercial heavy haul route. Walbridge Road is a legal road into Walbridge that is heavy. With that being said, we would also again … and this is things that we have told the township as well, just so you were aware. We are going to build a concrete drive into this. It is not going to be muddy. It's going to be fenced off and cameras and everything. So, you're talking maybe 20 to 30 trips if we're using it per day, based on if we're using it.”

The zoning board asked if they were going to stockpile material there and haul any of it back out at any time.

“Yes, if we are authorized to crush per Lake Township, if we work out an agreement there and have an agreement with everyone in place,” Hillabrand said. “That is something that's not going to be done daily. It is based on the operations, but we are not a reseller. Any material that would potentially be coming out of there would be used by ourselves.”