Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
A four-month-long process in Lake Township to potentially rezone an 18-acre parcel of land at 508 Union St. from residential to M2 heavy industrial has reached a conclusion, at least for now, as the township’s three trustees voted unanimously to reject the rezoning request at a special meeting on June 30 in the administration building.
The decision, which came in front of a packed administration building with over 75 people in the crowd, comes after three previous parts to the process after the application was originally submitted on Feb. 23.
Initially, the Wood County Planning Commission voted 9-0 against the rezoning request on April 7, which was followed by a pair of public hearings from the township’s zoning committee.
The first township hearing on April 23 resulted in a 2-1 vote against with one abstention. However, it didn’t meet the required three vote minimum, and the meeting had to be held a second time on June 10, which then resulted in a split 2-2 vote with one abstention. A tie counted as a vote against according to Wood County’s assistant prosecutor Linda Holmes, and the process moved forward to the trustee’s vote on June 30.
The decision by the trustees was the only one that truly held value as the previous hearings only served as recommendations for the trustees.
Walbridge mayor Ed Kolanko attended the hearing on June 30. Previously, he joined his village council in passing a resolution against the rezoning request while also submitting a letter to both the county planning commission and Lake Township trustees urging them to reject the request.
The property is officially part of Lake Township but sits directly adjacent to Walbridge and heavily impacts the village.
Kolanko called the vote resounding in favor of Walbridge citizens.
“As as you can see tonight there was a lot of Walbridge residents that were here at a Lake Township meeting,” Kolanko said. “I’m glad. They had a process to follow. I thought that the trustees and the administration did a good job. There was a lot of Walbridge voices that were heard tonight, and we appreciate that. It’s nice that they’re being heard and a decision was being made to support not just Walbridge but our entire community.”
As the current property owner and applicant, Thomas Kepler has 30 days to appeal the decision, although he said after the meeting that he won’t appeal. The owners of Hillabrand & Sons Construction — Greg and Josh — had offered him $285,000 for the 18 acres, which they wanted to make a dump site for their business.
However, Kepler said that sale was predicated on the zoning change going through. He said he estimates that he now has approximately six months to find an alternative solution for the property, which he desperately needs to sell.
“The system worked,” Kepler said. “I’ll take (this decision) back to the credit union and tell them that the purchase won’t go through. We’ll see if we can find another (option).”
Kepler said he has been in contact with someone at the Wood County Park District to see if they would be interested. He also said that someone from Columbus reached out to him about potentially making it a gas station. Plus, members of the community approached him about coming up with a land trust for the property.
“I would love to see it kept the way it is,” Kepler said. “I just don’t want to own it while it happens.”
Lake Township trustee Melanie Bowen-Greenwald said after the decision that she was going to call Wood County Parks District executive director Chris Smalley on July 1 to see if the township and the Parks District can work together to find a solution.
Kepler has owned the property since 2019, and he originally bought the land to build a house for his parents. However, his father passed away, and his financial circumstances also changed over the past 18 months.
Should a solution not be found, Kepler said the property is part of a bundle for a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan. If he defaults on it, it would go to public auction, and he would have no control who buys it in that situation.
“I have been approached by probably a dozen various places (since 2019),” he said. “Someone was going to buy it to put in a solar field, and they offered me a $1.2 million, but I said no because I had money at the time. I should have taken it.”
If Kepler changes his mind and chooses to appeal the township’s rejection, he can do that in the next 30 days, but only he can do that. Bowen-Greenwald said the Hillabrand family has no say in that.
“(They) do not own this property, so I don’t really give a dang what they have to say,” she said. “It’s not an M2 property.”
Community discussion
On June 30, over 20 people took turns sharing their thoughts on the rezoning request with the room heavily against the application. That group to speak also included Kepler and the Hillabrand brothers.
Aside from those three, local resident Bill Keller also spoke up in favor of the application. Everyone else, however, was against it, at least among those who spoke.
One resident, Don Pfouts of Tyler Drive, said that he read how a previous comment from Greg Hillabrand referenced that he deals in facts, not opinions. He also said that Hillabrand’s comment about the township having allowed nearby construction materials and concrete to be dumped on a property across the expressway is true, but that it isn’t near a residential area.
“Nobody lives anywhere near that,” Pfouts said. “It doesn’t require dump and other trucks to travel through it, as does this one.”
Pfouts said that other site also doesn’t have a natural waterway running through it, nor does it encompass an important floodplain.
“I'm sure you've done your due diligence, trustees, and you know that when you dump concrete and asphalt, it leaches things — lead, chromium, arsenic and other heavy metals, and so forth. And it's right next to that waterway, and it's actually in the floodplain. My gosh, who would think this is a good idea? Certainly not the EPA, I would think.”
Darlene McMillion of Meadow Lane in Walbridge said she has sympathy for Kepler, but not at the expense of the residents.
“I know that you need to sell that property, but selling it at the cost of your neighbors and their happiness and their enjoyment?” she said. “We’ve lived in Walbridge for over 20 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever gotten involved in anything like that because this really affects me and my family. Our grandson wants to buy our house when we’re gone. I don’t want him to buy a house that has a dump a block and a half away. There’s so much other property that’s available.”
In fact, during the portion in which Greg Hillabrand spoke, Bowen-Greenwald asked him why they can’t take their load dumps to other area landfills.
“Those are designated areas that are monitored and controlled,” she said. “They love these kinds of incoming loads. It's liquid gold to them, and it's very sellable. Why do you need to fill in a pond when you can use the local waste management facility?”
“Waste management does not take dirt,” Hillabrand said. “None of these facilities around here take dirt.”
“That’s not true,” Bowen-Greenwald said. “I've talked to two of them.”
“I’m sure they told you there’s a large fee,” Hillabrand said.
“I spoke to someone from one of the landfills, and they said, ‘It is liquid gold. We take them all the time,’” Bowen-Greenwald said. “The only thing you have is two by two and more than six inches thick concrete with no rebar in it. Asphalt has petroleum. You fill that pond in, it's going to leach petroleum. It will leach into the groundwater. It will affect each and every groundwater well. I have a well. I don't want that stuff in my well.”
“To address that, we are not filling in that pond with asphalt,” Hillabrand said. “Dirt is the only thing that would go in that pond. The dirt does not have asphalt in it.”
“Where is the dirt coming from?” Bowen-Greenwald said.
“The dirt is coming from underground,” Hillabrand said. “Let me just give you an idea. This is how our business operates. We are an underground utility contractor. If we are digging 25 foot deep in the ground, the top is asphalt or concrete. There’s layers to the Earth. In our process, we remove each layer individually and separate it. That's why I say asphalt. That's why I say concrete. That's why I say dirt. As you go down those layers, when you get to a certain point, that's all it is is dirt. And that is considered clean fill in the industry. It's not hazardous. It's not industrial.”
“Then why don't you sell it and make money off it?” Bowen-Greenwald said.
“Because people don't buy it,” Hillabrand said. “If they would, we would sell it.”
“They don't buy it because it's not clean,” Bowen-Greenwald said.
The conversation then ended as Bowen-Greenwald said Hillabrand had reached his time limit.
Michelle Johnson of Lemoyne Road in Millbury said she has compassion for both Kepler trying to sell the property and the Hillabrand brothers for wanting to operate a business, but she said this is a community and the trustees should listen to the people.
“As a community, you’re hearing the voices of many,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like you’re paying attention. It feels like you’re just going for that money grab and allowing them to go for that money grab and letting him be able to profit at the expense of many. My question really comes down to are you really going to listen to your residents? Are you going to listen to people who built this community, keep it going and will keep it going?”
Bowen-Greenwald took offense to that.
“We do listen. I didn’t really appreciate that because we do our jobs, and we do listen, and we will vote shortly,” she said. “Part of this procedure is to let us hear what you have to say. Please give us the opportunity. We are listening. We haven’t even voted yet. Would you give us a chance?”
“I never said you weren’t,” Johnson said. “I asked if you’re going to. That’s the question. There shouldn’t be offense taken to that.”
“We are all here listening,” Bowen-Greenwald said. “I have a file full of letters, emails. I asked for them. We have them. Give us a chance to get through this process. That’s what we’re here for.”
Jennifer Kennedy of East Union in Walbridge questioned why neither Kepler nor the Hillabrand family reached out about trying to sell the property.
Many others also spoke at the meeting, and previous stories on the whole process of the rezoning request can be found at PressPublications.com. As the situation develops any further, we’ll be there to report it.
