Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Lake Township’s zoning board held a second public hearing for a rezoning request at 508 Union St. on June 10 in the administration building.
The township’s first meeting, which resulted in a 2-1 vote against the residential to heavy industrial request, occurred on April 23. However, since it didn’t meet the three-vote threshold to advance the process to a majority vote of the township’s three trustees, the hearing had to take place again.
That second hearing then resulted in a deadlocked 2-2 vote on June 10, which thus again didn’t meet the three-vote threshold.
However, Lake Township administrator Mark Hummer told The Press on June 11 that Wood County’s assistant prosecutor Linda Holmes informed him that the 2-2 vote is recognized as a denial of the application.
Thus, the process will move forward to the trustees. Their next regular meeting is slated for Tuesday, June 16 at 6 p.m. in the administration building. At that regular meeting, the trustees will set a date for a final hearing on the matter, where they will make a majority vote.
On April 7, the Wood County Planning Commission voted unanimously to reject the rezoning request, but similar to the township’s zoning board, it was essentially a recommendation.
Zachary Jenkins, the township’s chairman of the zoning board who voted against the rezoning request on April 23, changed his mind and voted for it at the second hearing on June 10. He was joined by Matt Schober, who had the same decision at the first meeting. Meanwhile, Rick Rowland and Ian Miners voted against it. Steve Welling abstained due to a conflict of interest.
Once the trustees make a decision, citizens could put a referendum on the ballot to oppose the decision should it pass, or the property owner can appeal the zoning decision to the court of common pleas if it fails.
The issue itself started on Feb. 23 when current property owner Thomas Kepler submitted an application to rezone from residential to M2 heavy industrial. For a while, he teased an unnamed buyer who planned to use the property as a dump site for clean fill material, including dirt, clean concrete and clean asphalt.
However, Kepler didn’t publicly acknowledge that the potential buyer was Hillabrand & Sons Construction until April 22, which was one day before the first township hearing. At that meeting, both Kepler and Greg Hillabrand were there to speak on their behalf and said they had been open about their intentions throughout the whole process.
On June 10, though, Kepler wasn’t present, and Hillabrand was the lone representative. In the public comment portion, after Hillabrand made his opening statement, 10 consecutive people spoke out against the rezoning request.
In total, not including Hillabrand, 11 people spoke out against the request, while one spoke for it.
“We’re going to hear a lot of concerns,” Hillabrand said. “Those concerns haven’t fallen on deaf ears, but a lot of them are opinion-backed and not factually-backed, and that's what we are looking for. I'm not giving you my opinion, I'm giving you facts of the data on saying why we believe this property is necessary. We would not have pursued it if we did not believe that. We would not have pursued it if we didn't have conversations with Lake Township on what we were thinking and where we were thinking of putting it because of those reasons. These same exact operations occur on the opposite side of the expressway. Those are things that I really do believe need to be taken into consideration.”
One of those who spoke out against it was Jennifer Zam, who Hillabrand said is his cousin.
“Some of the claims that were made in (Hillabrand’s) initial introduction here is that they have followed the process and that there has been clear visibility and communication with everyone, and that they aren't aware of any objections or valid objections that are based on opinion,” she said. “But again, look at our neighbors here. We have opinions because we care about our community, and we're here because we want our community to be intact and preserved.”
Zam also questioned Hillabrand’s intentions for the property.
“Changing the landscape of a residential community forever, based on the words of someone who hasn't written it down and made it all very clear what the intended use is, what is going to be dumped there, how many hours they're going to be doing all this,” she said. “They're just saying this stuff. It's all words that are opinions, too. Are we supposed to take that at face value? Because something very similar happened in the village of Walbridge with the same company back in 2018 and 2019. It's all on record, and it's all up there. Anybody can look that up. It was the same kind of piecemeal.
“These gentlemen currently own M2 zoned land in the village of Walbridge. They just can't dump there, so they want to go into a residential community and turn it into an M2 dump zone because it's on the village of Walbridge. And they want to dump. It looks a lot like a personal vendetta against the village of Walbridge. They're trying to sell this property they already own that is already zoned for what they want to do other than they can't dig a pit and put stuff in it. They can't sell our land. Do you want somebody filling in a pit and then selling it off to whoever in the middle of a residential community? Your responsibility is to your neighbors. It is not anti-business or anti-progress to want to preserve the original intent of zoning laws, which is to protect small communities.”
Miners, who voted against the rezoning request, made a statement prior to the vote, which is in part below.
“We just heard a fairly articulate presentation of what the current intentions (are),” he said. “There's a buyer for this land. It's not clear to me exactly why Mr. Kepler, who is the owner of the land, is not speaking for himself, but I've also heard comments from a lot of people in the community, which remind me of comments that could have emerged 150 years ago when the Industrial Revolution came in and the land around the villages was all taken up of big landowners and the village collapsed. The structure and economy of it did collapse.
“I don't know how this current situation will evolve over time. I don't think any of us really do. It disturbs me because we're moving into it in a way that seems to me to be very quickly. And because once this decision is made, the land involved will not easily be returned to its current state.”
Jenkins, who voted in favor of the rezoning request after voting against it on April 23, also spoke.
“We have a business owner who would like to see the project move forward,” he said. “The property's been vacant for many, many years. I remember going there when it was … I remember it being dug. I lived on Park Lane. I remember back when the expressway was doing that, and they had trucks back there to move the dirt out. I do remember all this. I think I was like five or six years old at that time.
“Nothing's been done with that property since then so I do understand there's a chance for the property to be developed. I don't know how the conditional approvals work at this point. If we approve this, you (Hillabrand) say you're willing to work with the township to do conditional approvals, and I believe that you would. I just don't know how that process works moving forward with it. I don't know how that would go. And I don't know if that conditional approval sticks with that property as you own it or if it continues to move forward once the property is sold, if it is sold.”
Stay tuned to PressPublications.com for more information on the next steps and dates in the process following the June 16 trustees meeting.
