ASHLAND – A proposed zoning change to allow additional space for light manufacturing on Commerce Parkway is being met with opposition from neighboring property owners.
Approximately 30 visitors filled the Ashland City Schools central office meeting room Tuesday for a public hearing before Ashland City Council. About 10 Montgomery Township residents from nearby properties and one township trustee spoke out against the city planning commission’s rezoning recommendation.
Though the landowner requesting the zoning change owns much of land that surrounds the parcel in question, a corner of the parcel juts out into a Montgomery Township neighborhood. The area has long been used as a single-family residential neighborhood but is zoned as a mix of Highway Commercial and General Farm.
Residents of the Township Road 805 (George Road) neighborhood say deed restrictions have prevented landowners in the area from building anything other than single-family homes and barns. Some residents who have lived there for years said they never knew the area was not zoned as residential.
One by one, the residents reiterated similar concerns about traffic, safety, aesthetics, noise, light pollution and property values.
“As a community, we all want Ashland to grow,” Township Road 805 resident Kim Swanstrom said. “We’re all for economic development, however, I think there’s a place for everything. I don’t think an industrial or business park belongs in our back yards. It’s a nice residential neighborhood.”
Swanstrom asked council members for transparency and empathy.
“If it was your neighborhood, if it was your back yard, how would you feel about it?” she said.
Dave Vesper spoke on behalf of the landowner, who is requesting that 19 acres of his property be rezoned from R-S Residential to M-4 Industrial and Business Park. Uses of R-S include single-family homes and multi-family dwellings, such as apartment buildings. Areas zoned M-4 can be used for light manufacturing or commercial use but not for heavy industrial uses such as smelting, city engineer Shane Kremser said.
The landowner owns 44 acres of M-4 zoned land immediately to the north of the land in question as well as over 30 acres just south of the parcel in question.
Vesper said the landowner is from Taiwan and has been doing business in Ashland since the 1980s. In 2012, the landowner acquired Primary Colors and Eco-Flo Products, two companies located at 1899 Cottage Street in Ashland.
Primary Colors distributes licensed product cookies and candies. Eco-Flo Products/Ashland Pump distributes sump and sewage pumps and water systems products and also does some light manufacturing and assembly.
Over the past six years, the companies have grown from 4 employees to 55 and are quickly outgrowing their space, despite a facility expansion in 2015, Vesper said.
The landowner plans to relocate both businesses to Commerce Parkway, extending the road by about 1,000 feet and constructing two new buildings.
Vesper described one of the planned buildings as containing a 40-foot-high, 84,000-square-foot warehouse as well as 32,000 square feet for assembly and manufacturing and 25-30,000 square feet of office space. The other building, he said, would be similar in size.
Both building footprints are planned to be built entirely on land already zoned M-4, but the owner wants to extend the road and construct driveways and a detention area in the residentially-zoned land and would need a zoning change to do proceed.
Though the landowner has no immediate plan to loop Commerce Parkway into George Road, the planning commission has discussed that as a future possibility. The current landowner or another developer could add apartments to the residentially-zoned area in the future.
George Road residents expressed concern about traffic, which they say has already increased substantially in recent years due to rapid development of the U.S. 250 East corridor. Several residents said traffic has become a safety concern.
City engineer Shane Kremser said city and county leaders have long thought of George Road as a candidate for future road improvements, which could involve widening the road. Mayor Matt Miller emphasized there is no plan in place for such improvements, and Kremser added the county would need to demonstrate the need for such improvements before it could obtain state or federal funding for a project.
After hearing from both sides, city council member Dan Lawson suggested council meet with Montgomery Township trustees to talk about how the city and township can work together to resolve issues. Council members agreed that would be their next step.
At the end of the meeting, after a majority of the audience left, council members said they appreciated hearing from the residents.
“It’s nice to see people come in and voice their opinions on this because it kind of gives you a different perspective on what they’re looking at in their back yards,” council member Al Farnam said. “It changes the way you think sometimes.”
