By Jim Pruitt
A potential site plan has Chelsea planning officials considering doing away with a commercial zone created for area near the I-94 interchange.
The Chelsea Planning Commission discussed the idea during a work session on Oct. 6. The change would be more to retire a zoning concept that dates back more than 50 years and expand the adjoining commercial zone.
The Highway Commercial Development zone came out of countywide planning committee and was designed to accommodate the needs of travelers and allow access to services like gas stations, restaurants, auto parts stores and the like.
The zone runs from the old Chevy dealership and McDonald’s in the north to the interstate in the south and includes Commerce Park Drive and Brown Drive.
In 1972, the Village of Chelsea approved a commercial zone, C-3. In the Zoning Ordinance of 2010, the C-3 zone allows:
- Automobile service stations
- Sales, rentals and services of motor vehicles, trailers and boats
- Drive-in retail and service establishments except for drive-in theaters
- Hotels and motels
- Restaurants serving food or alcohol
- Essential services and structures of a non-industrial character
- Accessory uses or structures
- Indoor and outdoor commercial amusements
- Executive, administrative or professional offices.
The commission may be faced with a site plan that might resemble a strip mall and have businesses that don’t fall under the C-3 list of allowed or special uses, Planning Consultant Carl Schmult said.
The danger is if the city approves the site plan without knowing what kind of businesses are planned, Schmult said.Once the plan is approved, the city would have little to no recourse to stop the development. At the same time, the city should not be in the position of keeping businesses out of the city, he said.
City Council representative Cheri Albertson was concerned that a strip mall would go through two or three waves of businesses, each succeeding wave being a lower tier and the city would end up with a vacant building.
Schmult said with city’s high standards and robust economy, it is unlikely to have the kind of decline that would not support a building like that. The market has to determine what goes in, he said.
But any talk of a possible strip mall is premature at this point. The site plan in question has not been submitted in a form the city staff can present to the Planning Commission, City Engineer Christine Linfield said.
What the city needs to do, in Schmult’s opinion, is to meet the issue head on, make a policy decision sooner rather than later whether the C3 zone can handle the site plan.
While there is no great rush, the city needs to keep in mind that it is only a matter of time before some development commences south of I-94.
“Nothing can be done to stop it,” Schmult said about the south of the highway development.
The Planning Commission will discuss the issue more in November and could schedule a public hearing on a zoning change in December.
(If you’d like to contact Jim Pruitt, he can be reached at [email protected].)
