Horton City Board approves parking relief for First Street cheer gym with conditions

Horton City Board members on Sept. 2 approved a variance allowing fewer required parking spaces for a proposed cheerleading gym at 510 First Street, with conditions requiring employee-only use of rear parking, posted signs and verification of stormwater requirements before final permits are issued.

The approval follows a presentation by Tim Peterson, who identified himself as a representative of the relocating gym. Peterson said the business will be a drop-off/pickup operation and asked the board to treat it more like a childcare use than a traditional commercial use. "We are a drop off pickup type business," Peterson said, describing existing operations where parents do not typically enter the building.

The board backed the request after discussion about neighborhood access and utilities. Board members and neighbors pressed for protections to keep the rear alley available for utility access and to avoid routine customer parking in the back. Neighbor Linda Wood, who lives adjacent to the alley, said the gym "would be the best neighbor that I could ever get at that location" but asked the board to preserve alley access for utilities such as Duke Energy.

Peterson said the planned site layout includes 11 spaces in front of the building and seven spaces behind it, for 18 total. He said his existing facility uses about 10 spaces in normal operations and that the new site will be 9,400 square feet (the current site is about 9,700 square feet). He asked the board not to apply the standard 1 space per 400 square feet commercial rule without considering how his business operates. "If you figure that we have about 40 kids there at any given time, that's 4. We usually have 5 or 6 employees. So there's 10," he said, arguing that the childcare standard in the land-development regulations is a better comparator.

In discussion, a board member proposed limiting rear-alley parking to employees and company vans to reduce safety and access concerns; the applicant said he would post signs and accept that restriction. The board also required that final approval be contingent on satisfying stormwater requirements with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) or receiving any applicable exemptions. The board added a condition that a future change of use or owner that would increase parking impacts must return to the board for review.

The board voted to approve the variance with the listed conditions; the motion carried 4-0. The decision was recorded as a conditional approval pending confirmation of stormwater compliance and the addition of the employee-only rear-parking and signage requirements.