Council committee forwards rezoning on State Road 23 to allow small office conversion

The Land Use Planning Committee voted to send favorably a rezoning petition for property at 14212 State Road 23 that would change the parcel’s zoning from single-family residential to Office-Buffer to allow conversion of an existing house into a small professional office.

Sean Klein, director of the area planning commission, said Office-Buffer is a limited nonresidential district that allows small professional office uses, generally limits primary structures to 5,000 square feet, and is intended to encourage infill and redevelopment along State Road 23. The petitioner plans to convert the existing roughly 2,600-square-foot home into an office and to use the existing access to State Road 23, adding a small paved parking area that meets paved-parking and landscaping requirements.

Klein said the area plan commission recommended the rezoning 9–0. He also said a nearby neighbor had remonstrated at area plan because the petitioner initially requested variances to avoid paved parking and landscaping; those variances were denied, leaving the paving and landscaping requirements in place.

The petitioner’s consultant, Matthew Kirkwood of Dan Charter and Associates, told the committee the use would likely have one to two regular employees on site and that occasional contractor visits would be expected. He said the business is primarily a field-testing operation and this location would serve as a billing office.

What the committee did: The committee voted to send bill 40-25 favorably to the full council.

Next steps: If the rezoning is approved by the full council, the petitioner will have to comply with site-plan review, pave required parking and install required landscaping; building plan review and local fire-department review will apply to any future construction or changes.