Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Area residents and officials are fighting a proposed rezoning request for a parcel of land that sits on the border of Lake Township and the village of Walbridge.
Thomas Kepler, a resident of Curtice, has applied to rezone an 18.5-acre area of land that he owns located at 508 Union Street from R2 residential to M2 heavy industrial.
The property sits near the intersection of Union Street/Walbridge Road and the I-280 on-ramp on the south side of the road, and it is located in Lake Township. However, the north side of the road belongs to the village of Walbridge, and the property essentially sits up against the village to the west, as well.
The Wood County Planning Commission hosted a hearing on the request on April 7. Walbridge mayor Ed Kolanko said he wasn’t made aware of the proposed change until April 5, and he said he submitted an email to the planning commission expressing the village’s opposition to the request.
“While it directly impacts the village, no one — Wood County, Lake Township, or the property owner — advised us of the request,” Kolanko said. “In the best interest of the village, this should not be supported by the township or Wood County. The village will be harmed should this be allowed.”
Kolanko also said that “nothing good will come from this for the village of Walbridge” should the property be rezoned.
Kepler’s official application to Lake Township for the rezoning request said the reasoning is “to utilize the land on the south side of the existing creek for the storage of clean fill material, including dirt, clean concrete, and clean asphalt. All materials stored on site will be clean, uncontaminated construction material only. No hazardous or mixed waste material will be stored on the property.”
Potential issues
One issue with the rezoning that was brought up at the meeting by the county’s planning commission staff, which consists of director Dave Steiner and planner Jamie Stanley, was that there is a floodplain on the land north of Cedar Creek, which is a regulatory floodway, and per FEMA, must “be reserved in order to discharge the base flood without cumulatively increasing the water surface elevation more than a designated height.”
In other words, it is very restricted in what can be done with it. Nothing can be done to the site without a full hydraulic and hydrological study that shows the intended use will not raise the base flow.
That includes bridges that may need to be built across the creek to access the southern half of the parcel where Kepler said the potential new owner or lessee intends to store materials. There appears to be an existing bridge over the creek, but whether it's designed to handle heavy machinery that would be used in an operation is unknown. In addition, any repair or modification of the existing bridge would again trigger that full hydrological study, Steiner said.
Another concern is that the only entrance to the land is off of Union Street, and with houses on each side, heavy truck and machinery traffic into the parcel has potential to become a nuisance to existing homeowners, and the heavy dump trucks could also potentially far exceed the road’s weight limit, which would hurt Walbridge’s roads and infrastructure. There’s also a fire station on the west side of the land.
The county planning commission’s opening statement from the staff, which took place prior to any public comment or actual vote from the panel, recommended that the commission reject the request.
On top of that, they reiterated that once the land is rezoned, whoever owns the land can do anything they want to it within the heavy industrial zoning. Kepler could sell or lease the land, which is his stated intention, and the new owner could do whatever they want with it within the M2 use.
Kolanko’s letter to the planning commission, which was read out loud for the record at the meeting, said, “The village does not support the project as it will negatively impact residents' future development and will damage village infrastructure. This cannot be supported.”
Kepler’s intentions
Kepler said he originally bought the land in 2019 with the intention of building a home on it, but his wife did not want to leave their current place. The land was originally four separate parcels, and somehow it got lumped together when he sold the portion that was being farmed to a farmer, Kevin Fox, who bought it and added it to his existing farm.
Kepler spoke at the planning commission hearing.
“Realistically, I would not rezone the section north of the creek,” Kepler said. “I would keep it residential, and the parcel that existed before on the south side of Cedar Creek … again, it's in a floodplain. It doesn't seem to be a good spot to try to build a house or really do anything with, according to Kevin. The ground is too rocky to be used for farming. It gets too wet to really do much else with it, so the intention would be to store dirt there. I don't think you could put a structure there if you wanted to, unless you would like to make it functionally submersible. The bridge that is there, I wouldn't say it's a highway bridge, but the farmer has taken his equipment across it. I've taken my own equipment back there.
“There already is an existing pile of dirt that was on the property when I purchased it. I didn't bring anything to it. But again, I intend to either lease it or sell it to a company, and this intended use was there. When we approached the township, they suggested we go for an M2 designation versus a variance or some other zoning. And I agree that when you open it up to M2, you are exposing anything in the future. I can't dictate what the future is. I know what my intentions would be. I know the intentions of the person that's going to lease it and or buy it intend to do with it, and I don't think they would change their minds.”
“The reason I ended up lopping off that parcel to give to the farmer is (because) it's farmland. I'd like to keep it continuous, and when the Peloton factory was going to go in, I was getting offers to sell it for an outrageous amount of money, and a foolish, younger, more idealistic version of me said no to what would have been a significant profit for me because I wanted to keep the farm intact, and I didn't want it to be a solar field or whatever godforsaken thing this company was going to do with it. So I did not do that, and what I'm attempting to do is … I guess have it make sense from the standpoint of planning. I would try to lop off the section south of the creek and make the change so it can be used for fill dirt and what the intended use we applied for. And the other side of the creek, I would keep it residential, and I'd love to see it developed. If I sell it, I can't control that, but there are two buildable lots with utilities there.
“As a whole, it's very difficult to do anything on the south side of that property, regardless of (the zoning). It's either going to be grassland that gets wet a lot, or it's going to be a pile of dirt that is separated off from where it gets wet at, and from looking at the floodplain map, I think the intended use would put it fairly out of the way.
“But again, I'm not intending to do it myself. I'm planning on leasing or selling it and going through that process.”
Parkview Drive resident and former Walbridge village administrator Todd Robson was one of four citizens who spoke up against the rezoning request at the planning commission hearing.
“Being a lifelong resident, I don’t want to see (the rezoning approved) when it’s been farmed for 60 years,” Robson said. “I can vouch for that. As Mr. Kepler said, he can’t foresee what someone else is going to do with that property, but what I say when I see the talk about concrete, asphalt, and dirt, I’m looking at a borrow pit. There’s a beautiful pond there that I see someone filling in with garbage. I don’t want that, and nobody else in town wants that either.
“And the bridge (over the creek) is ancient. I know farmers will go across it, but once you start taking dump trucks across it and heavy excavation equipment, you’re looking at Army Corps of Engineers, bridge building, you’re talking about altering the waterway … there’s a lot involved here. I don’t see it being logical from a fiscal standpoint, or from a beautification standpoint, or for the betterment of the village standpoint.”
Charlotte Costanzo, Gus Costanzo, and Joe Zemenski also spoke out against the request at the hearing.
One of Charlotte’s concerns was the transportation of materials.
“It looks like it’s meant to be more, not just dirt, and it’s any construction material,” she said. “That’s a concern for a lot of residents because we realize that material is going to have to be transported back there, and there’s only one entrance through Union Street … it would have to be heavy dump trucks.
“It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood. It’s a quiet street, and I know that heavy dump trucks coming through — we don’t know if it would be day or night or whatever — it really would not be appropriate for that neighborhood.”
“There’s just a lot of negative aspects to this, and talking to the residents, everybody feels the same way.”
Kepler said after the meeting that he feels the complaints are reasonable.
“I think all the complaints are valid,” he said. “I just need to sell it to somebody.”
What’s next?
Ultimately, the planning commission board agreed with the staff and voted unanimously to recommend rejecting the proposed zoning change. Their vote isn’t officially binding, however. It is simply a recommendation to the township, which will hold a public hearing on the request April 23 at 6:30 p.m. in the township’s administration building.
Lake Township’s zoning inspector, Linda Rossler, said her team will make a recommendation to the trustees at some point following the meeting, and the trustees will then have a hearing regarding the matter.
For now, though, Charlotte Costanzo was pleased with the result of the planning commission hearing.
“We’re so relieved,” she said. “It’s just not appropriate to put heavy industrial in a neighborhood for many reasons. It would upset the citizens. It’s a quiet community.”
