KALAMAZOO, Mich. — According to www.wkzo.com, the Kalamazoo City Planning Commission voted against making recommendations that the city rezone a property on which Drive and Shine Car Wash wishes to build.
The property in question falls under the Natural Features Protection (NFP) that the city recently imposed, the article continued.
The company purchased the land in late 2018, and the NFP was imposed in May 2019, the article noted.
The commissions considered three proposals: rezoning the property at 3401 and 4305 Stadium Dr. to commercial use, removing the NFP overlay from the area and rezoning 2231 S. Drake Rd., the article noted.
The meeting on Jan. 14th lasted almost six hours, running into early the following morning, and dozens of citizens spoke out to oppose the development, saying that it would pose potential environmental threats to the area, the article stated.
Drive and Shine President and CEO Haji Tehrani told those at the meeting that his business had done everything correctly according to the city guidelines to build this second location in Kalamazoo, the article continued.
“Not an inch of our property falls in what is considered Asylum Lake Preserve,” Tehrani said. “We’re not proposing to build on Asylum Lake Preserve — we’re proposing to build on the land that rightfully was designated for commercial [zoning] because everything around it is commercial.”
Tehrani also said that the carwash planned to take proper infrastructure precautions to prevent any run-off from the carwash if it were to be built with respect to the NFP, the article noted.
In the end, the City Planning Commission voted against all three proposals, the article stated.
However, while the Planning Commission can recommend that the project be rejected, the City Commission has the final say, and some commissioners that WKZO spoke to said that they would have to consider whether or not Tehrani could sue the city and win, the article added.
The City Planning Commission said that in the future, it might be possible to rezone the property for a purpose that the citizens of Kalamazoo would be satisfied with, but the carwash was not considered to be appropriate, the article continued.
Nevertheless, the commission found the notion of an out-of-state investor looking to do business in the city as “exciting,” the article stated.
The case will move to the Kalamazoo City Commission for final review, and it will set a date for a public hearing, the article concluded.
Read the original article here.
