At Thursday night's Kalamazoo Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, KALSEE Credit Union requested two variances to build a new location at 3121 Portage St. in the Milwood neighborhood. Their first variance request was to allow a 32,600 square feet redevelopment of 3121 Portage St. and 1101 E. Cork St. (Cork Lane Decorating Center), where 15,000 square feet is the maximum site area for a commercial development in Zone CN-1 (Commercial, Neighborhood). The second request was for 13 off-street parking spaces on the site, where 11 is the maximum permitted by zoning ordinance at this location.

The applicant spoke first during the public hearing. He said the benefits of their redevelopment would include the elimination of all but two curb cuts, none on the Cork St. side, which would help traffic flow in the area by reducing illegal cut-through traffic. He also said there would be an increase in permeable surface cover, as the site is currently 100% covered by impermeable surfaces (pavement and buildings). The current owner of the property, PUCCI PROPERTIES, LLC of Byron Center, spoke in favor of the requests and said he had a Stanley Steemer franchise on the site for about 12 years (the building had originally been a city firehouse, from 1947 to 1982).

One citizen from the neighborhood spoke against the request. She correctly concluded that the intent of the CN-1 zone was to have smaller scale commercial development in areas immediately adjacent to residential uses. She also correctly concluded that the variances would be permanently granted to the land, not this particular project. This would allow a future builder to redevelop the site in an undesirable manner, such as a big box retail store.

After the public hearing concluded, Zoning Administrator Pete Eldridge provided his comments to the board. He said that this intersection is being considered for rezoning to Live-Work 1. In that zone, this project would not be incompatible.

Then, the applications moved to a vote. A full board consists of six members, but only five were present. Then, Board Member Christina Doane informed the board that she would be abstaining, because she is a KALSEE credit union member. That left four voting board members. Regardless of the number of board members present, four affirmative votes are necessary to grant a variance. As a result, ZBA rules permit the applicant to postpone their request to a later meeting when there are only four board members present. Pete Eldridge offered this option to the applicant, but they chose to "roll the dice".

The board denied both variance requests by a 3-1 vote, with alternate Board Member Beth Ann van den Hombergh voting no on both requests.

Applicants are not permitted to resubmit variance requests for the following year, unless the ZBA concludes that the plans have been substantially changed. If KALSEE wants to build on this site before then, they'll have to either comply with the existing zoning ordinances or convince both the Planning Commission and City Commission to rezone the area.

In other Kalamazoo ZBA news, next month will probably be Chair Reed Young's last meeting, as he has sold his home more quickly than expected and is moving outside of the city, which makes him ineligible to serve on the board.