After approving a project that would amend the Comprehensive Plan for property at 100 Kings Highway at the request of the owner as well as a plan for a conditional use, Milford City Council also approved the request.
“The owner wants to change the zoning from employment to low-density residential,” Rob Pierce, City Planner, said. “The property contains an existing vacant medical office building, which is zoned institutional development. The applicant wants to use the building as a general office space, requiring a change to the comprehensive plan future land use. The property is located on the south side of King’s Highway between South Walnut Street and Polk Avenue.”
The property was purchased from Diane Samsel by Jason Johnson. In addition to the need to change the comprehensive plan, the building required a conditional use as the office building would change the use of the property. Pierce explained that the current zoning did not allow for a non-medical office, which is why they needed to apply for the conditional use. Pierce explained that the city was slowly phasing out the H1 zoning due to the many restrictions.
“We just settled on the property and I’ve had a small computer shop in Milford for almost 14 years now on Milford-Harrington Highway called CTRL+ALT+Repair, and we’ve just kind of outgrown that space,” Johnson said. “We are asking for approval to move that office from that building to our new residence on King’s Highway so we can expand and create more jobs and an opportunities of local people to get computer help.”
Johnson explained that they do 95 percent of their business remotely, serving small to mid-sized businesses in the area as well as throughout Kent and Sussex County. City Solicitor David Rutt asked how many employees they would have as well as their hours of operation. Pierce explained that this was a by-right use, which is what was advertised. Johnson offered to answer the question.
“We operate Monday through Friday, typically 8:30 AM to 5 PM,” Johnson said. “We service residential drop-off, so it is a place for people to come and drop off their computer. We may see two or three walk-ins a day. The bulk of our work is remote, so we do a lot of remote stuff where we are operating inside the building out of traffic. A lot of our techs go on-site to offices, and right now we have three technicians, four, including myself, full-time.”
There was no one who spoke for or against either of the requests. Both ordinances were approved unanimously.
