At a recent meeting, Milford City Council approved a request from Miller Investments to change the Comprehensive Plan designation for property located on North Church Street. The property is near Meineke Auto Repair.
“The property currently contains a residential structure that was constructed in the 1960s that’s being utilized as a group home,” City Planner Rob Pierce said. “The applicant’s not proposing an immediate change at this time, but there will be, and the applicant can go into it in more detail. There are some thoughts of redeveloping this property in the future to be consistent with other lands owned by the applicant in the immediate vicinity. Again, the location of the property is just south of the Meineke along the west side of North Church Street.”
Pierce explained that in addition to being in the vicinity of Meineke, the property was also next to an approved flex-style warehouse project that was also owned by the applicant.
“The approved flex style office-warehouse building has yet to begin to construct him but did receive final site plan approval recently from the city,” Pierce said. “The applicant owns that property. He also owns the property to the west, which is currently vacant in the C3 highway commercial zone. There is one residential structure, a single-family detached dwelling to the south and then to the east and further south is the Community Cemetery on land that’s zoned residential. The Planning Commission approved the request with a vote of five to two.”
Councilman Jason James asked what the reasoning was for the two planning commissioners to vote against the request. Pierce stated that there was some concern about traffic in the area, but he had explained that the entrance to the flex office-warehouse would be reconfigured to address that and that there were discussions about changes to the 10th Street intersection which could impact this property. Councilwoman Katrina Wilson asked if there was no timeline for the changes to 10th Street which Pierce confirmed.
“But, once those were in place, this could all be tied together,” Wilson said. “If this project is approved, the recommendation the state offered will be implemented. The developers are aware of that.”
Pierce stated that the developer was aware of the proposed changes to the intersection and pointed out that DelDOT had approved the entrance for the property to the north which would be part of that project. He reminded council that what the applicant was requesting was a change of land use so that he could apply for a zoning change and move ahead with the property. Wilson pointed out that the property was not really close to Church Street.
“The property does have frontage on Church, but it butts up against the Meineke property,” Pierce said. “They could gain access through to both streets. Any improvements to this property will have to come through site plan review with the Planning Commission and, depending on the use, come before council as a conditional use.”
David Miller, the applicant, explained that this request was to conform to what already exists on surrounding properties.
“It is essentially commercial at this point,” Miller said. “We own the other parcels and when this came available, we purchased it. The rest is the cemetery. I believe this is the best solution to bring it into sort of the conformity of what is happening, we are moving forward with a preliminary site plan right now.”
Miller stated that his company as well aware of the potential changes to 10th Street as well as current traffic flow.
“It is important to us to ensure traffic flows well, not just for the property it serves but for the community,” Miller said. “I don’t think we will be doing anything that hurts that, especially with the scrutiny of Rob and his team with all of the meetings we have to go through and approvals we have to get. I’m confident we will be able to come to an agreement that will not put an additional burden on that street.”
Councilman Dan Marabello asked if the other residential property in the area had offered any objections and Miller said they had not.
“I’m picking up on where the Councilwoman left off. I’m still concerned. And I guess what you’re saying, Rob is that when we see the site plan, we’ll see what the improvements are, so we can know that there’s going to be proper improvements,” James said. “Because when you’re going up North Street and coming out on Walnut Street there’s accidents that take place there. And if we increase the volume, I am concerned. Believe me, I love the improvements. They’re doing a great job, but there will be increased traffic.”
Pierce stated that discussion on increased traffic would be discussed with another application on the agenda that would change the zoning on the property. A second agenda item for Miller Investments was to approve a change of zone from residential to commercial. Pierce reminded council that any improvements would have to come back to council for approvals. During the public comment portion of the meeting, only one person spoke out against the request.
“I’ve been at all the meetings that this was presented, I think there’s been three plus this one. I think this is a fourth and I was very confused by it, he doesn’t have any plan of what he is going to use the property for other than a flex space,” Julie Morris, who gave an address on Cedar Beach Road, said. “And, like Rob said, it can be used for that reason, if you zone it C3 and it doesn’t have to come back in front of council. So, I have some concerns about that, and I haven’t spoken against this or for it in any other meeting. I’ve just listened, and I just do have concerns about the same thing the planning commission was talking about in regards to the traffic on that road.”
Morris felt that although Miller seemed very honest and consistent in his comments, she still had very serious concerns as she did not believe once it was zoned C3 a conditional use would not have to come back in front of council. James asked Pierce if the improvements required a conditional use, would the applicant have to come before council and Pierce stated that all conditional uses must be approved by council.
“If it happens to be a permitted use, it would come through as a permitted use site plan with just the Planning Commission,” Pierce said. “But if it is a conditional use, it must bre approved by both Planning Commission and Council.”
Pierce explained that the reason there were two requests on the agenda was because the comprehensive plan must match the zoning code Before the applicant could request a change in zoning, the comprehensive plan had to be changed. Councilwoman Madula Kalesis made a motion to approve the change to the comprehensive plan and Wilson seconded. The motion required a roll call vote.
“I vote yes because it will comply with the master plan,” Councilwoman Nadia Zychal said.”
Councilman Dan Marabello and Kalesis both voted yes for the same reason Zychal stated.
“I vote yes because it will straighten out our comp plan, it will bring the comp plan in compliance and zoning,” Wilson said. “I vote yes because I think it makes sense to have a commercial business there in that lot instead of residential as long as those other traffic issues are straightened out before it is completed.”
James agreed, stating that it conformed with commercial property in the vicinity. Councilmen Danny Perez and Michael Stewart also agreed due to reasons stated.
There was no one who spoke for or against the zoning request that followed the comprehensive plan approval. The second motion was approved with a vote of 7 to 1 as Councilwoman Lori Connor was not present.
