MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - On Monday, August 10th, the Meridian Township Planning Commission discussed a special use permit proposal submitted by 1732 Hamilton Road LLC.

The reason they submitted this proposal was to establish an auto repair shop in an already existing building at 1732 Hamilton Road. The applicant actually already operates an auto repair shop at that location. They had learned in January that they had needed a Special Use Permit in order to operate. Since then, they have been working to obtain that permit in order to continue operation.

The Planning Commission held a public hearing for this topic at their meeting on July 27, 2020. A straw poll taken at that hearing which indicated that the commission was willing to consider a resolution to approve the request.

During yesterdays’ meeting, Commissioner Holly Cordill mentioned that she drove by the repair shop in question and noticed large wooden boards leaning up against their front window. It gave off the impression to her that the windows were boarded up. She was unsure if it was because the window was broken. She just did not want to leave the building with a boarded-up appearance.

The applicant’s representative did speak up willing to address this issue.

“Frankly, I’m not aware of the board issue,” he said. “But we don’t have any problem taking the boards off. And if there is a breakage of that window, we’ll get the window repaired, and if that needs to be a condition of granting this, we don’t have a problem with that kind of a condition.”

The Commission questioned if the removal of the boards needed to be added to the conditions of granting the permit. The Community Planning and Development Director, Mark Kieselbach, offered to look into the situation for the Commission.

“If the Planning Commission wants to add a condition they certainly could,” he said. “We can handle that now that we know about it under our property maintenance code for the exterior of the building. So, I don’t know if you need a condition. I can refer it to the right people, and they can check it out.”

The Planning Commission decided not to add the removal of the boards as a condition. They also decided to approve the request in a unanimous vote.