Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

[music] [music] Okay, it it's 7 o'clock, so we probably should get this rolling.

That says 30 seconds, too. That's all right. All right, we're gonna We're going to open the Columbia City Board of Z Appeals regular March [clears throat] 3rd meeting. A roll call, please. Sorry, I'm uh trying to get Kathy properly positioned on the live stream here. So, Kathy Gardner, present. Yes, you are. Patricia Hatcher, John Kissinger here. How do I say it? Q. Michael. Okay. Q. Michael here. And Dennis Warick

here. Alrighty. Tonight we have uh three sets of meeting minutes. So we're going to start with the September 2nd, 2025. Does anybody have um any questions or corrections for that? I move that be approved as distributed. I second that. I have approval from Dennis and a second from Kathy. All those in favor say I. I. I. We got a roll. Well, that has to be a roll call, right? Does have to be a roll call. Uh Kathy Gardner. Yes. Pat Hatcher.

I was absent. Okay. So, Pat, John Kissinger, yes. Uh Lyle, I assume you abstain as well. Yes. And Dennis, yes. So, three to 0 to two. All right, moving on to the next set. We have um previous meeting minutes to the October 7th, 2025.

We'll call for that one. Or we have any questions or comments? I think Kathy has some I just was going to make a motion to approve those. I second the motion. I have a motion from Kathy and a second Dennis. Okay. Kathy, yes. Pat, yes. Yes. John, yes. Ly, are you abstaining on this one? Yes. and Dennis. Yes.

Okay. So, four to one with Lyall abstaining. And the last set that we are going to discuss is the January 6, 2026 meeting minutes. Anybody have a question or comment? I would move we approve this second. Got a motion from Dennis and a second from Trisha. Nathan. Uh Dennis. Yes. Yes. John, yes. Pat, yes.

And happy. Yes. Woohoo. Thank you. All right. Uh, we're going to do the oath to the witnesses. Greg, you got something to um say? I'm sure Greg will Would you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under the penalties of perjury? The testimony you are about to offer will be the truth. If so, answer I do. They put your hand down. Thank you. He's so serious. It's [laughter] Thank you. Nathan, we have any old business?

Uh, not that I know of.

Okay, we're moving on to new business. We have 26- C-seeking a special exception approval to permit a firearms dealership at his at a home occupation and that is a traffic generated home occupation at 1382 North Morris Drive. Staff report. Sure thing. So, turn off Kathy off the uh screen there. So, this is 26CS SE1 uh special exception located at 1382 North Morris Drive in extra territorial jurisdiction zoned R1 single family residential just under 6 acres total. Uh what is being requested is a special exception for a traffic generating home occupation specifically for a firearms dealer's license. Uh nature of the use is to obtain a FFL as a dealer. Uh no orders or this would be by order only. No inventory would be kept. However, because of federal law, they do have some rules that basically say that they have to treat this as quote unquote retail. by that nature. We have to treat this as traffic generating home occup as a traffic generating home occupation in order to say yes in order to get their license you comply with zoning. Um otherwise this is a fairly very low level uh traffic generated from occupation minimal floor area abuse for the business. Uh basically I believe the petitioner told me that this would basically be transactions over the kitchen table. However, maximum area would be up to 645 square ft which is 20% of the living area of the home.

Hours via by appointment generally in the evenings perhaps on the weekends as well. Uh about three customers per month. Uh parking is on the existing driveway. No additional employees and no signage is proposed. Uh reference aerial highlighted in blue is petitioner's property. Closer view showing the home and the circle drive here. As you can see, there is existing two spaces on the driveway as well as the garage itself. So any customer traffic, even if there was more than one vehicle, could still be accommodated on that driveway. Oblique view for reference showing the other homes in the subdivision. Uh excuse me, this is not a platted subdivision, but it is a split subdivision. Going to staff suggested conditions. Generally, the criteria are in staff's opinion pretty favorable because this doesn't have any exterior changes and virtually would be indistinguishable from what it is right now. But there are some suggested conditions. One is pretty standard. Uh two is a restatement of the code itself that you won't exceed 20% of the living area. Uh number three is as well uh a standard statement. And then number four is uh based upon the statement that there wouldn't be more than three customers per month. Uh, I suggest bumping that up by one, allowing for up to four customers per month or an average so that we can have some sort of threshold if business becomes popular. Um, and it starts to exceed that four per month, come back for uh re-review and and further approval at that point. So, uh, that's my summary of the staff report. Any questions for me?

I believe so. Kathy, you have anything? No, not at this time.

All right. Will the petitioner please come to the podium, state your name, and kind of fill us in on what Nathan uh has not happily. Um Weston [clears throat] Perry from 1382 North Borches Drive, Columbus City. And u I really don't have a lot to add aside from this is um a business that I used to run at my old house. This is just sort of a repeat of that with a federal firearms license. When you move, uh that license is not really transferable from one um one location to another. Also, that was in Noble County as well. So, maybe some slight differences and it's been a while as well. So, I only bring that up to let you know that this is something that I have done before. I've um I've worked with the local ATF agent out of Fort Wayne already. Um it's really more of a hobby than a business. It just happens to be a hobby that I need a license for, federal firearms license, and a retail license. So, um I I don't really have a lot to add, but I'd be happy to answer any questions that you all might have.

So, like when you I'm assuming like you order a gun for a customer, he comes to you, does that like once you receive that before he picks it up, does that go in like a like a locked ball or how's that? I do I do have a gun safe. Um if it fits in the safe, then I would put it in there. Sometimes uh some guns may be larger than what my what my safe is, but um it's the you know the house is locked whenever we're not there and it would basically stay in the box until the customer arrives. Okay. Yeah.

So, as far as having a the FFA doesn't make you have like a like a boulder room or anything? No. No requirements for anything like that. It's actually um uh really it's it would be um just like personal firearms really. There's no in Indiana laws to keep them uh locked and so any sort of vault or anything. So

I I have just a couple of questions. Um Mr. Perry, um will there be any um test once the customer gets there to pick up um the firearms? Will there be any to any kind of practice testing or anything like that with the weapon while he's on your property.

Uh I I wouldn't say that there would be any need. However, it would be something that um I wouldn't be opposed to unless there's any sort of regulations uh um basically preventing that from happening. I do I've got my own range in the backyard. Uh you saw the the picture from from the top. So, I've got a really nice range set up with uh railroad ties uh backed by a bunch of dirt that there's there's no possible way that a round would make it through the back stop. So, it's something I've been using myself along with family and friends for years um safely and no no housing behind it. Uh the range itself actually it's just out of view. It's just south of this particular view. Um, so you can see where the it sort of the triangle meets at the top there. The range is basically kind of right there uh at that triangle. So you would be shooting uh sort of up and to the right a little bit into the back stop. So no no rounds ever make it off property.

Is there is there a stream behind that? Yes. That's my thought. Y I think at one time when I was a kid, there was a house, a summer house that was back. You couldn't see it. You could only see in the winter time when the leaves were all gone. You could see the roof of it because it was down in I'm not sure that I think it might have been a little ways to the south.

Maybe the the river does curve around to the east just past where where you can see it here, but um it's all cornfield now. And actually what um so I've got the back stop and then there's the creek and then behind that you'll see what looks like a dark area in the that's actually a much larger embankment that's probably 15 ft high okay behind mine uh even yet. So is there is there um are there any regulations or laws that would prevent something like that? I mean I'd be happy to to just tell customers no you can't shoot here if that's required. Right.

Um, no, not that I I mean, we just want to make sure your your homeowners insurance and everything knows what's going on so that you're insured. I don't know of anything right off hand that would prevent it. Okay. Well, if we find that there is, again, I I have no [clears throat] problem telling customers that they can't shoot at at this range. It's not um I have no intention, in fact, no interest at all uh in any sort of public range ever. I don't want just anybody else.

Just anybody. My customers are friends and family or maybe a friend of a friend, a referral. So, it's people, most of my customers, uh, truth be told, have probably already been shooting with me at my house because they're friends and family. Um, I don't I don't want strangers there shooting firearms on my property now and I I won't in the future. Yeah. The only other question, Thank you. The only other question I had is what the suggested conditions was a maximum of four um customers per month. Is there is there an issue with that four is too restrictive or you think that's probably going to be a good number?

No, based on uh based on the last time I did this, four would actually be pretty high. Um I I especially if we look at it as an average, which I think is the way it's worded here. Um, this is, like I said, this is just a hobby for friends and family to save some money more than anything. So, if if this goes anything like the last time, um, even four a month, I would be surprised uh, if that happened on even a semi-regular basis. And if it if it ever um, to your point, if it ever does grow to the point where that it, you know, it looks like we are going to start exceeding that, you know, I'd be happy to come back and and re-evaluate. Yeah, almost 50 guns a year.

Yeah, it was I think that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. For a for a hobby like this, that would be okay. Quite a bit. Thank you. You have anything else, Kathy? No, that's great. Thank you. Does anybody else have anything for the petitioner? Not exactly for the petitioner, I guess. I'm I'm assuming all the neighbors were made aware and nobody has Yeah. Um or advertised,

right? Uh it's for your benefit. Uh it's advertised in the newspaper by state law. And then we have rules about adjacent property owners being notified. It's to a property ship two property ownerships or 660 ft, whichever comes first. In this particular case, because he's got field off to the east, it probably hit that 660 mark the rest of the way around. I believe it wound up picking up. I could look, but I believe it picked up pretty much everybody on Mor Drive there. I think there were um I think Amanda told me like six dozen signs something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the sign was posted on the 21st for the instructions I was given as well.

We did get I do know of one person you called to ask what was up and obviously we answered their questions sufficiently. So now the people that you would sell to, they would they be required to have a permit or well uh and gun owner no permit in Indiana actually um federal law there is a an FBI background check that happens for every customer. So um in in reality that's probably more thorough than Indiana state police commit and that is a federal law. Um

they don't have a sentencing. They don't. They don't. And I'm kind of glad they don't. So that but that background check happens with every sale. It's good to know. Does anybody else have any questions for petitioner? Thank you. Thank you. Is am I am I needed to stay for the remainder of the You can hear stay and hear the outcome. Oh yeah. Thank you. [laughter] Is there anyone else here um wish to speak on behalf of the petitioner?

See, is anyone here wish to speak against the petition? Seeing none, I close the floor and open to board discussion or a motion. I make a motion for the approval of 26- C-sections that was suggested. I second that.

I have a motion motion from Dennis and a second from Kathy for the approval of 26- C-SE-1. I think we have a roll call vote, please. Sure thing. Uh Kathy Gardner, yes. Pat Hatcher, yes. John Kissinger, yes. Well, who Q Michael? Yes. Dennis Warick, yes.

Okay, I have a 5 to0 vote there for you. And just just so you know, yours is one of the rare ones that we ever get because you're not in Columbia City. You're in the two-mile juris jurisdictional area. So we don't see you guys very often. It's a rarity. Oh, the January meeting that variance was in the jurisdiction area, too. Yeah. Go figure. It looks like she's actually tearing down thing down and moving it clear out to the the lower end of the property. I have not been by there. So,

ton of dirt brought in on that low section. I probably uh probably should go check that out. So, yeah. Where the drag comes around and then before it starts up the embankment, they they brought in Didn't they say there were some piles and piles and piles of dirt? Yeah, it's not exactly flood slang, but there's definite whatever level soil down there. So, yeah,

I do have one quick other business or actually more of a report. Um, as Kathy kind of alluded before the meeting, um, we are going to discontinue use of go to webinar uh for public viewing I guess uh in it came about back in 2020 as a very effective way of getting public participation electronically. Uh it is great because it has it forces u audience members to register and keeps track of actually whether they uh viewed and for how long and so on. Uh which is really good for public record keeping. so that we can treat them as an interested party just as if they showed up. And it was a very effective way for uh submitting comments as well uh as opposed to say Teams or or Zoom at the time uh where you potentially could have gobs of people trying to say stuff all at once and kind of a a free-for-all. Um, since that time, uh, and especially over the past year and a half since we've started live streaming straight to YouTube, the number of people registering on go to webinar has fallen down to maybe a couple people per year. Over the past two years, even the big meeting that we had at the county back in August where we had this entire building literally filled with audience, uh, we had about eight people on go to webinar street. We had about 250 on the YouTube stream. So that indicates to me that people are really if they want to be here, they will be here. And if they just want to view it, they'll view it via via YouTube, which is a very native, very easy to use platform. Uh we also

subscribe to it. It's a subscription service. good webinar is. So, it's about three grand per year and the utilization is just so low that it doesn't make sense to continue um for member participation or if we have those cases where the petitioner may need to participate, we'll use teams or zoom or something like that where we lock down exactly who can log in. Um, and again, Teams is is a pretty common um platform. Uh, Zoom is too. So, we'll get that sorted out by the time Kathy goes down south again next year. Um, but in seriousness, uh, it it just and we pay for teams via our subscription to Office 365. So, it's built in. Um, we are pulling all of the videos that from 2020 till now off of code webinar. So those will be saved um and not lost or record uh debate about whether we actually upload those to YouTube or they're just in our archives. So that's a long long story just to keep you up to date as to what's going on uh with that. For the most part you don't really notice it.

Um but in case you do need to be electronic at some point will be using a different platform. Very good. Good to know. And I guess one other quick note, Dennis asked me, while we do have a fifth Monday in March, keep in mind that that's spring break week, so the calendar scratches it off. The first actual fifth money training Monday training session won't be until June. I won't be here hopefully, but uh we'll figure out something that will be uh applicable for everybody's education benefit come June. Kathy, do you have any snow this year?

No. No. No snow. Angels. Oh, that's horrible.

Okay. Thank you. Nathan, do we have anything else to report? I don't think so. And how about an adjournment motion? I'll make a motion. All right, Kathy, you can second it. I'll second that. All right. Okay, we'll call that a journ then. Good luck, sir. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Kathy. See you Saturday or sometime after that. After that. Okay. All right. [music]

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