MONROE — Members of the public will have the opportunity to speak April 5 on the polarizing issue of the Rural Fire District’s 8th Street fire station.
The public hearing will be the second to final step before the Common Council votes on the Towns of Monroe and Clarno’s zoning map and zoning text amendment requests regarding the station.
Currently, the building in question is zoned as a Suburban Mixed Use (SMU) property, which, per the city’s code, does not allow indoor institutional as a conditional use.
A March 11 memorandum from City Planning Consultant Michael Slanvey said that “a fire station is considered an Indoor Institutional land use by the City’s Zoning Ordinance, falling under the ‘government facilities’ term explicitly listed as an example of an Indoor Institutional land use.”
The towns are requesting that the property be changed to Neighborhood Mixed Use instead, which would allow indoor institutional as a conditional use as long as the towns were granted permission for such from the Plan Commission.
The second request is for a text amendment that would allow all SMU properties in the city to apply for indoor institutional as a conditional use, while the change of zoning request affects only the property mentioned.
If the council votes in favor of either recommendation, the RFD would then have to go back through the Plan Commission to apply for a conditional use permit.
More than a zoning change
Members of the community both in and out of city limits have expressed mixed reactions to the issues surrounding the RFD fire station zoning.
When the RFD purchased the property in late 2020, its zoning did not allow for indoor institutional. Some council members expressed concern in previous zoning meetings that the change would have a negative impact on the city’s tax revenue. The location brings in $14,000 per year in property taxes.
“This zoning thing would be good, I understand, if you’re a resident of the Town of Monroe or the Town of Clarno, but is necessarily for Monroe?” Alder Richard Thoman said at the March 15 Common Council meeting. “I mean, we lose a revenue stream.”
In January, the council voted against changing the property’s zoning to Institutional after the plan commission had unanimously voted to recommend the change.
Others have voiced support of the proposal.
In the March 11 memorandum, Slavney said that he “has no objection to the proposed zoning map amendment from the SMU zoning district to the NMU zoning district.”
The zoning text amendment, while also passed by the plan commission, serves as more of a backup option in the case that the map amendment gets denied.
“As I sit here tonight, it bothers me to think that money comes before public safety and property and it disturbs me when I see this,” alder Donna Douglas said. “We are a community of people that work together, play together. We volunteer, these people send their kids to school that are outside of the township, they shop here, they buy gas, and I guess I just don’t understand the mentality of what’s going on. I think that as a city we need to work together as a community because we are a community of people working together for a better tomorrow.”