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March 25, 2009

Downtown Goshen building to become church

By Jesse Davis

A developmental variance to allow Cornerstone Christian Church of Deliverance to temporarily locate on Main Street in Goshen drew a large response from both sides of the fence during the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting Tuesday afternoon.

The church leadership made a variance request seeking an alternate location while their main facility at 900 N. Sixth St. is demolished and a new building constructed. Through variance approval, they sought to locate at 120 N. Main St.

Several members of the church as well as staff and the pastor appeared to speak in favor of the request and to offer compromises as to not cause any undue hardships on local businesses.

Parking was the main issue, as the Main Street building has none of its own. An e-mail from First Fridays Director Grace Hunsberger was read sharing her concern that the already congested parking situation during First Fridays events could be worsened. A letter from Yoder, Ainley, Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP, also included parking as one of its concerns. A representative from First Quality Cleaners, located in the same block as the building in question, stated parking as one of his concerns as well.

Goshen Chamber of Commerce President David Daugherty, Downtown Goshen, Inc., President Gina Leichty and Eric Kanagy all raised multiple concerns focused on downtown retail issues, including the concerted efforts by business leaders to maintain a solid retail corridor down Main Street. They also said they worried it would affect the ability of the property owner to find an interested lessee for the location after the church moves as it would be occupied in the meantime. Daugherty called the proposed location the most valuable open piece of property downtown.

After much debate the variance was approved with seven conditions, including specifications on where church employees could park, a limit of six special events on Saturdays per year with a limit of 100 attendees and requirements on small group and youth group meetings. The variance must be reapproved in one year.

Following the church variance vote, board members heard a variance request from RedPost and Lucid Energy Technologies regarding research, development, assembly and recycling of e-waste at their facilities, both located at 118 E. Washington St. Gina Leichty represented Lucid while Eric Kanagy represented RedPost.

The variance should have been sought before both businesses began operating and neither members of the board nor City Planner Joe Hauflaire knew why it hadn’t occurred then.

The variance request was approved with multiple conditions regarding commercial production, hours of operation, what type of research and development would be permitted, semi-trailer deliveries and number of employees.

Multiple use variances were approved for Maple City Health Care, located at 213 and 215 Middlebury St. The variances allow for addition of a second story where the additional construction would exceed the normally allowed square footage, for parking to be permitted at 503 N. Sixth St., and for smaller setbacks.

Two unrelated setback variance requests, one regarding a garage and one regarding a shed, were both approved with minor alterations. Each allowed the construction to occur, but also made compromises on how much farther than normally permitted the setbacks were allowed.

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