Wellington's businesses rally for one of their own

By Gary Raham
Wellington Correspondent

News travels fast in a small town like Wellington, even though some details may get mangled in the process.

When a sign appeared outside BEI Landscaping on the southwest corner of Sixth and Cleveland that said "Going out of business. Zoning variance request rejected," owners of a number of local businesses began calling Lou Kinzli, owner of the property, to offer their support.

Kinzli has leased the property to commercial users, including BEI owner Kevin Hodges, since 2001, although the block from Sixth to Fifth streets is zoned residential. A gas spill that occurred at the nearby Loaf & Jug in the spring of 2001 prevented Kinzli from developing the block as commercial, which is his long-term intension. "I want to put something really nice in that block," said Kinzli recently, "but the economy just doesn't support that now."

Reggie Kemp, a member of the Wellington Planning Commission, said, "Town staff recommended that Mr. Kinzli acknowledge that, in as much as he was operating commercial activities on the property, he should be required to ask for a land use change from residential to commercial. This change would require him to make certain improvements to the property, which he is reticent to make at this time."

One of those improvements involves putting in a paved parking lot. Because the property is 2.5 feet below flood level, this would mean an expense of about $102,000, according to Hodges. "Financially, this just isn't feasible," said Kinzli.

The planning commission suggested an extension of current use through January 2006. This recommendation would have been voted on at the July 26 meeting of the town board, but neither Kinzli nor Hodges was present. "We don't like to take action on such issues without representation," said Cynthia Sullivan, deputy town clerk.

Kinzli and Hodges were prepared not to "fight the town's wishes" until the inaccurate sign appeared, authored by a disgruntled employee of BEI. Then, the phone calls of support began from Richard Seaworth, Wendell Nelson, Bill Schneider and other business owners.

"What surprised me was the unanimous response of the business community," said Kinzli as he displayed a petition containing over a hundred signatures in support of extending the variance.

Many of these supporters appeared at the subsequent Aug. 9 town board meeting. However, the key piece of evidence that seemed to sway the board's final decision was contained in a letter provided by Kinzli's attorney that stated that the state would not entertain an "all clear" finding on the gas spill until sampling from the monitoring wells is completed for an additional three calendar quarters.

"According to the attorney's letter," said Kemp, "this prohibited Mr. Kinzli from developing the property at this time."

Kemp also explained that the only way to extend the commercial use without a land use change was to find that extenuating circumstances existed that posed a hardship to the applicant. The board acknowledged the existence of that hardship and unanimously voted to extend the nonconforming use of the property until October 2006.

Whatever the details, Kinzli was pleased with how the business community, just recently united as a Chamber of Commerce, rallied to his defense, and how the board responded to the evidence provided. "They saw that closing the business was not the right thing to do," he said.