Agenda - 08-24-1992 - Laserfiche WebLink

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7 not any motor vehicles on the parcel. The Zoning Officer has reviewed the application, the site plan and all supporting documentation and has found that no error was made in respect to this property in the Zoning Atlas when zoning was adopted for Bingham Township on September 2, 1981. The current owners of the property purchased the first six acres on February 9, 1984. The twelve acre lot to the north was purchased in January of 1991. Jim Hinkley noted that currently there is a three bay garage on this property and automobiles are being refurbished. Parts are being taken off of automobiles in the salvage yard and being used to refurbish automobiles to make them road worthy again. The parcel is also currently being used for insurance purposes where damaged automobiles -axe stored until there is a determination by the insurance company on what to do with them. It is also being used for the storage of cars which are towed off the streets of Chapel Hill. The recommendation is that, provided the Planning Board and County Commissioners find in the negative, the Zoning Officer recommends disapproval of the request. COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OR THE PLANNING BOARD In answer to a question from Mr. Waddell, Mr. Hinkley stated that the eastern most portion toward Ferguson Road is in the upper most area of the University Lake Watershed. PUBLIC COMMENTS ROBERT SMITH, lawyer for the Combs in this matter, stated that the only way Mr. Combs can continue this operation is to rezone this property to EC -5. This would acknowledge that this was used for commercial purposes at the time the zoning became effective on September 2, 1981. This matter started with one complaint to the Orange County zoning office in the fall of 1991. The property was purchased in May of 1979 by J.D. and Doris Martin for the purpose of storing junk cars and it was used for that purpose the entire time they owned the property. They called Orange County and was told that this was a permitted use. He stressed that if this is allowed to be rezoned, it will not be allowing anything new, but a continuation of something that has been there for quite some time. Mr. Combs has tried real hard to be a good neighbor. He has kept the cars away from the road and away from the adjoining property. He has kept a natural barrier between where he keeps the cars and the adjacent property. In addition, after they bought the property, they built a house on the property and that is where they live. No cars can be seen from Ferguson Road. He presented a petition with 170 signatures in support of this proposal. If the person who complained about this property had approached Mr. Combs, he would have worked out the problems. one of the concerns was that there were too many cars on the property. in response to this complaint, Mr. Combs removed 200 cars from the property in December, 1991. Another concern was that Mr. Combs is working on cars. There is a garage on the property. Originally, Mr. Combs had applied for a building permit and received a certificate of occupancy from orange County to store some of his personal cars. He has applied for a home occupation permit which would let Mr. Combs work on cars. Mr. Smith feels he can meet the requirements for that and work on cars under the present zoning. The problem is that there is not a home occupation permit for storing cars. They went to the Board of Adjustment which suggested that they apply for a rezoning.