US: Plans for new Oklahoma greenhouse move forward
Commissioners were working their way through a multi-step process crafted as a compromise between nearby residents who don't want a permissive commercial zoning classification at their backdoors and property owners and businessmen who want to open Bedrock Nursery on a 1.4-acre tract at 1802 NW 67th. The initial proposal a C-4 Tourist Commercial District zoning on the tract was necessary because C-4 is the most restrictive zoning now in city code that allows a nursery/greenhouse, which is want Bedrock Nursery owners Dennis Totte and Billy Franklin want on the site. Nearby residential property owners, who signed a petition in opposition, said while they don't mind a greenhouse, they don't want such intense commercial zoning adjacent to their neighborhoods because of the variety of other uses permitted under C-4.
While the initial proposal was for C-4 zoning and a binding site plan that would specify a nursery/greenhouse and nothing else on the lot, Totte and a majority of nearby residents said they would accept C-1 Local Commercial District (the most restrictive commercial zoning).
The problem: C-1 doesn't allow nurseries and greenhouses. It would, as a Use Permitted on Review, under the recommendation made Thursday by the City Planning Commission. The recommendation actually adds nursery and/or garden center as the ninth Use Permitted on Review use, a process that allows a specific use in a zoning district, but only after the applicant goes before the City Planning Commission and wins approval. Typically, each zoning district includes specific uses that are permitted without prior city approval.
Thursday's recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council for a decision at its May 14 meeting. If council members agree to amend the C-1 uses, Totte and Franklin still would have one more step: submitting a Use Permitted on Review (UPOR) request to the planning commission for their nursery/greenhouse (commissioners already have zoned the tract C-1). City planners have said that decision could be made at the commission's May 16 meeting if the applicants file the appropriate request.
