21-02-2025
Revamped city of Adrian zoning ordinance 'is far from being a ready to publish product'
ADRIAN — The process of revamping and completely overhauling Adrian's zoning ordinance is expected to continue over the next several months and could prolong all the way through the summer and possibly into the fall.
Earlier this month, Adrian's planning commission conducted somewhat of a read-through of the city's zoning ordinance, which has been rewritten, stylized and reformatted with the help from consulting firm SmithGroup.
The partnership between the city of Adrian and SmithGroup for the purpose of rewriting the zoning ordinance and bringing it into alignment with the city's comprehensive plan, is approaching two years.
In the spring of 2023, the city and SmithGroup agreed on the rewriting process and through grant funding from the Redevelopment Ready Communities program, which is part of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Adrian secured financial support to put toward the endeavor to the tune of $25,000 — or at least half of the $50,000 fixed fee for services.
At the time, then Adrian City Administrator Greg Elliott, said the decision to update the zoning ordinance was to bring it 'into line with good practice and modern ways of thinking.'
'(The ordinance) is quite outdated and internally conflicting in a number of ways,' Elliott told The Daily Telegram in April 2023. 'It makes sense to just kind of scrap what we have and start fresh, and that's what this proposal does.'
From April 2023: Adrian City Commission to consider complete overhaul of 'outdated' zoning ordinance
Now at such a stage to review and consider the reworked zoning ordinance proposal, Adrian planning commissioners are still finding clerical errors and issues. A discussion of the draft ordinance at the planning commission's Feb. 4 meeting resulted in several members of the commission finding 'a number of issues' relative to the proposed ordinance.
Adrian's planning commission meets monthly on the first Tuesday of the month to establish and enforce regulations for the use of public and private land.
Planning commission Chairman Mike Jacobitz was among the commissioners critical of the reworked ordinance, saying what was reviewed at the Feb. 4 meeting 'is far from being a ready to publish product.'
'There is a lot of work yet to be done on this for a whole bunch of issues. In fact, I'm kind of disappointed that it's not close to being a finished product,' he said.
Other inconsistencies were voiced by commissioners Robert Love and Nancy Weatherby.
The updated zoning ordinance proposal seeks to reduce the number of residential districts in the city of Adrian from six to four. The industrial districts are proposed to be reduced from three to two. The proposal also eliminates a chapter known as the 'parking district,' which is now covered under the 'development standards' chapter.
In Adrian's current zoning ordinance, which was last modified in January 2024, the ordinance districts were defined by enumerating all individual parcels. In the newly proposed ordinance, they are defined as part of the zoning map.
Whether for better or worse, Jacobitz said, many of the changes made to the ordinance are to simplify the previous document. The general approach of updating the zoning ordinance 'has been solid,' he commented.
'It's greatly simplified,' Jacobitz said, adding the number of pages in the ordinance has been reduced from more than 270 to less than 200 pages.
More: Adrian City Commission takes initial step in recruitment, finding new city administrator
Rezoning was slimmed down, which eliminated multiple pages from the ordinance and opened the potential for more housing options, said Adrian planning and zoning Administrator Jeremiah Klemann.
For example, it would become easier for residential-zoned properties in the city to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs), such as apartments above a garage.
The intent for updating the zoning ordinance was to make the document rewrite based on the form and function of how everything is today instead of the way the old ordinance was. One of the proposed changes in the ordinance is to enforce less parking near/on business frontages to make business exteriors more attractive for customers.
'It can be confusing to read through this, and I can say that as someone who's going to have to administer this. It is very confusing,' Klemann said.
Commissioners were tasked at the Feb. 4 meeting with sending all comments/feedback about necessary fixes to SmithGroup so that continued refinement of the ordinance takes place.
Support local news: Subscribe for all the latest local developments, breaking news, and high school and college sports content.
'I think this has many more meetings, and I think we need to curtail that and focus that,' Love said.
Jacobitz estimated the planning commission would be approaching the summer or fall at the earliest before the new zoning ordinance could be adopted. Until then, the rules and regulations in Adrian's current zoning ordinance remain in effect.
Before the rewritten ordinance is finalized and adopted, a public hearing and presentation would be held prior to the final draft's presentation for consideration by the Adrian City Commission.
— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@ or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LenaweeHeineman.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian's zoning ordinance needs more attention from planning commission
