Special Use Variance Saga

January

Back in January when I first contacted our town about opening up a coffee shop on Mario's property I thought this would be a simple enough endeavor. Getting Mario's support to use the property, and my husband's support for starting a new business felt like my biggest hurdles, and I jumped over those fairly easily. Everyone I shared with was in such agreement that this would be an incredible opportunity- not just for Mario and his investment property, but for me as a business owner.

When I called up our town I was told by our planning committee that I would need to fill out an application for a special use variance. You can see the application here. Without previous experience it's hard to know how difficult this process is compared to other towns but it felt like a lot to me as just a member of the public. I learned quickly how much I didn't know about our local government!

"The Whitestown Board of Zoning Appeals (WBZA) is a quasi-judicial body that conducts public hearings for matters which applicants are seeking relief from strict application of a zoning ordinance. The Board hears applications for use variances, variances from development standards, special exceptions for uses, and appeals from administrative decisions. Further, the BZA functions to give greater assurance that zoning is fair and equitable, that it is properly interpreted, and does not cause excessive hardship."

Seemed like my initial thoughts of just making a few phone calls to the town was going to not cut it.

Mario, my husband Taylor, and my mother-in-law Jeannie helped me draw up site plans, mail certified letters to all the neighbors, notarize agreements, put it in the newspaper, and so much more. It felt like a full time job filling out that application and the relief I felt turning it in was huge!

This map shows you where 607 is on Main St. The property itself has a unique zoning with light industrial in the back and residential in the front. The main business district is where that light purple color is- it's a 4 min walk from other restaurants in the legacy core (what our town refers to our old downtown as).

February

I knew part of the application would be that a month after I submitted it I would appear before the BZA in a public hearing. What I wasn't aware of was the fact that the town's planning committee, who I had been conversing with for a month, was going to give either a favorable recommendation or an unfavorable recommendation to the BZA members and then the BZA members would decide if we were granted the variance or not. When the planning staff came out with an unfavorable recommendation I was really surprised because there had been no indicators in any of our communications that what I was asking for was not in agreement with their plans for this part of our town. We were discouraged, frustrated, and confused.

We rallied up a lot of community support in this time of the process and looking back now it still makes me a bit teary. We received 100 letters of support for the variance to go through, lots of people cheered us on, and we got a ton of signatures as well. We were determined to present our case well to the BZA and this month required so much research and time dedicated merely to this aspect of opening up Hattie's.

Meeting at Hattie's to pray for the hearing with some of our close friends & family.

March

March finally came and so did our public hearing. I was beyond nervous about standing up in front of a board of people for the first time but we did it! Our parents, children, friends and siblings filled the room as well as members of the community who were both in favor of the coffee shop and those opposed to it. It was an intense hour and it ended in them all voting YES! Best night!!!!!

A big group of us went out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate!

We did it! Thankful for these guys saying YES to this dream of mine & couldn't have gotten this far without them. It's been special for us to get to know Mario better and his sweet kids through this process. Our kids all get along really well together and we are grateful Mario has given us this awesome opportunity to use his property for Hattie's. He's become like family that's for sure.

Our sweet people! They listened to me talk municipal jargon for months and believed we could win this variance. Grateful for their support beyond words!