Malta City Council 'rights a wrong' from 2007

At the Malta City Council meeting last Tuesday night, the board members approved a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) following a public hearing so they and the mayor could undo a mistake made by the council in 2007 – well before any of the board members or current mayor were in office – by allowing a residential area in the Central Business District.

Prior to the public hearing, Malta Mayor Shyla Jones explained that a CUP is a zoning exception which allows a property owner use of his land in a way not otherwise permitted within the particular zoning district, in this case the Downtown Business District of the City of Malta. She added that if passed, anyone can use the CUP, but they must stick to the stipulations of the permit to the tee.

“What Dan (O’Brien, County Attorney) said was to make it very specific because once it becomes part of zoning anybody can do it,” said Mayor Jones. “It is very specific because any of the people we told no on putting apartments downtown won’t be able to now unless they can meet these exact conditions.”

The couple seeking the conditional use permit – Larry and Sue Matthews – told the City Council that in 2007 they came to the City of Malta for a building permit in order to add an apartment to the commercial building they own in downtown Malta (the building currently houses such businesses as Spare Change and Sew Sassy.) Matthews said the permit was viewed by the City and he was told that since it was commercial property the City Council couldn’t grant him a permit and he would have to contact the state. Matthews contacted the state about a building permit and was told that the state had no authority and he would have to go back to the City.

“The City said we can’t give you a permit because it is a commercial property,” Matthews recalled. “But (the mayor at the time) said, ‘as far as I am concerned, go ahead and build it. You won’t have any trouble with the City’.”

Matthews said that everyone on the council at the time was aware of what the couple planned to do with the construction. He said that following the construction of the apartment that a fence was also built – following another building permit request which was never approved -- but said that again, there was no objection to building it.

“We went ahead and built the property,” Matthews said.

The building was originally constructed in 1981, according to Matthews, and was first dedicated to real-estate offices. Matthews ran a business out of one of the offices until 1986 when he moved to the old Ford building. At that time, he started renting out space to local businesses until most of the renters closed up shop some five years later and left the building without tenants.

“There just wasn’t a demand for it,” said Matthews.

When their youngest son graduated from high school, the couple started spending time in the south in winter and decided to sell their Malta home and build the apartment in the commercial building.

“We tried to make it so it wasn’t embarrassing for the business community downtown,” Matthews said. “As far as I know I haven’t had anyone complain about me being there…quite honestly, if we’re not allowed to use this as an apartment building, then the chances of that being rented as a commercial property are almost zero. I’ve got five years of experience that tells me that.”

Matthews added that he is currently trying to sell the building but before he does he wants to have the apartment situation resolved so the next owner isn’t saddled with a headache.

The conditional use permit the Matthews sought would allow for an approximately 1,400 square foot, two bedroom, one and a half bathroom apartment (with a den and office) which includes a 1,600 square foot carport with drive through gates, a 500 square foot single-car garage and off-street parking for up to two vehicles.

“If you decided to go forward with this,” Mayor Jones informed the Council, “this would be the only way somebody else could do a ground-floor apartment in the central business district … the good part of that is it’s going to be really tough for anyone else to do that in the Central Business District .Somebody else could copy it, no doubt, but they would have to follow these requirements exactly.”

Councilwomen Bonnie Wiederrick voiced her concerns that a new owner might not live in the building’s apartment and therefore might not have the same pride of ownership as the Matthews have over the years. She also voiced her concerns over making decisions about a dwelling that has no prior building zone approval on the books.

“We want to make a wrong a right off of absolutely no approvals,” she said.

Wiederrick added that she didn’t feel right about allowing one group of people to have a rental apartment in the business district after denying others the same requests earlier.

“What we are doing here is setting a standard that absolutely no else can meet,” Wiederrick added. “We have nothing approved anywhere that says that this could be done.”

Wiederrick told Matthews that she knows that he had gotten verbal approval at the time and apologized that the issue wasn’t taken care of correctly nearly a decade ago.

Mayor Jones echoed those sentiments.

“Unfortunately, this council doesn’t work on verbal agreements,” she said. “This council is having to deal with something that they shouldn’t have had to and it was never brought council, which was not right, but that is in the past and we can’t change that.”

An initial vote on passing the CUP ended in a 2-2 tie with Councilwoman Wiederrick and Councilman William Crowder voting “no” and Councilmen David Rummel and Warren Abrahamson voting yes. In a tie vote, Mayor Jones had the final vote and voted against passing the permit.

Councilwoman Wiederrick then asked if a new stipulation could be added to the CUP in which the owner of the building would also have to live in the building’s apartment and could not rent it to a different person. The owner-occupied stipulation was added to the CUP and the motion was approved in a 4-0 vote.

“I appreciate your guy’s consideration because we were in a bad spot here,” said Matthews.