At its Dec. 1 meeting, Hillsdale City Council extended acting City Manager Doug Terry’s contract and the Planning Commission announced its plan to change a city ordinance, which currently prohibits student housing on Oak, Howder, River, Fayette, and Union streets.
Oak Street and parts of Howder, River, Fayette, and Union streets are located in zoning district RD-1, which permits only one-family and two-family residences. There are multiple student homes on Oak, Howder, River, Fayette, and Union Streets, but these students do not qualify as “one family” or “two families” according to city ordinance.
This means dormitory or student housing is prohibited in RD-1, even though students already rent homes in RD-1. Fortunately for students, Hillsdale is not enforcing the zoning ordinance in RD-1 because the city is aware of the commission’s plan to change it.
“According to current zoning ordinances, student housing isn’t allowed in RD-1,” said Alan Beeker, zoning administrator for the city of Hillsdale. “We’re trying to get the zoning ordinance caught up.”
RD-1 is one of the largest residential zoning districts in the city, so the city ordinance needs to be updated soon, Beeker said.“We’re hoping [to have] a resolution to be presented to council at the next meeting — right now we’re trying to juggle both the zoning and the City Master Plan, but the council is excited about doing it.”
City ordinance states that “Development in the RD-1 one-family and two-family residential district is limited to single-family and two-family dwellings plus such other uses as schools, parks, churches and certain public facilities which serve residents of the district,” according to Article 3, Division 3, Section 36-191 of the Hillsdale Code of Ordinances.
“They’re not enforcing the ordinance right now because they know we’re looking at changing it,” Beeker said. “Our attorney came up with changing some definitions in the ordinance, half-fixing it, but we want to fully fix it.”
In other business, the council decided to give City Manager Linda Brown more time to recover from illness and extend Terry’s contract until Jan. 6. The contract, which is a Shared Services Agreement between the city of Litchfield and Hillsdale, permits Terry to perform the duties of city manager for both Litchfield and Hillsdale until Hillsdale manager Brown is able to resume office.
“SSA was a unique concept our city attorney Loren came up with, it’s a cost-effective service to both communities, and it’s been a good interim solution,” Terry said.
Councilperson Brian Watkins called to extend Terry’s contract, to “give us time to see how Linda is doing.”
The council also issued a traffic control order for Oak Street to place “no parking” signs where the street’s double yellow line resumes after its intersection with Academy Street.
