In looking back, I realize that my last post that talked about our location... specifically mentioned how great Chesterton was. That sentiment was very short lived, as, well, I no longer live there.
So what happened to Chesterton? Well, let me tell you.
If you're on our facebook page, you probably know much of this already as a lot of this has been posted there, as this all was going on.
So, at Chesterton, the barn was being worked on, albeit slowly, due to the order of things needing to be done and the schedules of all of the contractors. This was right about Christmas time 2020. So with the barn being on hold at the time, we ended up putting a small room in the basement, so we could move the chins in there, temporarily. With the chins there, appointments started up again.
One such appointment went to the wrong house. I found this out when the person arrived, as they had this story to tell me about how they went to the wrong house, said they were there to see the chinchilla lady, were told they had the wrong house... but the guy knew which house it was, and was driving past there, so they should follow him and he would point it out. This seemed innocent enough at the time, helpful neighbor, cool.
...until I got a call from code enforcement which said that it was reported that I have / breed chinchillas and that I'm running a business out of the house. The guy at code enforcement was actually very helpful, and explained to me that I might be able to continue doing what I was doing, if I applied for (and was granted) a use variance.
So I looked into how to do that, got the form to fill out. We spent days on end filling out this paperwork, as every question practically required an essay type answer. The cost of applying for this use variance was $425. Once the application was accepted, we then had to send out certified return receipt mailings to everyone within 500 feet of the property lines. Since the property was over an acre, that amounted to 30-something people, to the tune of almost another $300. This was to alert all the people nearby that there would be a zoning meeting where we would be petitioning for the county to basically let us run out business out of our home. A sign was also put in the yard, for the same purpose.
Prior to the meeting, it was specified that people who wanted to speak in this case could write letters for or against. We learned who these letters should be sent to, and put out notices on facebook and our website, in case anyone wanted to either come to the meeting or write in for us. A good handful or two of people did write in letters to the zoning board.
The day came for the zoning meeting. Mike and I went over there to petition our case. I was the petitioner, Mike was there speaking "for" me, and the other 20-odd people? Yeah, they were all speaking out "against" us. They didn't want the increased traffic, increased strangers, they didn't want their residential zone turned into someplace someone would have a home business. It didn't matter how much I (or the letters) mentioned that there's very few people here in a given week, that it's not busy, that literally -- you wouldn't know there's a business if someone didn't tell you -- they still said, nope, too many strangers, too many this, too much that. The sad thing too, was that none of my actual, like next door neighbors, had any issue... it was all people down the block and people living on the street behind me that caused issues. Looking back, we've come up with the idea that there was a ringleader who gathered everyone up... as basically, all those people on the street behind me? Yeah, there was no way they ALL would have shown up for the meeting, and they ALL did.
We also learned at the meeting... my property was zoned R1 - rural residential (that we knew). I had looked this up, prior to moving there, and one of the "permitted uses" was "breeding and raising of farm and exotic animals." So, when I was asked by the zoning board, "what gave me the idea that I could do this?" I brought this up. Well, turns out, part of their ordinances are under review, so while it is not currently "find-able" (for lack of a better word) anywhere in the current ordinances, property owners are restricted to having no more than four animals total. It doesn't matter if you live on 1/10 of an acre or 20 acres, you are allowed four animals. Doesn't matter if it's four cows or four pet fish. Four total. Now, how you are supposed to breed / raise any type of animal with only owning four, I'm not sure, but that exited out staying there for any period of time.
They also asked about my packages, as a board member had apparently driven by one day when I had packages outside for a package pickup. I told them, these were for items that I sold online. They then told me that I needed a business license for that, and I could reapply for a separate one for just that. I told them, I've never needed one for something like that (where you're mailing things out and customers don't actually come to the home) and they basically said, "well, here you do... here, anyone selling anything on facebook or craigslist should have a business license." Yeah, ok.
So, the zoning petition was denied, and that meant everything should shut down as far as the chinchilla business.
....to be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment