Garage-based business receives OK
Resident plans to rebuild her Walnut Street home destroyed in June 2021 fire within the next year
While a homeowner continues the process of rebuilding from a June
2021 fire in the 400 block of Walnut Street, she will be allowed to utilize her detached garage to begin a home-based business.
City Council approved the special-use permit with unanimous support Tuesday.
Brandy Darling was asking the City of Fort Morgan to approve a homebased art studio business in her 540-square-foot detached garage, while she is hopeful a home can be completed on the property within a year.
“It was a tragic fire,”
Mayor Lyn Deal said. “It touched the community.”
Several members of the planning commission additionally offered their empathy for Darling’s situation during a previous hearing on the permit request.
The purpose of presenting the request to both the Planning Commission and City Council was to ensure agreement from elected and appointed officials with staff direction, said Brent Nation, Fort Morgan’s director of utilities and public works.
“was not affected by the fire,” Nation said. “We moved the request forward and typical of a special-use we looked at compatibility of the neighborhood.”
Darling is residing with a neighbor while working toward reconstruction of her home, she told the planning commission, expressing the project has faced delays related to construction supply chain issues.
The home-based business, Landos Randos, would specialize in vintage and antique collectibles, unique items from other artists and the resale of vintage and newer clothing and linens, along with hand-sewn items and previously collected art, the applicant describes in a letter to the City of Fort Morgan.
The applicant has provided conceptual plans for rebuilding the home which she says was previously four bedrooms and three baths.
“A lot of it is undamaged,” Darling said. “There is some we can salvage, but a lot will have to be rebuilt. I’m doing everything I can.”
The home-based business would include reconditioning of artwork and selling of the work at a profit over the Internet,
Nation previously said. One neighbor had concerns as to the impact to the immediate area the business had the potential to create, but that appears to have been resolved.
“This person felt the business would be one in which people would show up and add traffic to the neighborhood,” Nation told the planning commission. “They would only be there when needing to pickup an item they purchased that was not shipped. There could be some minor traffic.”
The special-use permit approved by the commission restricts the use to the applicant, requires adherence to the homebased business code and requires reconstruction of the home within a 12month period. Should construction delays prevent the completion of construction in the required time period, Nation previously indicated city staff would take the case under consideration and have a willingness to further work with the applicant.