MARQUETTE — The Marquette City Commission on Monday night approved a rezoning request for a Catholic diocese facility located at 301 W. Baraga Ave.

The property is now able to be rezoned from medium density residential to multiple family residential, a move that will allow the property to conform with city zoning regulations.

The rezoning request was originally filed by the diocese in June with the intention of opening a halfway house/women’s recovery center at the property. The request was approved in a 3-2 vote at the July 6 Marquette City Planning Commission meeting, sending the item off to the city commission for final approval at its Aug. 30 meeting. The item was then tabled to Monday’s meeting after diocese officials announced they no longer intend to go forward with the halfway house/women’s recovery center project at the location.

The property has been used to house visiting priests for the last several years.

“We want to drive on with this request to rezone this property to represent what it’s really being used for, and it’s been used for, at least for religious services, for over a century, and for the six apartments that are attached to this complex that have been occupied either by visiting priests or retired priests and even a retired bishop for the past 15 years-plus,” said Kyle Rambo, executive director of Catholic Social Services of the Upper Peninsula, at the Aug. 30 meeting. “In addition to the expansive residence, which is currently vacant, this entire complex, for that reason, should be rezoned to be more in compliant with the city master plan.”

John Fee, executive director of communications for the diocese, provided more clarification regarding the change of plans at Monday’s meeting.

“The recovery house is out, it’s not going to happen there,” he said. “The cost to refurbish the building, to get it to spec is just beyond what we can do. We haven’t given up on the idea of a recovery house, it’s desperately needed in the area, but we’re looking at other communities because the housing cost in Marquette is one of the reasons that came to the front because it was a property that was available.

“The rezoning that’s being requested would just be to basically bring it to what’s been used there for many years. Right now, the bishop’s residences are in two portions. There’s the bishop’s residence, but there are also three apartments that retired priests will live in. (That) part of the cathedral has three priests living there right now. There’s two apartments and a guest space, so that’s also being used by three different people.

“What we’re asking right now is just that the rezoning would bring it back to where it was so we’re not out of spec.”

Should the diocese change its mind and put plans for a halfway house/women’s recovery center back into the picture, it will have to go through a special land-use permitting process, according to Marquette City Manager Karen Kovacs.

“As we heard, the diocese is not intending to go forward with a halfway house,” she said. “It will continue to be used as it has been as apartments and living quarters for priests and clergymen. I do want to make it clear that if the diocese had changed their mind and wanted to go ahead and have a halfway house or recovery center, they still need to go through a special land-use permit process, which is a public hearing at a planning commission meeting. Because they are going to continue using it as it is for those priest living quarters, it still needs to be rezoned in order to conform with the zoning regulations.”

The commission ultimately voted 5-2 to approve the rezoning request after a lengthy discussion that was preceded by multiple public comments from individuals who reside in the neighborhood the property sits in. Mayor Jenna Smith, Mayor Pro Tem Jenn Hill and commissioners Evan Bonsall, Jessica Hanley and Cody Mayer were the yea votes, while commissioners Sally Davis and Fred Stonehouse voted nay.

With the halfway house/women’s recovery center out of the picture, the discussion centered around whether the city needs to take action on nonconforming properties more often.

“Every person I’ve spoken to that’s a resident of the neighborhood, all of the correspondence that I’ve received and seen has always been universally against the rezoning, and they’ve had a variety of reasons for it,” Stonehouse said. “I think we have to take very serious consideration of the value of a neighborhood for many, as opposed to the value of a change for one. In this instance, I would look at the many as being more important than the one. There certainly are many circumstances when you do rezone property where that one has great value and is really for the common good, and in this instance, I certainly don’t see that.

“I understand that the property is nonconforming currently, but I also understand that we have much property in Marquette that is nonconforming, and at the end of the day, it really doesn’t make any difference. If we vote against doing this, if we do not accept the recommendation from the planning commission, then the property will simply continue to be used as it is now, it’s just simply nonconforming. No magic happens when it becomes conforming.

“There’s another aspect of it, too. People can change their mind at any time, and the diocese certainly can do that. So, the fact that they have said no now, we’re not going to do it in this building, and we go ahead and rezone it, we’ve just taken a critical step towards the use of that building as a halfway house if they so choose to do so. Because now the pathway doesn’t go through the city commission anymore, the pathway goes directly to the planning commission that can take this decision on an issue they permit for it and it’s essentially a done deal. I’m not suggesting they’re going to do that, I am simply suggesting that circumstances change all the time, we react to change by making change. By voting no on this particular issue, we would be able to protect that area of Marquette and that neighborhood just a little bit better.”

Dennis Stachewicz, director of community development for the city, explained the difference between conforming and nonconforming properties.

“A nonconforming situation, there are two types, Class A’s and Class B’s, to make it short with a Class B nonconforming, that’s what this would become, the property, if there was something catastrophic that would happen to it, it would not be allowed to be reconstructed,” he said. “Also, because of this Class B nonconforming situation, if they were ever going to expand anything with the building, they would not be allowed to do that. Also with a Class B nonconforming building, there are limits on the amount of investment you can make in that building over time, because the intent of the ordinance is to eliminate that nonconformity.”

The project has been met with both support and criticism, the latter coming mostly from neighbors of the property. Neighbors previously stated in letters of opposition that a halfway house/women’s recovery center would have a negative impact on the area due to things such as safety, noise, exposure to drug abuse and more.

“I’m concerned that the changing in zoning opens up other multi family possibilities,” Davis said. “I hear the residents loud and clear in their opposition, and I think their concerns are legitimate and need to be acknowledged. The traffic congestion and the parking for residents and visitors, and Rock Street in particular is a very narrow street and is unable to accommodate much street parking, especially in the wintertime.

“As I was looking at our materials and I had asked the commission to consider criteria, I questioned whether or not moving it to multi family would meet criteria No. 8, which is ‘Potential Land Uses and Impacts.’ This section specifically talks about compatibility with land suitability, density, nature of use, traffic impacts, infrastructure and the potential influence on property values, and I think that’s part of what we’re hearing from the residents. I also don’t know if it really meets No. 9, the relationship surrounding zoning districts and whether or not the construction on the site will be able to meet the dimensional regulations.

“The intent of the medium-density residential is to establish and preserve a medium-density residential neighborhood, and it’s important to the community to preserve and enhance pedestrian-friendly compact neighborhood types. I think that some of what we’ve also heard is the importance of place making and how that part of our community feels is their neighborhood.

“At this point, we don’t have any indication of what the residential portion of the property will be used for, and I’m concerned that if it turns into a multi family, it could also become a short-term or a long-term rental, and then in that case, I would be concerned that a religious institution, which are tax-exempt, would be competing with other properties that are taxpayer properties.”

Bonsall said he finds it important to have city properties be in compliance with city zoning regulations.

“I can understand the concerns that have been presented by commissioners Stonehouse and Davis, but I tend to agree on the issue of the rezoning of the property as it’s currently being presented to us,” he said. “If the property is rezoned … nothing is going to change in the short-term. I think Catholic Social Services and the church have been very clear that they are no longer planning to have a recovery house at this location and that they’re planning to continue for the foreseeable future with the current use of the property. I think Dennis was able to describe very clearly the very real and tangible risks and negative impact that nonconforming land uses have on the community as a whole. In general, I think it’s very important that our zoning code actually reflects the real land uses in the city. Not only does it create a lot of regulatory issues and potential risk for property owners if we have a lot of nonconforming land uses, but it’s also very important for us to make sure that our zoning code is really reflecting the current uses that exist on these properties. And the land uses that were described, which was priests and other members of the clergy living on the property, that’s a multifamily residential use. That’s a residential use that has multiple households.

“I think we need to consider that No. 1, the proposed use that the city was initially approached about of a women’s recovery house is off the table at this point. I think that that much is clear. To me, I feel this is sort of a clear decision from a zoning standpoint. It is not a good practice to allow major nonconforming land uses to continue and to perpetuate if we can avoid it.

“At this time, it seems there are no plans for reusing the property for apartments or short-term rentals. As it is, if the church decided today that they wanted to rent out some of these units as short-term rentals, they couldn’t do it because we have been for some time now at the citywide cap of 250 short-term rental units.

“I think that we’re looking at a whole lot of hypotheticals right now, which frankly, I think if we look at this from sort of a common sense standpoint, it seems very unlikely.

“I understand people’s concerns, but especially now that the issue of the women’s recovery house has been removed from the equation, and there’s an entire separate special land-use permitting process for that in the very unlikely event that Catholic Social Services changes their mind, to me I feel that we have to trust the planning commission’s judgement on this. I feel probably the only reason this was a split vote among the planning commission was because of the issue of the proposed reuse as a recovery house, not on the merits of this question of whether it should be rezoned to allow this nonconforming use to become conforming.”

Monday’s full meeting can be viewed online at bit.ly/39dQ6ol.