The Dearborn City Council may approve a zoning change that would allow indoor recreation facilities in light industrial areas.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – The zoning for the city’s light industrial warehouse district, which has been difficult to adapt to other uses, may be amended to permit indoor recreation facilities.
Open, expansive warehouses often lend themselves to indoors sports and recreational usage.
The city currently only allows indoor recreational facilities with a special land use in community or general business districts.
Community business districts include bakeries, repair shops, laundries, dry cleaners, equipment and car rentals, and restaurants.
General business districts are more intensive commercial developments.
The city’s planning and zoning division recommended the change to the planning commission, which approved the request at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Many buildings in light industrial districts no longer fulfill their original purpose due to economic shifts in the past several decades. The trend, which is nationwide, has led many communities to expand the allowed usage of their light industrial districts to fulfill a wider variety of purposes.
Indoor recreational facilities would still have site-specific standards and would still be considered a special land use. Opening up light industrial zoned areas would provide more locations for indoor recreational facilities to be established.
Rezoning can also bring currently vacant buildings back into productive use. As the city updates its master plan, it is anticipated that the light industrial zoning districts will undergo a more comprehensive overhaul to open up the areas to a wider variety of uses.
Indoor recreational facilities include bowling alleys, archery ranges, tennis courts, skating rinks and arena sports.
The facilities would be set back at least 50 feet from any residential districts, and would be accessed from a major thoroughfare. It would also be predicated that people loitering on the premises not impact adjacent properties.