Scratch one garage and towing service in Ward 1.
Faced with about 40 residents voicing fear of everything from traffic to rats and snakes to criminal enterprises, the Commerce City Council voted unanimously to reject the request of Danny Allen for the rezoning.
Allen had asked that the city rezone 4.12 acres off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from R-2 (residential) to C-2 (commercial) on behalf of his daughter and son-in-law who planned to build the facility to lease to a Banks County man.
The Commerce Planning Commission had voted 3-0 to recommend that the council approve the request.
Allen, who said he “didn’t come down here to try to aggravate anybody,” said that the property had lay dormant for 20 years. He promised a business that would be well-kept and which would have no stored junked vehicles.
But residents of the area weren’t buying.
Three pastors of churches on the street, the Rev. W.R. Brown, the Rev. Tommy Tillman and the Rev. Kevin Wood, all spoke against the proposal, as did at least two residents of Crestwood Mobile Home Park, which is adjacent.
One woman, who did not identify herself, said she felt that the business would be “a front for some kind of illegal activity.”
Ward 1 councilman Archie Chaney made the motion to reject the planning commission’s recommendation.
Clark Hill, who thanked the audience for the numerous calls and letters he received in opposition to the matter, provided a second. Mayor pro tem Dusty Slater provided a third vote.
Councilmen Donald Wilson and Mark Fitzpatrick were not at the meeting.
The mayor votes only in the case of a tie.