A Frederick automotive company is seeking to expand onto the site of a former Frederick County property on the city’s east side, and is asking the city to remove a zoning classification.
Krietz Properties LLC in December purchased the property at 430 Pine Ave. in Frederick, a former county public works facility, to use as an automobile repair and detailing facility.
The company’s owners currently operate a dealership and repair shop on East Street.
They are seeking to have the city remove an Institutional floating zone that they say no longer applies.
The floating zone’s removal will require a recommendation from the city’s Planning Commission and the approval by the Board of Aldermen to allow the property to revert back to its base zoning of Light Industrial.
The Planning Commission held a workshop on the proposal on Tuesday.
The company is renting space on Highland Street, but decided to buy the Pine Avenue property, Kim Krietz told the commission.
“When this opportunity came up, it was perfect for us,” she said.
The planned uses of auto repair and detailing would be permitted uses in the Light Industrial zone, attorney Bruce Dean said.
The facility would have 20 employees, and operate from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, he told city planning staff in a letter in December.
“These uses are very similar to the uses Frederick County’s [Division of Public Works] Maintenance Division made of the property, so there should be no adverse impact to the surrounding properties or neighborhood different from those that existed for the last 80 years,” Dean wrote.
The county bought the property as three separate parcels in 1940, 1949 and 1954, and built a variety of buildings to accommodate its maintenance of vehicles and equipment.
A plan to demolish five of the buildings and put up a new building of nearly 17,000 square feet was denied by the Planning Commission in 2021. The county decided to have the property declared surplus and sold.
While the uses by the new owner will be essentially the same, the Institutional zoning no longer applies, Dean said Tuesday.
The Institutional floating zone was applied to the property in 2005 to best reflect its use at that time, according to a report prepared by the county planning staff.
The Institutional zone applies to areas where the public is invited or permitted to congregate, such as hospitals, schools, government facilities and houses of worship, the report said.
The property is near a planned extension of East Fifth Street as more residential development occurs along East Church Street and the eastern side of the city.
Alderman Ben MacShane, the liaison to the Planning Commission, noted the “changing realities” of the neighborhood as it moves from more industrial to more residential uses.
The city’s comprehensive plan calls for East Fifth Street to be extended along a road named County Lane, which runs from near the current intersection of East Fifth Street and Pine Avenue to East Church Street.
The property has access points from a private right of way along County Lane, and also directly abuts Fifth Street, Dean said Tuesday.
As long as there is ingress and egress for the new property, the change shouldn’t have much of an effect, Kim Krietz said.
The Planning Commission will hold two public hearings on the removal of the Institutional zone, followed by a recommendation to the mayor and aldermen.
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"revert back." Please, no more of this phrase.
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