POSSIBILITIES DELAYED … The property seen here, located on Swanton’s Pennsylvania Street, is the planned location of a new Habitat for Humanity home. A variance requested by Habitat for the property was tabled by the Swanton Planning Commission until the organization can answer a series of questions.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
A variance request for a property owned by Habitat for Humanity was tabled by the Swanton Planning Commission on Tuesday due to numerical inconsistencies, unclear or missing information, and the absence of anyone involved in making the request.
“I went through this 22-page set of documents we’ve got here and I’m finding things that trouble me,” Commission Chairman Roger DeGood said.
DeGood pointed out missing dates and title blocks, dimensions that don’t add up, a schematic not to scale or without scale indicated, and an application which says the home to be built will be no larger than 1,000 square feet while elsewhere providing dimensions that add up to roughly 1,700 square feet.
There was also confusion regarding three copies of a survey of the property done in 2020, one of which included notation not present on the other two.
The adjoining letter was undated, and none of the survey work established property lines – a main point of confusion in the matter both between the Habitat-owned property and the neighboring property owner, Cathleen Forche.
Forche attended the hearing, providing both a letter and verbal remarks to the Commission saying she had also received unclear information from Habitat regarding the property lines, which are also unclear in her own deed.
She implored them to have a boundary survey completed either by the village or by Habitat to officially settle the issue regardless of where the lines were determined to be.
“I want them to succeed,” Forche said of Habitat. “A very nice house could be on [the lot] again. I don’t have a problem with that. I just want a property line that’s a done deal, that I never have to deal with this again.”
Habitat purchased the home from the Village of Swanton in 2018.
Commissioners eventually decided the documentation was not in a state in which they could approve anything, and tabled the request until Habitat provides them with additional information.
In comments at the end of the meeting, Mayor Neil Toeppe asked commissioners to prepare to discuss the possibility of allowing vacation rentals on the second floor of the business district on Main Street from St. Clair Street to Church Street.
Jesse can be reached at jesse@thevillagereporter.com
