MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE GEORGETOWN
CHARTER TOWNSHIP ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
HELD OCTOBER 26, 2005
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 p.m. by
Chairman Daniel Lennington.
Members Present: Daniel
Lennington (chairman), John Fanthorpe, Carl DeVree, Greg Honderd and Joyce Weise
Members Absent: none
Others Present: Craig
Noland, Special Township Legal Council, Mannette Minier,
Secretary and Zoning
Administrator, and the applicants
#051026-01 - Approval of the
minutes
The minutes of the regular meeting held on September
28, 2005 meeting were presented.
Moved by Carl DeVree,
seconded by John Fanthorpe, to approve the minutes of the regular meetings held
on September 28, 2005, as presented.
MOTION CARRIED.
#051026-02 - (VAR0211)-Unfinished Business
Great
Lakes Society, 7277 40th Ave., is appealing the Zoning
Administrator's decision/interpretation that the proposal in the special use
permit application (SUP0204) (including subsequent submissions) is not a church
for zoning purposes, under Sec. 28.10, in a (LDR) Low Density Residential
district, on a parcel of land described as P.P. # 70-14-18-400-043, located at
7277 40th Ave., Georgetown Township, Ottawa County, Michigan.
Dan Lennington stated that
Great Lakes Society is appealing the zoning administrator’s decision regarding
the definitional issue of the church and Judge Bosman remanded the issue to the
ZBA. He said that the public comments
and hearing took place on January 12, 2005 and the issue was tabled.
Moved by Greg Honderd, seconded by John Fanthorpe, to
remove the item from the table.
MOTION CARRIED.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. On January 12, 2005 public
comments were taken and the public hearing held. The matter has been tabled for several months
and the matter has now been taken off the table to discuss the issues raised by
the remand of the appeal. Judge Bosman
had asked the ZBA to review the zoning administrator’s decision again and to
fortify the record with material facts to base a new decision on. The ZBA did that when they took comments from
the public and from members of GLS at the January 12th meeting. A lengthy period was provided for GLS to
supplement the record. That supplemented
record was available for the ZBA members.
The core issue is to decide what the principal use of the proposed
building is. The zoning administrator
had made the determination that the principal use was not a church. The court accepted the definition of church,
which is a “building set apart whose principal use is for public worship.” The ZBA is charged with determining if the
principal use of the proposed building is public worship based on the record.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. He applied the Court’s
standard when he reviewed the record and that his opinion was affected by the
supplemental record supplied by GLS. He
has a better idea of the principal use of the building since reviewing the
record and taking the public input at the last meeting. When he initially looked at the information
provided by GLS, he thought there were several separate uses, including the
health ministry, counseling ministry, tape publication production, minister
training, youth training and worship. After
reading the record his view is now corrected and he now understands that each
separate use, which he had been understanding to be separate contained uses, are
all integrated and part of the GLS overall mission. Based on what he has read and heard from the
public hearing at the last meeting, he understands that there is counseling, a
food co-op, a health ministry and a tape publication and all are integrated
uses.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. After reading the record, he
determined that GLS is a group of individuals who struggle with chemical
sensitivities and GLS provides a place where they can go to have health
ministry, counseling and have fellowship so that they are not ostracized from
the community.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. Since principal means the
most important, the question is whether the most important aspect of GLS is
public worship. Based on his review, the
principal use is not public worship. The
principal use of the proposed building is the health ministry because it seems
to be a very important role and use. On
page 35 of the hearing transcript Mr. Cheetham said that one of the principal
reasons for GLS’s existence was to help people who
are chemically sensitive, and some are extremely chemically sensitive, like
disabled people who are cut off from society.
It is a burden for them to go to the grocery store and some members
pointed out in their affidavits that it is difficult for these chemically
sensitive people to do these things and find fragrance free products. According to Mr. Cheetham’s testimony, GLS
makes a special effort to secure these products. Mr. Cheetham’s statement on the page marked
as 186 says “Counseling and biblical nutrition have been the most effective
evangelical outreach of all the ministries of Great Lakes Society. The purpose of this form of counseling is to
bring new prospective members to the practical understanding of Christ’s
teaching on health.”
Dan Lennington stated the
following. The idea of the health
ministry to supply the products and supplies, and the counseling of people with
chemical sensitivities is a very important and perhaps the most important use
of the proposed building. Other uses
could be written off as not being the principal use, such as the youth ministry
because they only have two youth members and the training ministry because they
have only trained one pastor in 30 years.
Those uses are important when integrated as a whole and would possibly
be considered to be ancillary and definitely not the most important principal
use of the proposed building. The
testimony provided states that there are weekly worship services and there are
26 active members that attend.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. At first he thought that the
principal use of the proposed building must be a public worship because they
plan to conduct worship services there. However,
a lot of other places have regular worship services and are not considered to
be churches. He called Mel Trotter
Ministries and no one would call them a church even though they have services
every day. He was not equating GLS with
Mel Trotter, though they did have similar ministries such as counseling for
people with addiction issues, family and community services, medical services;
they provide food similar to GLS, provide clothing and household goods, have a
youth ministry, have dental and vision clinics, and provide
transportation. No one would say that Mel
Trotter is a church for zoning purposes.
Sunset Manor is a retirement community on Baldwin and though they have
weekly services, no one would say that it is a church for zoning purposes. Jenison Public Schools rents facilities for
public worship and no one would say that the building where the services are
held is a church for zoning purposes.
Sheldon Meadows is a retirement community that holds worship services
and no one would say that they are a church for zoning purposes. So he decided that just because a building
has worship, it does not mean that the principal use is public worship. GLS’s principal use is to minister to people
with chemical sensitivities. He was not
saying this was a good or bad thing. The
role of the ZBA it determine what is the principal use of the proposed building
and his conclusion is that the principal use is to minister in a Christian way
to people with chemical sensitivities, to provide fellowship, counseling,
health ministry, and to provide worship services to these people. This does not add up to the principal use of
the proposed building to be a building that is set aside for public worship.
Joyce Weise stated the
following. GLS is available to people
with chemical sensitivities, but she has run into people who are chemically
sensitive that do not know about GLS. If
this is a building to be set aside for public worship, it seems that the use is
more for private worship.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. Some statement in the record
indicated that if he were to come to a worship service with cologne on, he
might be welcome but would have to take a shower first. Based on the record, the place was not
conducive for public worship. Although
they try to recruit people, it was not necessarily for the public.
Joyce Weise stated that West
Michigan has a large number of different or varied denominations and it seems
that their goals are to grow and to add more folks to their services while ministering
to as many people as possible. She said
that based on the testimony she understood why they were limited to 60 people
but maybe they could design something that would work for larger groups of
people.
Carl DeVree said that he
agreed with Dan Lennington’s summary that the total concepts of GLS’s uses are
mainly uses other than public worship. He
said that the ultimate main uses were other than public worship.
Dan Lennington said that the
health ministry was substantial with 20 members.
Joyce Weise said that the
affidavits from the members indicate that an important part is the fact that
the products are available and this is an important part of their ministry to
help the chemically sensitive and grocery stores can be difficult for folks.
Dan Lennington stated the
following. The 2002 Health Ministry
Report notes $98,174 in donations for things like food and vitamins. Much of the supplemental record consists of
receipts from many different types of things.
From everything he has read, the health ministry is a very significant
and important part of the use of the building.
The health ministry was quite possibly the principal use, which is to
provide to those who are chemically sensitive.
The health ministry is so significant that that GLS applied for a food
establishment license. He understood
from Mr. Cheetham’s statements that GLS had to seek this license because his
health ministry was so significant that the state required it. The State required GLS to write “nonprofit
cooperative” on the food establishment license.
This was a significant use. In
John Cheetham’s deposition on page 73, Cheetham answered that yes, a food
cooperative was a fair assessment. This
is a very important part and possibly even the principal use of the proposed
building. There is also the question of
the assumed names that GLS said were required in order to sustain the health
ministry. John Cheetham testified that
suppliers would not deal with GLS unless he had these assumed names. Some assumed names include Great Lakes
Society for Biblical Research, Country Oaks Service, Nutritional Research,
Nutritional Oasis, Ramblewood Nutritional Research,, and Great Lakes Society
for Nutritional Research. John Cheetham
uses many names to deal with suppliers and they were needed for GLS to deal
with suppliers. The current uses on the
site were the same as those proposed for the new building. In the supplemental record, John Cheetham stated
in the first sentence of his introduction how he came to Georgetown Township
and how important and essential the health ministry is for GLS. The first sentence states: “GLS has always
had an essential health ministry, in the mission articles, in the IRS 503-C
exempt letter, that support the spiritual and physical needs of allergic and
chemically sensitive people. These
people are typically isolated from places of worship and fellowship, and
fellowship I’d emphasize, those are my words, because their special disability
is not understood or recognized.” This
shows that Mr. Cheetham believes the health ministry is a very significant part
of GLS and this supports the conclusion that the principal use of the proposed
building is to minister and counsel people to chemical sensitivities, which
includes the health ministry, worship, counseling, and tape ministry, which are
all integrated.
John Fanthorpe said that GLS’s
worship may be included in the various health and tape ministries and there was
only public worship for 26 people. He
said that this amount does not define public and they furthered their ministry
through the tapes. He said that anyone
could have a sound station in their basements.
Dan Lennington clarified that
even if they had ten thousand members that would not make it public worship and
they could still be as they currently exist, a society that counsels to people
with chemical sensitivities.
John Fanthorpe said that he
absolutely agreed
Joyce Weise said that the
number of participants makes a difference, but the fact is that she had never
heard of the society before and there should be some knowledge of it, which
leads her to believe that it is not open to the public.
Dan Lennington said that
although he was not equating GLS to these, there were all sorts of
organizations such as Elks Lodge, hunting clubs, or other societies where
members of the public could come and join for a principal use that is not
necessarily a public activity.
Dan Lennington said that the
ZBA could make a tentative motion to either affirm or reverse the zoning
administrator’s decision subject to a draft resolution to be later discussed
and approved by the Board.
Greg Honderd asked if the ZBA
could take comments form the Township attorney or the zoning administrator.
The zoning administrator said
that she had no comments.
Craig Noland said that if the
preference of the ZBA was to make a tentative motion to affirm or reverse the
zoning administrator’s decision, it could be made subject to the preparation of
a resolution which could be reviewed for final consideration by the Board.
Moved by Joyce Weise, seconded by Carl DeVree, to
affirm the zoning administrator’s original ruling subject to the preparation of
a resolution that later would be considered by the Board.
Dan Lennington said that they
have fortified the record with facts and that based on his review of the
record, the motion is based on material and competent facts and this complies
with the statements made by Judge Bosman in the opinion and order dated June 3,
2004. It was noted that the resolution
would be reviewed and acted upon at the next regularly scheduled meeting.
Yeas: Daniel
Lennington, Carl DeVree, Greg Honderd, Joyce Weise, John Fanthorpe
Nays: none
MOTION CARRIED.
The chairman clarified that
there were no more applications for the agenda.
It was noted for the audience that there would be preparation for a
resolution that would be acted upon later.
The audience was given an opportunity to ask questions about the
proceeding, but not to ask questions or make comments on the issue itself.
John Karafa, attorney for
GLS, clarified that a tentative motion was passed affirming the zoning
administrator’s decision subject to the preparation of a resolution for later
consideration and approval by the Board.
#051026-03 – Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 8:07 p.m.