The Carroll County Board of Supervisors and owners of a newly-formed LLC, Matt Wendl, Chad Kanne and Ken Snyder, gathered this morning (Monday) to hear recommendations from Carroll City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, about options for the sale of the Mallard View property on north Mahogany Ave. At last week’s council meeting, the potential owners and supervisors learned that an agriculture preservation overlay to the zoning in that area meant the property either had to be two acres or less or 20 acres or more to be sold, thus creating an issue for the corporation that would like to create a dementia/memory care facility. Pogge-Weaver said requesting a variance to allow the property to be broken up to sell off the non-ag portion was not necessarily a feasible solution.
All of the supervisors expressed their disappointment that this could not be settled with a simple variance request. Neil Bock said he was frustrated with the way the boundaries of the area were drawn following section lines instead of going around the areas already used for something other than ag production. Dean Schettler said he didn’t necessarily agree with what the city presented in response to the suggestion of a variance.
Pogge-Weaver explained that the odds of a variance approval are low, but city staff had searched for and provided an alternative way to not only allow for the sale of the building parcel without tying up the ag land around it, but also to provide the corporation with a legal, conforming use for insurance and lending purposes with the zoning text revision request. Planning and Zoning Administrator, Carl Wilburn, agreed.
Supervisors said without zoning approval for the sale of the building and roughly five acres around it, the only option for Mallard View would be demolition. Ken Snyder said he believed that the demolition of that building would be an embarrassment to city and county government. The council approved a motion to draft a letter to the City of Carroll requesting a change to the zoning text that would allow for the Mallard View building to be sold for use as a legally conforming dementia/memory care unit. Pogge-Weaver said if the city had the request within the next few days, they would add it to the agenda for their meeting on Monday, Feb. 13.
