MAPLETON – A public meeting was held on June 11 regarding a zoning change application at J-M Building Contractors in Alma.
According to its website, “the company provides a wide range of customized construction products,” including timber framing and house building.
The business has been operating from a two-storey accessory structure at 7433 Wellington Road 7 since 2020, but has not had the proper zoning to do so.
Owners John and Marlene Horst live on the 1.5-hectare (nearly four acre) property.
John Horst said the company has six employees, and there is usually one working on the site.
The majority of work is done off-site, he said, other than some woodworking on beams in preparation for framework completed off-site.
The structure has a total floor area of approximately 650 square metres (7,000 square feet).
In 2019, the Horsts submitted an applications to change the property’s zoning to permit the construction business and to build the structure for business use.
At that time the structure application was deferred and the zoning change was denied, as it did not meet provincial policies.
The following year, the Horsts returned to council with an application to build the structure as an accessory, for personal use only. This application was approved on the condition that the structure only be used for personal storage.
Township staff were made aware the structure was being used for a business after someone saw an advertisement for the business in a magazine and made an unofficial verbal complaint, prompting staff to investigate.
The Horsts are now seeking a change-of-use zoning amendment to permit the existing business to continue operating on-site.
Wellington County planners do not support the amendment.
The county’s official plan allows home industries that are secondary to the principal use of the property and supplement farm incomes as well as agricultural-related businesses that benefit from close proximity to farms.
J-M Building Contractors is not on a farm and is not supplementing farm income, “does not serve agriculture and should be located in an urban centre,” county planners state.
John Horst said relocating the business to an urban centre is not economically feasible.
The business is built on prime agricultural land, but does not take any land out of agricultural production, Horst said, and “does not affect the surrounding agricultural operations.”
The township has not received any formal or written complaints about the business, and the Horsts say they have never received a complaint.
Some of the Horsts’ neighbours were in attendance at the public meeting, and other neighbours provided written comments via emails and letters. All comments were supportive of the zoning change.
Dairy farmer Trayven Martin owns and operates a 95-acre dairy farm immediately west of the Horsts’ property.
Martin attended the public meeting to express support for the zoning change.
“As a neighbouring farming operation I have no objection to the use nor will it effect or interfere with my farming operation at all,” said Martin.
Drayton resident Angela Bedar said her home on River Run Road is her dream home, thanks to J-M Building Contractors.
She said Horst and his team took an unsafe, dated home and “created an oasis.” And their neighbours were so impressed with the work, Becker said, that they hired the company to build for them too.
“I will recommend and support John and Marlene and their team to operate in their current property as I would never want to lose them for our community,” Bedar said.
“They have been valuable assets to us.”
Councillor Marlene Ottens said she has “no qualms about the quality” of the contracting business, but she is concerned by “the deception about what was going on.
“You said you were already working in this business in 2017, but if I look at this background it says in 2020 that you indicated that the building was only for accessory use and not a business,” said Ottens.
“That seems intentionally deceptive and I just wonder how you expect us to deal with that going forward.”
Horst said it was his former lawyer who claimed the building would be for accessory use only while submitting a minor variance application on the Horsts’ behalf.
Horst said the lawyer knew the building was used for the business, and he apologized.
Councillor Michael Martin, acting as mayor while Mayor Gregg Davidson was away for personal reasons, thanked Horst for his apology.
“The credibility of applications is something that we take pretty seriously here. It’s built on a relationship of trust,” said Martin. “The building department … isn’t out there driving around policing what buildings are or aren’t or what uses they have and don’t.”
He added, “You’ve probably been able to detect a little bit of frustration up here. It’s not about your business, right, and the work that you do, it’s about the appropriateness of the location.
“The dilemma is, now that the building is up, what do we do with it? It’s a heck of a lot of space for personal use. And what we do with you we want to do with everyone, so that’s really the dilemma.”
Martin asked Horst what his plan is if the zoning change is not approved. Horst said he’s not sure, but “it’s not practical for a business our size to move to the settlement areas.”
Councillor Amanda Reid noted that in the six years the business has been operating in Alma, the owners have paid tax rates based on agricultural zoning instead of appropriate rates for a business.
Reid asked what the tax implications would be, and whether there are fines in place for running the business without proper zoning.
“It will be reassessed through MPAC (the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation) if the application is approved and then at that time the new tax rate will be implemented,” said Mapleton planning assistant Maggie Collis.
MPAC can backdate tax rates for up to three years, noted planning and development manager Michelle Brown, “so that part would be recovered.”
The accessory structure “was not built or designed for the current use that it is under,” Brown added, “so a change-of-use permit needs to happen to bring it up to conformity, and we have penalties that way through the building permit process.”
Township building official Tim Schwartzentruber said fees and charges will be reviewed and “the building permit fee will be doubled for the associated change of use.”
Horst expressed willingness to pay any charges and taxes.
Council received the zoning bylaw change report for information, and the planning department will bring back another report with a more detailed policy framework and a recommendation to council.
