The Columbus Planning Commission Monday approved a request to allow a bed-and-breakfast, but did not issue a recommendation on a request for rezoning.
Jennifer Upchurch Miller asked the commission to approve a permitted-use request enabling her to rent two or three bedrooms of her house at 504 Fifth St. S.
The approval is retroactive, since Miller has been operating The Painted Lady as a bed-and-breakfast.
“I like to meet people. I like to meet new and different people, and I like to show them the period of a queenian Victorian home,” Miller said. “I just wanted to introduce people to what a queenian would have looked like in the 1890s, kind of like a step back in time.”
After a neighbor, Betty Miller, expressed concerns of parking in the area, Miller explained a maximum of three bedrooms would be rented simultaneously and up to five cars can park around the home, which regularly is featured on Pilgrimage and other tours of Victorian homes in the area.
In other matters, the council did not issue a recommendation on a request, from Phillips Development LLC, to rezone rear portions of property at 900 Block Island Road to a C-3 highway commercial district.
The property, on which a 60-foot-by-80-foot shop building for Severstal would be constructed, currently is zoned as an A-1 general agricultural district in rear portions and as a C-3 highway commercial district in front portions.
Commission Chairman Phillip Long explained the commission usually tries to preserve riverfront properties for residential purposes and voted against a motion to rezone the property.
Commission member Wayne West also voted in opposition; since several commission members were absent and another member, Wythe Rhett, recused himself from voting, the matter will be sent to the City Council with no recommendation from the Planning Commission.
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