VAN BUREN, Ohio - Sue Evans used to enjoy directing visitors to her house from I-75 because of the quaint rolling terrain and white church steeple that greeted them at State Rt. 613.
Now she just says, “You can't miss it. There's an adult bookstore.”
Residents of Allen Township north of Findlay were taken by surprise in the spring when the Lion's Den adult bookstore opened just off the expressway.
While they can't turn back time, they hope to improve the quickly developing township by asking voters to approve a zoning plan in November.
It will be the township's sixth attempt at zoning since 1987.
Ralph Bresler, chairman of the zoning commission, said the group spent months refining the zoning proposal voters last defeated in 1998 by a 331-306 vote.
“We went through every page of that last proposal and tried to make it less restrictive on agricultural and residential areas,” Mr. Bresler said. “Our main theme was just control the growth and the location of businesses.
“It doesn't make sense to have this over here, that over there. Let's get it in an orderly fashion,” he said.
While the adult bookstore was an impetus for the latest zoning try, Mr. Bresler said it wasn't the only factor. The township is growing rapidly and stands to grow more as city water is extended from Findlay to Van Buren.
The zoning plan designates areas for different kinds of businesses, including adult entertainment, which would be acceptable in a district designated “general industrial.” The area around I-75 and State Rt. 613 would be reserved for “expressway service,” which would include gas stations and convenience stores.
The township “can't exclude any business, but it can restrict where it can go,” said Drew Wortman, an assistant Hancock County prosecutor who helped the commission draft the plan. While no one knows precisely why five zoning attempts failed, Mr. Wortman said many residents simply don't know what the zoning plan says.
“They need to go pick it up and I think that's been the problem so far,” he said. “A lot of complaints are from concerned people but they haven't read the resolution.”
Mr. Bresler said the township is planning a high-profile campaign to educate voters and get them to the polls in November.
He hopes to convince property owners that zoning is for their protection. “We tried to be easy to get along with the idea of gaining overall control,” he said.
Residents such as Mrs. Evans say zoning is the township's only hope for controlling the spread of what she called “anti-family” businesses and controlling commercial growth in areas along well-traveled routes like County Road 220.
County Road 220 extends south from Van Buren into Findlay where it becomes North Main Street.
She said she fears that where one adult bookstore is located, more or related businesses will come. And she doubts reputable businesses would be interested in locating at an interstate exit “that has a business that's considered sleazy. You've started a trend in sleazy businesses so now what else are we going to get?
“With zoning, there would be more control on who came in. There would never be any surprises,” Mrs. Evans said. “When a business did come in, there would be regulations for the size of the sign, how far it would have to be off the road, how far an anti-family business would be from a school. I think you absolutely have to have that in our township.”
Allen Township is one of three townships in Hancock County asking voters to approve zoning ordinances Nov. 6. Just like the adult bookstore in Allen Township, unwanted developments have spurred the efforts.
In Delaware Township in the southeast corner of the county, a push for zoning began when residents heard that Finstar Development Co. of Shaker Heights, Ohio, plans to build a landfill for construction debris in their township.
Just southeast of Findlay in Jackson Township, voters will decide whether to adopt zoning in part to protect themselves from a rumored plan by Martin Marietta Materials to develop a limestone quarry.
Assistant County Prosecutor Cindy Land, who serves as legal counsel for Delaware and Jackson townships, said those zoning proposals are “aimed toward preservation of the agricultural integrity of the area. Zoning is not to prevent or preclude anything. It is intended to promote orderly growth.”
Not all property owners agree with the philosophy of zoning as Allen Township has seen with its repeated defeats at the ballot.
“I don't really know what people are thinking when they vote something down,” Ms. Land said. “Sometimes it's apathy; they just don't care one way or the other. Sometimes it's fear that they're going to lose control. That's what we hear at a lot of public hearings.”
First Published August 29, 2001, 10:35 a.m.