mission meeting, the board approved a motion to require a special or conditional use permit to cut and sell firewood on residential property.
The town’s zoning ordinances already require a conditional use permit for many such business-type activities in residential areas, but zoning officer Chuck Bartlett asked the board’s opinion on what should be done about people cutting and selling firewood in town.
“None of them have a special use permit to do any of it, but there’s about four or five of them,” Bartlett said.
Bartlett said he had not received any formal complaints, but resident Andy Van Tol told the commissioners at the meeting this is the third year he has complained.
Van Tol said semi-trucks were bringing as many as 85 logs a load and complained about noise from people cutting wood in his neighborhood at 6th and Farm on the east side of 6th, on property owned by Saratoga resident Royce Kelley.
“It is basically an industrial-type operation on residential property,” Van Tol said. “I can’t say for sure who is doing it or what the circumstances are or anything, all I really care about and all I know for sure is that it is very, very noisy and very irritating.”
Part of the debate centered on what constitutes a business and whether that business can be operated in residential areas.
Town Council liaison Steve Wilcoxson equated selling firewood to selling a car and said it would be discrimination to pick on one type of activity while ignoring others.
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m selling a sewing machine or I’m selling my car, at that point in time what I’m doing is I’m selling something there and so what you are trying to say is that it is illegal,” Wilcoxson said. “I disagree with that.”
Other board members made a distinction between selling personal property and selling retail property.
“The difference between you selling a car and someone selling a sewing machine is we are talking about a guy who is bringing a semi load of logs to cut up and treat as a business,” board member Rod Weinman said.
Commissioner Randy Raymer said people who want to conduct a business from their home such as a day care go before the Planning Commission and obtain special use permits as required by town regulations.
Existing regulations need to be enforced, Raymer said.
“We have those ordinances in place and certainly we have personnel in the town to deal with that,” Raymer said.
Underlying the discussion was the question of enforcement and whether to make people comply across the board or do it on a case-by-case basis as complaints come in.
“It needs to be uniform over everybody,” Bartlett said.
Raymer questioned the status of the nuisance ordinance and whether or not the town intends to enforce it or has just tabled it for the time being.
“Why did the town council feel the need to do (the nuisance ordinance) if we’re not going to do something with it,” Raymer said.
Wilcoxson argued heatedly that no distinction should be made between one person’s sales and another person’s and that the board would end up overreaching by requiring permits from everyone who sold anything.
Chairperson Bev Hempel had to call the meeting to order at one point to quiet Wilcoxson.
“We are not saying they can’t do it,” board member Rory Grubb said. “We are saying they need a special use permit.”
Kelley said in an interview Monday he has had over 13 complaints since he started building on the property at 6th and Farm and that none were legally justified.
No one has complained to him personally, Kelley said.
Kelley suggested there are a lot of people who have businesses in their homes but don’t have permits and the town does not enforce the ordinances unless someone complains.
“As far as me selling firewood, I’m not,” Kelley said. “I am letting a disabled vet on social security and a single father with two kids in school sell my left over wood from buildings that I have permits for.”
The board voted five to one to approve the motion, with only Wilcoxson dissenting.
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