INTERSECTION ZONING STIRS CONTROVERSY FOR COUNCIL

Residents in the neighborhood of Perryville Road and Lexington Avenue oppose any zoning changes or special-use permits to modify their neighborhood.

Twenty-two residents have signed a petition saying they are "opposed to the Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission, or the City Council, granting special-use permits or rezoning of property which would permit commercial activity at that intersection."

A public hearing to consider a rezoning request for property at 2021 Perryville Road and the northwest corner of Perryville Road and Lexington Avenue and for a special-use permit for operating gasoline pumps at that location is set for 7:30 tonight at City Hall.

There are 60 items on tonight's agenda, including seven public hearings.

In a letter to the city manager dated Aug. 1, Kevin Stanfield requested the hearing be rescheduled for the Sept. 25 council meeting because of scheduling conflicts "and a desire for more time to prepare our request."

Stanfield is president of Winks Convenience Stores, which operate at that location but had hoped to expand. He said in his application for rezoning that the expansion would "provide a needed service to the neighborhood and a tax resource for the city."

Many of the same residents who signed the petition also opposed a recent request for a special-use permit that would have changed the use of property across the street from the Winks store.

Bo Shantz has requested a permit to operate an insurance office at the northeast corner of Perryville Road and Lexington Avenue in a building that would have looked like a home. He requested the special-use permit because it would have been less disruptive to the neighborhood than rezoning the property.

All the property along Lexington Avenue -- and any new property annexed into the city limits -- is zoned as single-family residential until a request for rezoning is made.

The question of how the city should zone the stretch of Lexington Avenue and Perryville Road has been unresolved for years. City officials denied a request in 1990 that would have rezoned property at 2011-2019 Perryville Road from residential to commercial.

More recently, Shantz's request also was denied by the council after being approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Stanfield's original request was denied in early May by the commission and then by the council.

City Planner Kent Bratton said the council could hold the hearing as advertised tonight or could wait until the September meeting to consider the request.

Just because the planning commission denies a request doesn't mean the project is finished. Anyone can present their request to the council as well, said Charles Haubold, chairman of the planning commission.

"I'm not sure why it keeps coming back," he said of the rezoning requests at Perryville and Lexington, "but they can appear before the city again."

That's exactly what Jerry Lipps plans to do tonight. Lipps had originally requested in April that property at 2355 Locust St. be rezoned from a light-industrial to heavy-industrial district. The request was denied in May by both the planning commission and the city council.

Lipps resubmitted his application -- in an identical format as before July 26. There is no limit for how often a person can request property rezoning. Resubmitting an application so quickly after rejection is unusual, Bratton said.

He recommends that the council either reject the application or refer it back to the planning commission for review. According to the City Code, the council can reject an application without sending it back to the planning commission if the application is made within two years of a previous council rejection, Bratton said.