The Riverton City Council has denied a request to rezone the Presbyterian Church property on North Broadway from residential to commercial.
The vote was 4-3, with the majority in favor of the rezone, but the request required the approval of five council members due to the number of residents who initially opposed the change.
This week, many of those residents said they had changed their minds about the situation after learning more about plans for the property and exploring alternatives to the rezone request, all of which were deemed unsuitable.
“If all options fail, we would rather see it zoned (commercial) and the building used than to see it sit vacant,” about a dozen neighbors wrote in a letter to the city this month.
Others attended this week’s council meeting to express their continued opposition to the rezone, however, and that’s why Mayor Tim Hancock said he voted against the request on third reading Tuesday.
“We’ve got enough people in the neighborhood that are not wanting it, that I’m against it,” Hancock said. “If we have a lot of people in an area that say (they) don’t want an area to be commercial, that’s who I’m going to listen to.”
Councilmembers Karla Borders and Dean Peranteaux also voted against the rezone request this week.
“It’s a tough one,” Borders said earlier in the meeting. “I don’t want to see the church sit vacant. That’s not going to be good either. So it’s a balancing act.”
Peranteaux agreed that “the alternative is … to potentially see this building go into disrepair,” but he also pointed out that he lives “on the other side of town,” so it’s “interesting for me to make a decision that could positively or negatively impact another neighborhood.”
“Really our only recourse (is) to talk to you guys and to have you come to these meetings and give us your opinions,” Peranteaux said, expressing appreciation for the residents who participated in the rezone process over the past several weeks. “Otherwise, we’re just making decisions (alone).”
Councilmember Kyle Larson guessed that, without the involvement of neighborhood residents, the rezone request “would have probably gone through very easily.”
“It’s important for a community to represent (themselves) and speak up,” he said.
For more information call the City of Riverton at 856-2227.