The City of Findlay Planning and Zoning Committee recommended that council amend the zoning code (CA-10-2025) to move certain higher-impact uses into conditional-use review so the city can impose site-specific conditions or deny projects that fail to meet criteria.

Under the proposed changes, in the C-2 district fueling stations, oil change facilities and small-box retail stores would be reviewed as conditional uses rather than as permitted uses; in the I-1 district, self-storage facilities would move to conditional-use review. Committee members said the change is aimed at allowing a case-by-case review and the imposition of site-specific conditions where appropriate.

The committee discussed the definition of “small-box retail,” which staff said will be added in the final ordinance and is intended to capture stores typically described as dollar stores, using a combination of square footage and operational characteristics (but not, at this stage, traffic counts). Planning staff noted that if the dollar-store operation included a pharmacy or other features, the planning commission could consider those specifics during the conditional-use review. Committee members also referenced court guidance: planning staff said the Ohio Supreme Court has outlined criteria for conditional-use review and that conditional-use denial is uncommon in practice but provides more legal leeway to impose conditions.

The planning commission recommended the change and the committee voted to recommend the amendment to council without further edits.