A building in Oshtemo Township has been sitting on someone else’s land for years, not because of a dispute, but because of how commercial properties get divided under zoning law. On Monday, the township’s Zoning Board of Appeals cleared the way to change that.
The board voted unanimously to approve a frontage variance for a roughly 6.4-acre parcel tucked into the southwest corner of a commercial development off West Main Street. The building there is currently occupied by KRESA, the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, which leases the space. Now KRESA wants to own it.
The problem: Oshtemo’s zoning ordinance requires any unplatted commercial parcel to have at least 200 feet of road frontage. Because the KRESA building sits behind other development, hemmed in by parking and service drives with no direct street access, that requirement can’t be met. A simple land sale would require a variance first.
Why not just rearrange the property lines?
The zoning administrator walked the board through the math. The existing buildings, parking areas, and drive aisles have been there for years. Reconfiguring them to create compliant frontage isn’t really an option as it would require either replating the entire property as a condominium or a full subdivision plat, both of which involve significantly more legal complexity and cost.
One board member asked the obvious question: why not just do it the longer way? The applicants put it plainly, the outcome would be the same, just with a lot more paperwork and legal fees. The applicant indicated the variance accomplishes what the ordinance’s frontage rules were actually designed for: ensuring organized development with shared access and no additional driveways. The site already has all of that. No physical changes to the property would result from the variance being granted.
The board approved the request with conditions: easements in perpetuity connecting the drive aisles, ensuring continued shared access to parking and utilities for all parcels in the development. Those conditions were modeled on a nearly identical case the board handled in January, when a property on West Main Street went through the same process.
A pattern the township expects to see more of
The more interesting context here isn’t the KRESA transaction itself, it’s what the board flagged it as a sign of.
A board member noted that as Oshtemo begins implementing its 2045 Comprehensive Plan, requests like this one will likely multiply. The plan includes a special study of underutilized commercial areas in the township, all those oversized parking lots behind strip malls, including land behind the mall. As those areas get redeveloped, buildings that were designed to be part of larger commercial parcels will increasingly need to be separated and sold individually.
The township’s zoning staff confirmed that ordinance amendments are expected later this year or early next year that would establish new requirements for existing commercial areas, requirements that would make situations like the KRESA building’s straightforward without needing a variance at all.
For now, the variance approach works. But the larger story is that Oshtemo’s zoning code was written for a development pattern that’s changing, and the township is working to catch up.
Watch the full Oshtemo Township Zoning Board of Appeals meeting
The KRESA variance discussion runs from the opening of agenda item six through the vote.
