Steve Snyder stood before the board and presented on behalf of Brandon Beller and Main Channel Marina. Many neighbors appeared before the board to plead denial of the requested exception and variance. Board members shown from left are Brandon Wolferman, Cory Mast and Matt Goodnight. Photo by Marissa Sweatland.

By Marissa Sweatland
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — During the Thursday, Sept. 21, Syracuse Board of Zoning Appeals regular meeting, the board had a full agenda and audience.

Steve Snyder represented Brandon Beller and Main Channel Marina. He went before the board to ask for an exception for the purpose of allowing a marina in a residential district and a variance which would permit allowing two uses on a tract of ground: the residence and marina. The property is located at 700 E. Palm Drive, Syracuse. The marina would like to build outside boat storage within a screened, fenced area.

“The open boat storage will have no building, just screened on the south and east sides,” Snyder explained, “the effect on values will be minimal.” The purchase of the property is dependant on the exception and variance’s approval.

“This is a logical expansion,” Snyder suggested, “with the screening it would be cited for a minimal effect on adjacent properties. This is for boat storage only, this not for customer or employee parking. It will be outside boat storage in the winter time and boat trailers in the summer time.”

When Randy Cox, fiscal body of the municipality, asked the public if anyone was here in favor of the project, Perry Glancy raised his hand.

“I have owned property by Main Channel Marina since 2015 and it was recently sold in 2021, but since I purchased that property I was a direct neighbor to the marina. They are great neighbors. They cleaned up Smokey’s. Sometimes progress is hard to swallow, but we are a boating community and it is a lake. Several families there is how they make a living and put money back into the community,” Glancy explained.

County Plan Commission Director Matthew Sandy read a letter on file from Gerald and Allyson Ellis, which cited their disapproval of the exception and variance. The letter cited traffic and speed limit concerns.
“There is too much commercial traffic in a residential area,” the letter read.

When Cox asked the public if anyone was here in opposition of the project, nearly every hand shot up into the air.

Everyone had a turn to speak and everyone brought up the same general concerns: traffic and property values.

“The thing you don’t see, sitting behind your desk there is the traffic,” Ellis explained to the board. “People drive like a bat. We have already have had one fatality and I told the police someone will get hurt or killed again. You guys let this go with not holding back some of this and you’re going to be sorry. This commercial thing is going to bite you, and it’s going to happen soon.”

“Progress and growth always leads to more traffic,” Snyder responded, “but we can’t control the drivers, nor is it our job to control it. There will be development in this community, it is a high demand community. If you look at a recent study, Syracuse has higher real estate prices than anywhere in the state. The effect of that is a result of lakes. Well, lakes require support and one of the main support systems of a lake is a marina.”

“My main concern is the traffic is horrible. Besides that, my concern is if they get the storage unit, is it going to turn out like the Harkless situation? Now it has just got approved to build buildings on it. It’s just going to go more and more and more. When is that going to stop? Are we all just going to back out properties up to the marina? We did not except this kind of growth and it is going to depreciate our property values if we have a marina in the backyard,” Vickie Owen pleaded, with most of the audience nodded in agreement.

“I do think that is where we need to draw the line, no buildings on this new lot. We are top 50 most expensive places to live in America right now so property values, although I understand the concern, I do not see the depreciation in Syracuse,” Brandon Wolferman, executive of the municipality, explained.

“What we did with Smokey’s has not affected anybody’s property value to the negative, if anything, it has increased the value. To say us getting the property will decrease property value, it has not proven to in the past. So you are predicting something that has not happened,” Bill Cripe explained.

“The concern I have is when we say no buildings, we have seen what happens when we put restrictions on no buildings. Two months they come back and ask for variance, so we say no living quarters. In two years they come back and ask for variance. There is nothing we can put in there to stop someone, say five years from now, to come and ask to build a building,” Scott Abbs explained of his hesitance.

“You can make a statement, you can make it a condition but they do have the right to come back and ask,” Sandy explained.

After over an hour of debate and discussion, the board ultimately granted the exception and variance, Abbs was the only board member to vote no.

The next Syracuse Board of Zoning Appeals regular meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, at the Syracuse Town Hall, 310 N. Huntington St.