Variance for town property causes council headaches

Gillette resident Jamie Riddle and family addressed the Moorcroft Council last Monday night to request “splitting the address” for the property they recently bought from former Mayor Steve Sproul on South Little Horn Avenue.

“I went to the post office and they said I had to come here to get permission to split the address into “A” and “B” for the building versus the apartment,” said Riddle.

This statement was received with silence as the governing body digested the larger issue: the necessity of either permitting or denying a variance allowing the construction of a residence on Big Horn Avenue along the business route.

Clerk/Treasurer Cheryl Schneider clarified the issue by reminding Riddle of his phone call to her office earlier, “The question, I thought, was whether you can live in the apartment at the back of the building, correct?” The new property owner acknowledged the actual request, which was a variance.

Riddle’s wife went further in explaining their plans for the residence if allowed: “We’re going to rent it out. We live in Gillette and we’re renovating right now and want to stay there while we’re in the process.”

According to Riddle, Sproul had not explained to him that the town does not allow residential building on the commercial blocks of Big Horn Avenue based on ordinance 1-1987, as Mayor Dick Claar later cited. “It doesn’t say it can’t be a residence, but I think that was the thought behind it.”

The governing body has consistently refused new residential areas being built into existing commercial buildings based on this understanding. Councilman Ben Glenn spoke to the situation, saying, “It’s just a real sticky situation for us. We try to keep Main Street for businesses.”

However, the fact that this is not a new build, but a dwelling as old as the commercial building, which was built over 75 years ago, changed the dynamics of the entire question for the body.

“It has an apartment and has always had an apartment, I’m a little more lenient on that, I guess,” said Glenn.

He voiced his opinion that, “It’s maybe too bad that it wasn’t disclosed to you earlier, but we are not in charge of that. It’s just too bad that was told to you earlier because it puts all of us in a very tough position. It’s a tough deal for us because we’ve turned other people away who wanted to make residential [areas within the new builds].”

Councilman Dale Petersen agreed with Glenn “since there was already an apartment there”.

The couple is setting up a store in the commercial part of the building, though the exact type was not discussed.

Claar advocated the idea of “grandfathering” the apartment in as the dimensions already exist, an opinion with which Councilman Dale Petersen agreed.”That’s your saving grace there – it already was.”

“The building is over 75 years old,” the mayor reiterated the council’s reasoning later, “I don’t think it will affect anything; they had an existing apartment in use before and we’re just allowing that to continue.”

The motion to allow the apartment to be rebuilt and lived in was approved.