Council Addresses Possible Solution for Old Shelbina Elementary School Building

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By Mark Requet

  The Shelbina City Council met in regular session on Tuesday, June 27, 2023.

  A public hearing was held before the meeting started as residents came to hear what the future plans were for the old Shelbina Elementary building.

  The Planning and Zoning Committee met and discussed what the best option would be for Michael Patterson with his proposed plan for the old building, and it was decided that a conditional use permit (CUP) would be the best plan going forward if Patterson is fortunate enough to own the property. Under a CUP, Patterson is the only one that can do what he is actually proposing to do.

  Patterson, owner of Pest Pro Solutions in Shelbina, was on hand to explain to the residents his intentions and how he would utilize the building if he were to purchase it.

  “We’ve been looking at the Shelbina Elementary Building for a little bit and trying to find a purpose for it and bring it back to life,” stated Patterson. “And one of the things we talked about was turning the back half (the old part of the building) into storage spaces. The front half is where we would put our offices and the newer classrooms, which have their own bathrooms, would be converted into rental office spaces.”

  Patterson said doing it this way, they wouldn’t have to mess with any of the asbestos in the old part of the building because the renovations would be minimal in that area. Most of the renovations would go into making the newer classrooms into rentable offices.

  Patterson said no plans have been made for the land around the building because he wants to see if the community would be in support of the idea before going forward.

  “The project would be done in phases,” said Patterson. “We wanted to see if we would want to build housing on the land, with the support of the community. With that being said, we don’t have any plans drawn up and we would need to do our due diligence to see if we can do it there and that it would fit, while not affecting the community around it.”

  Patterson stated the school building is the current plan that is being considered at this time and the rest of the plans will be decided later if he is allowed to purchase the property.

  Residents asked about the gym.

  Patterson said they would want to put the kitchen back together and keep the gym available for events.

  Residents at the meeting were asking about possible duplexes, along with a parking lot being put on the old football field, and repairs possibly done to the alley west of the building. Patterson said the overall goal is to keep it a nice clean area.

  City Superintendent Dennis Klusmeyer explained the purpose of the meeting tonight was to see if they could get the CUP for the existing structure.

  “Phase 2 and 3 on the site plan, or the housing portion, is currently zoned as an R1 Residential District. A single or duplex house would currently fall under this current zoning. If it went beyond that, then it comes back to the city council for possibly rezoning the area. As far as phase 2 and 3, Michael has some due diligence to do when it comes to engineering and some analyses done to see if it’s even feasible for Michael to pursue that,” stated Klusmeyer.

  “The engineering side as far as the infrastructure, will need to be looked at to see if it can be done. We’ve got a storm sewer and sanitary sewer involved, so he would have to look into those and see if he can design his site plan around them or reconfigure them to make his site plan work.”

  Klusmeyer addede there would be a lot of steps that would have to take place after getting the conditional use permit.

  The public meeting was closed and the regular meeting opened.

  John Twitty, President and CEO of MPUA, presented an award to Dennis Klusmeyer.

Unfinished Business

  The city discussed the 2024 budget and approved the budget with the proposed changes. The council decided to discuss the addition of an extra officer at a later date.

An update was given on the handheld reader. City Clerk Tim Lacy said everything was working so far. A motion was made and approved by the council to continue with United Systems.

  New Business

  • A motion was made and approved by the council to grant a conditional use permit after hearing the favorable comments from the public about the old elementary school building.

  • Shelby County Presiding Commissioner Terry Helmick spoke to the council about the open fire burn ban for Shelby County. The city council made a motion and approved to follow the rules of the burn ban.

  Other News

  • The agenda, consent agenda, bills to be paid, and payroll were approved.