Doesn't miss, but he's somewhere today.

All right, we will call to order the August 31st meeting of the Merida Board of Zoning Appeals.

A few quick housekeeping items for those of you who are here in favor of a variance or ask for approval of variants, you have a total of 20 minutes to make your case to the board for approval.

And you may reserve any of that time for a rebuttal from the board or rebuttal from anybody who is here to complain.

Anyone here in opposition of the variants have a collective total of 20 minutes to make their case to the board for denial?

I I ask you to be cognizant of the 20 minute time.

So if you do come up and speak, that you leave time for other people.

And if you do want to come up and speak, you will have to sign in.

Only if you're here in opposition, there's a paper right there.

You can sign in to speak.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Ross.

Okay.

First item on the agenda is the meetings for last meeting or the meeting approval for last month's minutes.

I don't believe we had any changes correctly.

Okay.

Do I hear um motion?

I move we approve.

Sorry.

Motion been made and seconded.

We approve the minutes of last month's meeting.

All those in favor, I guess.

Thank you very much.

You don't okay.

I think Walt's opposed, but that's okay.

No, no, no.

All right.

First case.

Case V 2026-27 WLM contracting 885 holdings LLC are requesting a variance for property 850 Industrial Park Drive.

To variance to reduce the side yard setback from 20 feet to three feet.

Okay, who's here to present this variance?

Please step forward and state your name at the podium.

Do we have anybody here for this?

All right.

Uh maybe they're just running late.

We'll move on.

We'll move on.

Next case is V2026-29.

OCP 1405 O and B LLC is requesting a variance for property at 1405 O and B Drive.

This would be a variance to allow gravels and acceptable parking surface.

Okay, step up, state your name, sir.

Hayes Brewer with Oakley Real Estate Partners.

So first off, just want to introduce myself.

We're local investors here in town.

I'm actually from Marietta, been here pretty much my whole life, and it's an area we're gonna continue to invest heavily in and have some more projects that we'll be bringing in front of you guys that we're excited about in the future.

So just want to call that out and first and foremost, want to apologize for the way that this process has played out on this property.

It's one of the first big deals that we bought as a firm, and frankly, the seller left the property in in disrepair, and so when we bought it, we were moving quick and trying to make improvements to the property to get it in a condition where it could be leased.

The seller was previously parking on in an existing gravel area in the front yard.

We did go and add gravel to that yard, and in terms of the series of events, I heard you guys in your planning session about when the gravel was added, so I want to make it clear.

We received a stop work order in February, and at that point, all the gravel that you see on the site was already in place.

We did not realize that gravel was not going to be an approved surface there.

Obviously, given the neighborhood, the seller was already parking on it, and so that's on us.

We we were moving quick.

We should have consulted with you guys, and so we we fully aware that.

That being said, we really have made a tremendous amount of improvements to the property, and again, after the work order, we didn't add any other gravel.

The only improvements we've done after working with staff is we went, we added the landscape strip and the trees to the property, but we have not made any other improvements other than going forward for the permit for the 4,995 feet of asphalt paving, which you see on the site today.

And then if we if you just flip through, I was just gonna show them some of the well, obviously, this is the neighborhood, and so this is this the ready mix plant that you see across the street from us.

One thing I'll call out while we're looking at this view.

I know there's concern about gravel as a whole, and understand that completely, but in terms of loose gravel or dust or anything from our property, while it may be happening in others around us, we have two pretty expansive concrete aprons on both our entry points that you can see there, and we have now since added a further landscape strip to what was already existing there when we bought the property.