Garry Watts
By: Gena Johnson | Warren Weekly | Published December 11, 2024
WARREN — Former District 4 Warren City Councilman Garry Watts was appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals by the City Council at their Nov. 26 meeting in a unanimous vote of 6-0.
Councilwoman Melody Magee had an excused absence.
“This is a great appointment,” Council Secretary Mindy Moore said.
The Zoning Board of Appeals approves or denies variances to ordinances, according to Watts. Among the most common variances requested are for buildings on residential property, fences and businesses requesting variances to operate.
Watts cited examples of the kind of work the board does. He recalled a Warren resident who wanted to build a four-car garage on his lot that was zoned for a 2 1/2-car garage and a variance was needed for that. He lived on a corner lot and wanted the newly built garage to be higher in height than other garages in the neighborhood.
“Honestly, in my opinion, it looked like the guy might be preparing to run a lawn cutting business out of his garage,” Watts said. “That was denied based on the size because it just didn’t fit.”
The variance has to fit with the structure, style and use of buildings already in the neighborhood.
Watts has seen fences that did not “fit” with the neighborhood, either because the materials used were old and out of date, the fence needed painting or the fence was left incomplete.
“I want to be part of the fix, not the problem,” Watts said. “I’m honored to be back serving Warren.”
Watts’ term with the ZBA starts Dec. 11 and runs through September 2026.
During his tenure, he would like to implement uniform signage throughout Warren’s businesses, update the parking lot ordinances to reflect the current retail trends and stem the tide of businesses requesting multiple variances.
“You drive all over the city and you look at all the signage, there’s a million different kinds of signs,” Watts said. “But you go to Sterling Heights, Rochester Hills, Shelby (Township), they have very strict sign ordinances.”
According to Watts, these municipalities have a model for their signage, which is a monument sign.
“We don’t have those kinds of things. We just let people hang things off the front of the buildings. Hang things in the window. You have a hundred different varieties of signposts out there,” Watts said. “As we start updating things. We need to start making everything look good.”
There was discussion when Watts was on the City Council and even more recently that the parking lot ordinances for commercial businesses need updating, he said.
Online shopping is growing each year as brick-and-mortar stores struggle to stay afloat.
“We don’t have the retail traffic that we used to,” Watts said. “When you tell someone they’ve got to have 450 parking spots but in reality, you go by there and they only have 100 cars in the lot. Maybe we’ve overdone the parking. So they’re taking a look at things like that.”
From Watts’ experience on the City Council and as ex-officio to the Planning Commission, he saw firsthand how businesses would come in with a plan to build, modernize, or bring something different to the location and would need 10-15 variances to make their business work.
“We either have a problem with our zoning or they (the businesses) are trying to put something where it doesn’t belong,” Watts said. “To give somebody 10 variances, obviously that’s going to create problems in the neighborhood. So we really have to be careful with that.”
Watts knows there is much work to be done. He feels his experience in local government and the Citizen Planner course he completed through Michigan State University Extension has prepared him well for the Zoning Board of Appeals.