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Buckley Officials Working To Fix Major Business Ordinance Mistake

The village of Buckley recently learned that its business ordinance has a big mistake in it.

It’s such a big mistake that it actually forbids most of the businesses currently operating in the village.

Buckley leaders discovered the zoning ordinance rules when a business in the Wexford County village applied to expand.

According to Buckley’s current zoning ordinance, it doesn’t even allow most of the businesses there to operate.

That’s why when a business came to them wanting to expand, they had to fix their mistake.

“It’s kind of an eye-opening thing, because they’ve been here for so long," says Chad Allen, owner of Allen’s Buckley Auto Sales and Truck Center.

When Allen’s Buckley Auto Sales and Truck Center went to a village meeting, asking about adding on to their business, the village council had to look at its current business ordinance.

“We realized that general business, half the businesses in it were zoned out,” says Dean Kuhn, village president.

Allen says, "Our business here, the car dealership and the auto repair, as well as the gas station and a few other businesses in town, technically, according to the village zoning, aren’t supposed to be here."

Moving the business wasn’t an option. The family business has been on the same corner for almost 30 years.

"I don’t want to go anywhere else, you know, this corner here means a lot to our family, a lot to this town," explains Allen.

Besides, chad says an expansion of his business would be good for Buckley.

"So that we can try and expand the business and, you know, bring in some, couple more jobs to the community, good jobs," says Allen.

One part of the current ordinance that will be not be changed is that sexually oriented businesses and yard sales are still prohibited.

"We’re leaving it in. It’s been in, and we’re just correcting the general business district rules,” explains Kuhn.

The village is holding a public hearing to revise the ordinance in April, which will hopefully allow these businesses to expand.

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