The general commercial district is intended to provide for a wide variety of retail, office and service uses which can serve the shopping needs of the residents of Stanton and passing traffic. Regulations are designed to encourage and facilitate the development of sound and efficient shopping and business activities.

Permitted uses may be more intensive and less compatible with residential uses. These uses will have appropriate signs, adequate lighting levels, attractive landscaping, and convenient parking areas. Special attention will be given to the location of access points and other traffic and pedestrian conditions to ensure that such businesses are operated in a safe and efficient manner. Where possible, access points, parking areas, and other common features will be combined to serve more than one business.

Certain industrial type uses, which operate with no objectionable exterior characteristics, may also be appropriate in certain locations in the C-2 zoning district due to the availability of public utilities, truck route access, and proximity to retail goods, restaurants and services which can be supported by manufacturing workers.

a)

Permitted and special uses allowed in the C-1 zone.

b)

Retail building supply and equipment stores.

c)

Retail nurseries and garden centers, including display of landscaping products such as mulch, woodchips, sod, dirt, and plant material and yard accessories.

d)

Ambulance service establishments.

e)

Day care facility/child care center.

The following uses may be permitted in the C-2 General Commercial Zoning District upon authorization as a special land use by the planning commission in accordance with the requirements of chapter 14 herein.

a)

Auto detailing, which involves the indoor washing of vehicles, including interior cleaning, application of graphics and pin striping of the exterior and minor touchup painting.

b)

Automatic and self-serve vehicle wash facilities.

c)

Banquet halls, reception centers, performing arts auditoriums or similar places of assembly.

d)

Body shops, wrecker services, vehicle repair facilities.

e)

Building contractors, such as painters, plumbers, electrical, cement, heating and air conditioning, fencing, and similar uses, provided that any materials or equipment kept outside shall be screened from the view of nearby properties and roadways.

f)

Commercial kennels.

g)

Essential public service structures and buildings, per section 3.17.

h)

Housing for the elderly, including retirement housing, assisted living and nursing facilities.

i)

Indoor gun and archery ranges.

j)

Machine shops.

k)

Medical marihuana provisioning centers.

l)

Medical marihuana safety compliance facilities.

m)

Medical marihuana secure transporters.

n)

Mini-warehouse and self-storage facilities.

o)

Open-air businesses, including building materials, supplies, and similar uses. Open-air businesses, including, but not limited to, the sale of motor vehicles, farm implements, lawn and garden equipment sales and service, motor homes, mobile homes, mobile or modular homes, including building materials, supplies, and similar uses.

p)

Outdoor commercial recreation establishments such as miniature golf, go-cart tracks, golf driving ranges, batting cages and athletic fields.

q)

Park and ride lots operated by a public agency.

r)

Recreational marihuana retailers.

s)

Recreational marihuana safety compliance facilities.

t)

Recreational marihuana secure transporters.

u)

Tool and die establishments.

v)

Wholesale distribution and display of landscaping products such as mulch, woodchips, sod, dirt, and plant material and yard accessories.

w)

Wind energy systems over 35 feet in height, per section 3.39.

x)

Wireless communication towers and antennas, per section 3.32.

(Ord. No. 2021-246, § 6, 8-24-2021)

Footnotes:

(1)

If abutting properties are zoned R-1 or the abutting property is recommended for such use in the Stanton Master Plan, the setback shall be a minimum of 50 feet from the abutting lot line.

a)

Greenbelt. A greenbelt, as determined by the City of Stanton landscape regulations in section 16.05 shall be erected and maintained on the side and rear of any C-2 zoned premises where the same abuts a zone which permits residential use or an area recommended for such use in the city master plan. Such greenbelts shall also be required where commercial premises and uses abut existing nonconforming residential uses. The planning commission may require a solid fence instead of a greenbelt if in the opinion of the commission a fence would provide a more effective screen for the adjacent property.

b)

Dumpsters. Outdoor solid waste dumpsters shall be screened by a continuous opaque screen at least six feet high. The screen may be comprised of berms, plant material, screen walls or fences or any combination of these elements. Dumpsters may be installed within buffer zones.

Wheeled or movable trash containers shall be located behind the front line of the main building and shall be screened from view by landscaping, fencing or placement of the building.

c)

Structure façade. At least 80 percent of that portion of a structure or building, be it a front, side, or rear, which faces a public or private street, private access drive or public or private parking lot shall be finished with face brick, wood, vinyl, glass, tinted and/or textured masonry block, fluted cement block, natural or cast stone, architectural pre-cast panels or stucco-like material. In recognition of developing technologies in building materials, the planning commission may agree to approve other materials provided that they are compatible with surrounding properties, and further provided that such materials shall comply with the architectural, safety and other requirements of the Montcalm County building code, fire code and other applicable city ordinances.

Additions to or renovations of buildings existing as of the date of the section shall be subject to the requirements of this section. The planning commission or zoning administrator, as the case may be, shall have the authority to modify or waive these requirements or to extend them to the entire façade of the existing building.

In determining whether to apply the façade requirements of this section to additions or renovations of existing buildings, the following criteria shall be considered:

1)

The location of the addition or renovation relative to the existing building.

2)

The size relative to the existing building.

3)

The location of the existing building.

4)

Whether compliance with this section will result in architectural consistency with the existing building and improve the overall aesthetics of the building.

5)

The practicality of requiring compliance with this section based on the design and structural integrity of the existing building.

d)

Unless not required by any other ordinance, sidewalks shall be constructed on all sides of the property abutting a public street, in accordance with city standards. The sidewalk shall be constructed concurrent with the construction of the principal use unless other arrangements for construction are approved by the planning commission.

a)

General requirements.

1)

Accessory buildings, section 3.22.

2)

Landscaping, chapter 16.

3)

Signs, chapter 18.

4)

Off-street parking, chapter 17.

b)

Development procedures.

1)

Site plan, chapter 13.

2)

Special land uses, chapter 14.

3)

Site condominiums, chapter 15.

c)

Appeals and administration.

1)

Nonconforming lot and uses, chapter 19.

2)

Zoning board of appeals, chapter 20.

3)

Administration, chapter 21.