A rezoning request moving forward in Baxter to allow a new medical facility on Main Street.
Ascend Pediatrics presented the application to the Baxter Municipal Planning Commission. The rezoning will transition the property at 420 Main Street from low-density residential to a central commercial district.
“We would like to construct a 3,500 to 4,000 square foot office building to be a pediatric medical office,” Barnes said. “That would be the home of Ascend Pediatrics currently located on 108 4th Avenue South. We’re renting a business and we’d like to move to a permanent location.”
Staff Planner Tommy Lee said the central commercial zoning designation provides the largest list of permitted uses for the property. The classification also removes strict parking requirements, which allows the developer to preserve more green space on the lot.
“We hope to keep the existing cabin as is,” Barnes said. “We have some ideas to rent it out to some, a business that would be compatible with the pediatric office. Possibly some therapy, some physical therapy or occupational therapy, maybe speech therapies. All of that could be related to the pediatric office. So we have ideas to use it as a commercial space.”
Public Works Director Bob Lane said the commercial construction will require a stormwater detention pond to manage runoff. The infrastructure will cut into the available land but is necessary to protect the delicate drainage system on Main Street.
“Since this is a commercial building you’re going to have to do stormwater detention and that’s going to get some of your land, be counted as green space but it’s still going to have to have a detention pond somewhere so where the runoff don’t cause a problem,” Lane said. “We ain’t got a real good system there on Main Street anyway, so we’re pretty delicate.”
Lane said Baxter is experiencing significant growth with over two dozen residential constructions currently underway, particularly in the Copper Hill subdivision.
The department is also enforcing zoning regulations against an illegal car lot that recently moved 15 vehicles onto a residential property on 4th Avenue.
“And I just told her how it was, that they had, you know I gave them 20 days to get rid of them,” Lane said. “And hate it, they I guess that’s his livelihood, I don’t know, but he can’t have a car lot there.”
The rezoning request will go before the Baxter City Council for a first reading on May 5.