Hamilton County Board of Zoning Appeals

Board of Zoning Appeals — Conditional Use, Variance or Appeal

Several of the industries on this site are conditional uses rather than permitted ones in a county-zoned township, and a childcare centre, a veterinary clinic with boarding, a repair shop or a gym in a district that does not list the use outright ends up here rather than at the zoning counter. The cost is the largest single county application fee a small business is likely to meet: $948.00 plus $198.00 for each acre pertaining to the conditional use area, so the acreage of the parcel involved, not the floor area of the unit, drives the number. Modifying an approval already granted is $764.00, which is the line to use when an existing conditional use changes rather than starting afresh. Commercial variances are priced on the value of the improvements in four bands from $948.00 to $3,784.00, and an appeal against an administrative official's decision — the route when a zoning certificate is refused — is $579.00, with the refusal letter itself $129.00. Two operational points from the schedule are worth reading before filing. Processing fees are non-refundable and cheques are payable to the Hamilton County Treasurer, so a speculative application is a sunk cost. And the Board reserves a penalty: it 'may invoke a penalty fee of up to two times the application fee when a project is commenced prior to obtaining an approval', which is a doubling on top of the building department's own 200 per cent penalty for work started without a permit. The jurisdiction is the same as for zoning certificates — the county commissioner zoning jurisdiction covering all of Columbia and Harrison Townships, most of Green and Miami Townships, and North Bend and Symmes Township by contract; elsewhere the township's own board of zoning appeals or the municipality's hears the case.