The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

KIRKSVILLE.MO -- The Planning and Zoning Commission met on Wednesday evening to discuss three public hearings for property rezoning.

One public hearing was a request to rezone three lots around Osteopathy, Mill and Luther Street. The request was made by Rick and Janet Gooch to rezone from a R-2S to an RP-3 planned multi-family residential area. That request was approved.

The second was a request from Preferred Family Healthcare for a tract of land at Elizabeth and Luther Street to rezone from R-2S to C-3 extensive business. The request was approved.

The most controversial request of the evening was a request from DVRA Development Group and Trumascape to rezone an R-1 single family residence and R-3 multi-family resident to a CP-3 planned extensive business. The goal is to build a retail sales office, nursery, greenhouse, and storage buildings on the site. In the future, there are plans to build luxury apartments for either senior citizens or medical students.

The council chambers were packed as a total of ten citizens spoke in approval and disapproval of the new request.

The discussion ran on for a little over two hours.

A few of the concerns included safety of the new drive, drainage, and if the area of land included any type of wetlands.

DVRA Development Group and Trumascape, LLC have noted they will not build anywhere on the wetlands.

The rezoning request was approved after a lengthy debate.

All three zoning approvals will be sent to city council. The approvals will be voted on by the council on November 21.