A rezone request nearly was tabled to allow the petitioner more time to update his plans.

After some discussion about the property at 636 N. Walnut St. during Monday night’s Seymour Common Council meeting, President Dave Earley said it came down to two options: Vote on the matter or table it.

He then made a motion to vote on the first reading of the ordinance to rezone, but only he and Councilman Drew Storey voted yes. The other five councilmen voted no, so Dusty Williams’ request to rezone the property from R-1 (single-family residential) to R-3 (multiple-family residential) so he could tear down the existing one-story home and build a two-story townhouse-style duplex failed.

Councilman Chad Hubbard said he would have loved to see the matter tabled before he ultimately cast a nay vote.

During the Seymour Plan Commission meeting Nov. 9, Williams with Advanced Investment Solutions LLC shared his plans for the property, and the vote was 5-4 with an unfavorable recommendation and two members absent. Then it was up to the council to make the final decision on the rezone.

Williams again presented his proposal, sharing photos of the existing property, nearby homes, a proposed building and floor plan for the duplex and a similar structure that his company completed in the summer. The duplex plans include three bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Earley asked Councilman Bret Cunningham about the concerns of the plan commission. Cunningham also is on the commission and cast one of the nay votes. He said parking was one of the biggest concerns.

Williams said on-street parking would be available on Walnut and Seventh streets since it’s on a corner lot, but there is no room in the back of the property due to an alley. City code requires one and a half parking spaces per unit, and Building Commissioner Jeremy Gray said this project would require off-street parking.

That was not included in Williams’ initial plans, but he said he would be willing to work with Gray to change his plans to include at least three parking spaces.

Nearby residents expressed concerns about the project.

Charles Richards, who lives at 637 N. Walnut St., said with the number of tenants possible in each of the units, that could bring six to 12 more vehicles parked in the area that’s already congested.

“You’re really putting it on the residents to absorb his business practices, and I just really don’t think that’s what we want in that neighborhood, that additional congestion and the renters, so I’m opposed to that and would like to see a single-family residence on that property and not have it rezoned,” he said.

Loretta Riehl, who lives next door to Richards at 633 N. Walnut St., said with the proximity of the current home to the alley, she doesn’t see how off-street parking is going to take place on the small lot, which is 0.08 acres. Plus, after learning the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in each unit, she said they are like dormitories.

“We’re in a historic neighborhood. We would like to see this as a single-family dwelling rather than a dormitory,” she said. “We don’t have colleges in Seymour, and I don’t think we want this type of situation in our neighborhood. This may look good for a year or two, but then what? What’s it’s going to look like in two years or three years? … I am totally opposed to this coming into our neighborhood.”

Linda Sullivan lives at 613 N. Walnut St. across from an apartment building and said even with off-street parking, it’s still not enough for that complex, as people park on the street. She said she feels the duplex coming into the neighborhood would cause more parking congestion near her home.

“If he does two parking places, there’s going to still be tons of people, and I just see it moving on down toward my house,” she said. “I have no problem with any of the people that live across from me. I’ve had wonderful friends that lived in those apartments, but I have a problem when I can’t park my car because it’s overpopulated.”

Williams said his proposal for the duplex — three bedrooms and three bathrooms — is no different than a single-family home.

“Actually, that’s better than a single-family home that we’re tearing down,” he said. “We’re providing two with plenty of parking. The quality of the investment, the amount that we would be putting in there is going to be more than the current property value. The provision of the type of people that will be there is a higher-end type tenant or size of family.”

Williams’ plans call for the duplex building to be 40 feet wide and 32 feet long and have 1,280 square feet on each floor. The current home is 52 feet wide and 32 feet long. It recently was vandalized with spray paint, and Williams said the garage next to the home recently was torn down.

Williams was asked why he chose a duplex instead of a single-family home. He said he has had success with these types of projects before, it fits the business model and it goes in step with the city’s plan of providing new or affordable housing.

“I have no interest in selling the property, never have,” he said. “I bought it to hold it and pass it on. I’m 50 years old. Hopefully, God willing, I’m going to be on the planet a little bit longer, but I have a succession plan to my family. You can see what we do, and when we touch something, we typically make it better than it was, well beyond what it was.”

The intent is to make the property and the neighborhood better, he said.

“By doing so, I think that’s going to make the adjacent properties better, too,” Williams said.

When resident Les Linz asked Cunningham why he voted against the rezone request during the plan commission meeting, Cunningham said a lot of it has to do with duplexes in that he doesn’t think that’s the cure-all for a vacant lot at this point in the community.

“If we look throughout our community, some duplexes do tend to maybe bring in unfavorable neighbors unfortunately, and I think if we look throughout some of our neighborhoods, when you introduce high rentals or rentals, I think it’s just natural that care for the property goes down,” he said. “That’s personal opinion.”

Cunningham told Williams he could have built a house on the Walnut Street property and sold it, but Williams said he doesn’t want to sell it. He has owned it since 2008.

“I actually want to invest quite a bit, and I want a higher-end rental that can basically counter more or less what you’re saying,” Williams said.

“I know the value that we’re bringing here, and the concern for renter families, (they are) no different than homeowner families,” he added. “I don’t think that there’s many discussions on how a person needs to handle a single-family house here, but for whatever reason, because it’s a duplex, we seem like we’ve got to take that position all of a sudden, and when we do, it comes off like those are lesser people, and I find that challenging, to say the least.”

Earley said if it wasn’t for the nearby apartment building, he probably would have been against the duplex, but he thinks this is a good place for it.

“The city is short on housing, and it’s got to be better than what’s there now,” he said.

Councilman Jerry Hackney said he doesn’t have a problem with duplexes and thought the council needed to wait on voting until Williams could provide Gray with an updated footprint for the property to show off-street parking.

The council, though, opted to vote instead of table the matter, and the rezone request failed.