40 and Wildcat

 I’ve been a serial entrepreneur my whole life. I started mowing lawns in high school to pay for my first car, then put myself through college, graduating Miami University in December 2005 with a degree in accountancy. I then grew the mowing business into a successful landscape maintenance firm called Landcare Solutions, which I eventually sold to one of my employees. I started The Organic Turf Company as an offshoot from Landcare Solutions, grew Organic Turf to almost 9,000 customers, and I eventually sold Organic Turf in 2022. Along the way, I started a commercial snow removal company called Snow Xcellence, which is the focus of my professional career now. As a father to two boys, I look forward to them joining me in the snow removal business eventually too!  

2024 - Purchased property

Years ago, this property was listed for sale through a real estate agent. I inquired but did not purchase it at that time, but I retained the contact information for the seller. In the middle of 2024, it became clear my growing snow business needed more room to operate. So, I reached out to the seller, and we reached a deal to purchase this ground.

2025 - Beauty Mound Created

As I considered how I wanted to use this property, one of my goals was to retain as much farm field, for as long as possible. One of my company’s main needs is seasonal storage of our snow equipment - plows, loaders, etc. I began to envision a contractor’s storage yard in the area between the tree line and Wildcat Road. I drive past this area often and I want this property to add value to the community, not be an eyesore. So, in October I hired a local excavator to haul in thousands of yards of soil to create a beauty mound along US-40. All said and done, that beauty mound cost $45,000 and once seed grows and it is landscaped, I think it will be an awesome visual screen from passing motorists on US-40. It’s an investment that I was happy to make, and will help insulate the public views from the future planned use.

2025 – Talked with Cody

During the process of hauling in dirt for the beauty mount, Cody from Bethel Township stopped over and handed out his card to an excavator and asked me to call him. I gave him a call and explained that I wanted to use the area behind the beauty mound as a contractor’s storage yard and that eventually, I would like to build a building on the field portion. He loved the idea and told me that I didn’t need to get any permits to push dirt, or dump gravel and that my intended uses were perfect for the property. I told Cody that I would be adding gravel eventually, and as a courtesy, I would call and tell him before that, so that if anyone called, he would know what to tell them. I ended up leaving a voicemail for Cody in December telling him we were going to push dirt and spread gravel soon.

2025 – Talked with Julie

Later in December, I received a call from an unknown number. I answered it and it was Julie, one of our Township Trustees. Apparently, Cody was no longer with the township, and she was covering his role, responding to my courtesy voicemail I left for him. She said she had some questions about my property on US-40. She proceeded to ask if I was building self-storage units, to which I told her no, and then explained to her my vision.

2026 – Letter from Township Lawyer

In January, as a result of speaking with Julie, the township sent me a letter stating that the area I planned to use as my contractor’s storage yard was zoned residential and that using it as planned would be a zoning violation. I was quite surprised by this news and, as you can see, have not been using it as a contractor’s storage yard.

2026 – What’s next? 

I’ve talked with Julie a handful of times about this property, and how to rezone it. From a real estate perspective, having one legal parcel with multiple zonings on it is a very not-ideal situation. For example, how do you determine property line setbacks from a nonexistent property line between the two zoning types? A long tenured, prior township trustee told me that there have been a handful of multi-zoned properties in the past and when applicants have requested one zoning for the whole property, they have all been granted, as requested, 100% of the time. I'm hopeful that is the case with my rezoning application, too. On the township’s webpage, all the trustee’s state their desire to keep Bethel Township rural; allowing my +/- 2-acre contractor storage yard to the West of the tree line (and not in the field) preserves 2 acres of farm field in the township, which seems to align with everyone's goals. I plan to submit our rezoning application in the coming days and thank you in advance for your support.