Court To Weigh In On Bellevue Salvage Yard Permit Dispute

A salvage yard owner’s pursuit of a building permit in Bellevue, Wis., has the city’s Site Plan Review Commission entangled in a court case, and it’s unknown whether a decision toward granting the permit last week will scrap an all-out legal battle.

Bernie Smits, owner of Smitty’s Salvage & Supply on the Bellevue-Green Bay border, filed his request June 1 for Brown County court to intervene in the matter of the building permit.

He argued the village commission had “not acted according to law and within its powers” by repeatedly refusing a decision on his request in meetings from March through May and by imposing unreasonable demands.

Brown County Judge Mark Warpinski answered Smits’ call, filing a writ the same day demanding the commission submit all records of the issue to the court, which might then make its own decision on the matter.

On June 10, the commission met in closed session with attorney George Burnett before granting conditional approval to Smits’ site plan in the commission’s regular meeting, Bellevue Zoning Administrator Al Schultz said.

Schultz, also a site plan commissioner, said he doesn’t know whether that decision will end the court case. He said the approval could have come much sooner if Smits and his partners would have been more cooperative from the start.

“We asked for information — we didn’t get it,” Schultz said. “And then there were allegations. Well, we’re not going to make a bunch of decisions when there’s allegations being made like they made.

“That’s not us delaying anything.”

According to court documents, Smits, whose father started the business in the 1950s, applied to the village for a permit in late February to build an approximately 70-by-120-foot storage building to replace one that was damaged by fire last fall.

Working with Steve Corrigan’s CBS Custom Built Structures and having bought all materials for the building, Smits said in the court documents that his request was first considered in March, with Corrigan attending on his behalf. The board withheld action to review more information.

Smits said he submitted more information to the commission for its April meeting, but the commission then called for improvements to the property. A letter from Schultz dated April 26 demanded the reconstruction of a fence along Main Street and a landscape plan with “an attractive visual buffer to the salvage yard,” among other improvements.

That led Smits to attend the May 13 commission meeting with his attorney, arguing such screens were not required for other industrial-zoned properties and demanding the commission make a decision. Schultz said the commission couldn’t take any action because it needed to seek an attorney of its own.

“That’s the position they put us in,” Schultz said.

“So I think this followed a process. Had they brought us the information and been willing to commit what they have now committed to right upfront, we could have resolved this back in March.”