Record · Local legislation
Allen Township Zoning Resolution
allen-twp-zoning-adoption-and-referendum
Fields
name
Allen Township Zoning Resolution
jurisdiction
Allen Township, Hancock County, Ohio (unincorporated area)
effective
2026-05-11
source_file
data/documents/findlay/governance/Zoning-Book-Effective-05-11-26.pdf
sha256
855c35c9ad8b1d51532a58140ec56e5867135338f2df655cf575e7297ffa6b87
pages
77
districts_note
⚠️ ES is EXPRESSWAY SERVICE, not an energy district. The zoning map's legend lists it among the district fills and it is easy to misread as "Energy Storage" in a township whose live amendments concern energy storage. It is the I-75 frontage district.
signed_by
- Milford Smith - Trustee
- Kevin Flanagan - Trustee
- Roger Clark - Trustee
adoption_chain
- zoning_commission_public_hearing 2024-07-05
- township_trustees_public_hearing 2024-09-09
- date_of_adoption_by_township 2024-09-09
- date_certified_by_hancock_county_board_of_elections 2026-05-11
- effective_date 2026-05-11
- verbatim Public Hearing having been held hereon, the provisions of this Resolution are hereby given effect. Effective Date: May 11, 2026. 1. Date of Public Hearing by Zoning Commission: July 5, 2024 2. Date of Public Hearing by Township Trustees: September 9. 2024 3. Date of Adoption by Township: September 9, 2024 4. Date Certified by Hancock County Board of Elections: May 11, 2026
- note [verified] A twenty-month gap between adoption and effect. The trustees adopted in September 2024; the resolution did not take effect until the SECOND referendum was certified in May 2026. The "September 9. 2024" period-for-comma is the instrument's own typography, preserved.
districts
- code A-1
- name Agricultural District
- code R-1
- name One-Family Residential District
- code RM-1
- name Multiple-Family Residential District
- code B-1
- name Local Business District
- code B-2
- name Community Business District
- code B-3
- name General Business District
- code ES
- name Expressway Service District
- code I-1
- name Light Industrial District
- code I-2
- name General Industrial District
use_scheme
- kind enumerated / permissive
- verbatim no building or land shall be used and no building shall be erected except for one or more of the following specified uses unless otherwise provided in this Resolution
- consequence [verified] A use not listed is not permitted. This is the mechanism behind counsel's 2026-04-07 statement that "a data center would not be permitted" — not a prohibition naming data centers, but the absence of one from every district's list.
data_center_treatment
- occurrences_of_the_phrase 0
- scope_of_search all 77 pages, text layer, case-insensitive
- prohibited_in_all_districts
- Adult Entertainment Establishments
- Commercial Marijuana (cultivation, processing, retail dispensing — medical and adult use)
- Private Landfills
- nearest_hooks
- I-1 Sec. 1101(7) "All public utilities, including buildings, necessary structures, storage yards and other related uses" and 1101(12) "Other uses of a similar character to the above uses."
- I-2 Sec. 1201 "Any principal use first permitted in an I-1 District" plus (1) "Heating and electric power generating plants" and (3) "Any other use which shall be determined by the Zoning Commission, to be of the same general character as the above permitted uses."
- note [inference] The only route a data center could take into the adopted book is a similar-character determination by the Zoning Commission under 1101(12) or 1201(3) — a discretionary reading, not an entitlement. That discretion is what the proposed Section 1521 would replace with an express conditional-use standard.
energy_provisions
- solar
- accessory Conditionally permitted in all districts, but capped: not more than 25 kW output, not more than 1500 sq ft, owned and operated by the owner of the principal use, on the same parcel, and not for the sale of energy to other users (excess to the local utility is allowed).
- non_accessory "Non-Accessory Solar Energy Facilities, otherwise known as Principal Solar Energy Production Facilities shall only be permitted as a conditional use in I-2 districts."
- storage_as_adopted
- section Sec. 1520 — Energy Storage Related to Wind and Solar Facilities
- non_accessory conditional use in I-2 only, minimum setback 1000 feet from all property lines
- accessory conditional zoning permit; "Shall be used exclusively for on-site use."
- note [inference] As adopted, the storage rule is TETHERED to wind and solar. Storage sited to firm a large computing load is not obviously "related to wind and solar facilities." Proposed Resolution 24-04-125M replaces this section outright, which removes the tether.
- known_defect
- description Article XII numbers two consecutive sections "Section 1201" — PERMITTED USES and AREA AND BULK REQUIREMENTS. [verified] in the text layer, and independently flagged by the township's own 2026-06-02 minutes as "a renumbering of section 1201 to section 1202 correcting a clerical error." The bytes and the minutes agree.
referendum
- contest Allen Township Zoning (Unincorporated Area)
- election 2026 Primary, Hancock County, Ohio
- certified_report_timestamp 2026-05-11T16:17:22
- source_files
- data/documents/findlay/governance/2026-PRI-SUM.pdf
- data/documents/findlay/governance/2026-PRI-SOVC.pdf
- result
- for_the_zoning_resolution
- votes 503
- pct 69.48
- against_the_zoning_resolution
- votes 221
- pct 30.52
- total_votes 724
- ballots_cast 732
- registered_voters 1761
- turnout_pct 41.57
- precincts_reported 2 of 2
- for_the_zoning_resolution
- by_precinct
- precinct ALLEN E
- for 305
- for_pct 73.67
- against 109
- against_pct 26.33
- total_votes 414
- ballots_cast 418
- registered 962
- precinct ALLEN W
- for 198
- for_pct 63.87
- against 112
- against_pct 36.13
- total_votes 310
- ballots_cast 314
- registered 799
- corrections
- ⚠️ The reported unofficial result was 502-221. The CERTIFIED canvass is 503-221. Issue 1463's body carries the unofficial figure; this artifact supersedes it. Both round to ~69%, so no downstream conclusion changes — but the certified number is the one to quote.
- ⚠️ Registration reconciliation, not an error. [verified] The zoning contest shows ALLEN W with 799 registered voters; the same canvass's countywide turnout table shows ALLEN W with 1,077. The two figures measure different electorates — one contest is put only to the unincorporated area, the other table counts the whole precinct — and must not be reconciled against each other. The 278-voter arithmetic is read off the canvass; WHAT accounts for it is not. [inference] The reduction is consistent with the Village of Van Buren, the only incorporated place lying within Allen Township, being excluded from an unincorporated-area question — but no boundary or precinct-split source in corpus establishes that Van Buren's ALLEN W registration is 278, and the canvass itself never names the excluded area. [open] Confirm against the Hancock County BOE's precinct-to-jurisdiction split before attributing the difference to any named village.
- ⚠️ 732 ballots cast against 724 votes recorded — 8 ballots on which the question was left blank or spoiled. Use 724 as the denominator for the percentages, as the canvass does.
- significance
- tag verified
- detail The canvass timestamp (2026-05-11) is the same date Article XXIV of the zoning resolution gives as its BOE certification and its effective date. The instrument and the election record agree with each other, which is what makes the effective date safe to assert.
- prior_attempt
- election May 2025
- outcome [reference] The first referendum passed and was then invalidated over abbreviated ballot language. The township's own record of the disposition is in its 2026-07-07 zoning commission minutes: a 2025 hearing must be redone "because Allen Township's zoning status was revoked by Judge Jonathon Starn."
- ballot_language_objection [reference] Contemporary reporting describes the challenged language as stating that the zoning plan would establish Allen Township as an agricultural district. Not verified against a certified ballot; the ballot text itself is [open].
- case_number [open]
- certified_canvass [open] — the Hancock County BOE's published results begin at the November 2025 general; no May-2025 canvass is retrievable from the open web. See `access_failures` in data/documents/findlay/governance/filename-map.yaml.
- judge_name_spelling The ATZC minutes write "Jonathon Starn"; the county directory and the appellate record write "Jonathan Starn". Preserved as written in each source, not normalized.
Where it connects
findlay/governance/allen-twp-zoning-adoption-and-referendum.yaml · — · findlay