Christopher’s restaurant move gets zoning approval

A planned move by the owner of Christopher’s restaurant, located on East Market Street, got a major boost when Cadiz council met May 14 and approved a zoning change from agricultural to neighborhood commercial.

Zoning Enforcement Officer John Vermillion announced that a zoning meeting held the previous night resulted in all final engineering papers being turned in for the new Christopher’s restaurant location. The 6.5 acres it will sit on is across from Harrison Central High School on part of the long, empty field.

“They passed a temporary permit last night, conditional use permit to go ahead and start that work,” Vermillion told council.

Vermillion requested that council change the zoning to a C-1 rating, which is a neighborhood commercial district. He said the zoning board was unanimous in voting for the change. Councilmember Billy Hyde’s motion to change the zoning from agricultural to a C-1 zone also was approved unanimously. Vermillion later said groundbreaking should begin soon and construction should take approximately a year to complete.

Village Solicitor Chuck Kidder followed this up with an issue concerning Cadiz Union Cemetery, which had been discussed in a prior meeting involving oil and gas rights. He told council there was a new legal description for it, but there is no deed of record unless it was lost, he said.

“You can’t really put a new legal description of record by affidavit, and we really don’t have anybody who had personal knowledge as to who owned the cemetery from the early 1800s,” Kidder said.

Kidder suggested filing a “quiet title action” in common pleas court “and we would essentially sue John and Jane Doe.” He said he did not believe there would be any contrary interest in the cemetery.

“We would have to publish that lawsuit in the newspaper, and then we would get a default judgment that the village would own it,” Kidder said.

He said the new order would say the village owns the cemetery. Then the village would deed the cemetery to the trustees of the cemetery, which would allow them to put in the legal description and ownership of record. As of now, there is nothing to demonstrate ownership of the cemetery.

Councilmember Eric Miller asked how the gas and oil rights would come about. Kidder said once the cemetery is deeded, an oil and gas lease can be done.

“Then you would have the deed of record,” Kidder said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Kidder reminded council that the original deed may have been lost in a 19th-century courthouse fire. He said after consulting with two other attorneys, he was told they did not know of another process.