By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The old Tyrone Township Hall building is getting new life.

The township board last week approved a special land use request that will allow for the building to be re-purposed for Send The Light Church. A sales contract was signed in February, which included use options for the historic township hall and the site will not be physically altered from an exterior point of view. The Planning Commission earlier granted conditional approval to the project, noting the intensity of the use would not significantly increase as church services would be similar in attendance to some of the association and other special events that were held infrequently at the prior hall. Parking is in compliance with ordinance requirements. A public hearing was held previously and no objections were raised.

Trustee Kurt Schulze commented the church was required to write out a use explanation, which will be incorporated into documents. He said they completed everything that was requested and there were no concerns from the planning commission. A letter noted that traffic generated from weekly church services would be less than generated by the previous use. There would be an occasional wedding, shower, small non-alcohol reception or church picnic type events held. There would be no outside activities or programs set up for other groups or organizations and no leasing of the building or property will be permitted.

Pastor John Martin says they purchased the old township building for a small, non-denominational Bible-based Christian church and believes it will fit in nicely with the environment of the community. He tells WHMI the church is not new by any means and they’re a small congregation and everyone is excited but it’s been a slow process. Martin says the church has rented space in Fenton for the past 18 years so this will be their first owned building and everyone is excited.

Martin said there are no plans for any major repairs or further development or construction on the property. He says they’ve applied a fresh coat of paint to the building and done a little yard work and some small repairs outside. Martin said they won’t be moving rooms or walls or doing anything major and the building is in pretty good condition for them to have a church. Martin didn’t want to speculate on any timeline as they still have some other steps to complete in the process and things have been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic but said it would be great if they could be moved in by fall. He noted the church was poised to celebrate their 18th anniversary on May 5th but that had to be postponed due to COVID-19. He says there is no target move-in date but when that does happen, some sort of dedication event is likely.