WELLINGTON – The Wellington Board of Trustees on Tuesday cleared the way for as many as 28 businesses to occupy spaces with visibility along Interstate 25.

The trustees unanimously approved the town planning commission’s recommendation to grant the request of FRS Properties LLC, owned by Matthew Mullett, to rezone the Wellington Business Center’s 6.9-acre Lot 7 from light industrial to mixed-use commercial. The light-industrial zoning was for a venture in 2015 that didn’t come to fruition.

“We had a plan for the Lot 7, which was light industrial, but things have changed a lot even though there’s been opportunity for industrial there,” Mullett told the trustees. “But personally I care about the town and what things look like, and I feel like that part of the town is better suited for hobby commercial.”

He said the new highway commercial zoning would allow the tract to “accommodate up to 28 different little shops — so obviously it depends on the size of the shop that comes in. It leaves the ability for anything from little businesses to restaurants.”

Mullett cited the need for a diversity of small businesses in Wellington, noting that “there’s multiple times you can’t even get a copy made in town, so many little things like that.”

He noted that “the zoning would allow hotels, but that’s not our goal.”

In other action, the trustees authorized the purchase of property from North Poudre Irrigation Co. for the town’s water treatment plant, and joined several other Colorado communities in declining full participation in Colorado’s state-run family and medical leave insurance program — although town human-resources manager Stephanie Anderson noted that individual town employees or the town itself could later choose to opt in to the program.