Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. It is Wednesday, August 19th, and it's 12.02. And I will call the meeting of the Athens City Planning Commission to order. The first order of business is establishing a quorum. We have three members present. Two members were unable to attend today, Ms. Rapley and Ms. Knisely. But we do have a quorum, and so we will proceed with business. Next on the agenda is, well, let me, is, so anybody who wants to speak today, I would ask that they raise their right hand and agree to what the statement that I will make. Is there anybody who's going to speak today? Okay, no hands. So I guess we'll then proceed with the next item on the agenda, which is the disposition of minutes. The last time we met was June 17th. All should have those minutes available to them. Are there any questions or comments or corrections? I will state that on page five, the initial minutes that were posted on the website had two incorrections. They had Mr. Hunter listed as a person making a public comment, and it was Ms. Todd Hunter. And they also had another person's name incorrect. The minutes had another person's name, Ms. Snoddy, S-N-O-D-D-Y, was spelled incorrectly. And so both of those have been updated and are correct in the information we have. Is there any other comments or, like I say, corrections or additions? If there are none, I'll accept a motion to accept the minutes as presented. I move. And second? Second.

Okay, so I'll second.

Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Okay. And, of course, one abstention. Yes. Okay, we have no cases today, so we'll move to communications. And the one communication we have is the Athens County Children's Services, which is rebuilding their facility out – Not sure the name of the street that the address but it you can see it there at the at the viaduct there on Richland Avenue the property comes down to the viaduct they there's a recommendation to To bring them into the county or into the city. They are currently not in the city and to Recommend a zoning for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The street is Stony Brook. I

Stony Brook, okay.

It basically terminates in the parking lot of Children's Services.

Okay. So, Megan, do you want to provide us with information about this proposed?

Sure. So I have an exported screenshot of our zoning map. There it is on the screen. So the property in question is In between U.S. Route 33 and the Far East neighborhood, and it's that gray sliver, it's unzoned. Zoning, I guess, around the area, of course, the light yellow is R1, which is single-family residential, and then down along East 8th Street is B3, which is our corridor business zone. looking at the zoning ordinance i believe b3 would be the most compatible zone for the use in the location and if you have any other questions about other options i'd be happy to mention them or answer them but as of right now b3 is probably the easiest zoning district for this property

And that would be, so there are three streets that look like maybe two streets that penetrate that property, but the property goes all the way back to that third street, that cross street there?

Yes, they own the parcels back, or I guess all the way up to the hillcrest road. I believe their main operations are down closer to Jacob's Drive. The section between Jacobs and Dalton is the Zenner house just for kind of location familiarity And so I don't know if they have intentions to build on the properties farther north Past Hillcrest Road, but they do own those properties up along us route 33 so so if we you know if the

they're adopted into the city this property is adopted into the city there looks like for instance even with the Zenner house part of the parcel is not in the city that's so there would be there would be this gray area in between okay I believe half of the Zenner house property is within city limits and the other half is outside of city limits so that Western most half is not zoned because it is not in city limits specifically the Zenner house property yeah well it looks like there's several other properties that belong there as well that's correct and that's yeah that's currently that that is exactly half of the yards in this area or outside the city it's correct has anybody approached them about bringing them in no no that's okay

And I can speak to it a little bit, just to kind of give a little background. We were approached by Athens County Children's Services a year ago to provide more substantial water service to Athens County Children's Services, and at the time, You know, they're extra territorial, that is to say the city provides both water and sewer services to a large employer outside of the city. And the position that both the administration and the council took last year was we would consider doing this and expanding this at our expense with the understanding that they would annex. And so we struck an arrangement, a pre-annexation agreement that was approved by the city council and the county commissioners that says, you know, basically as they approach the end of their construction that they would annex under a certain provision within the state law that allows governmental property, specifically county-owned property, to annex into a city when a city petitions for that annexation. And so that agreement was passed last year and specified October 15th as the honor of out date that the city council would petition the county commissioners to approve that annexation with the goal of it taking effect on or about 1 January of 27. Since then, the city has built a pretty substantial water line, you know, several hundred thousand dollars to be able to provide the larger water service that was necessary for their new construction, and that's complete now. And so the city's kept up its half of the bargain, and we'll, you know, seek the county to keep up their half of the bargain, which is to say they would go ahead and annex. And... But in order to annex, something can't get annexed without having zoning identified. And so at this point, we're talking about what the appropriate zoning would be. We wouldn't want to zone it even though a government entity doesn't necessarily have to comply with zoning, we wouldn't want to zone it completely incompatible with its existing use immediately upon when it comes in. With regards to those backyards, all of us, I think, made the decision at the time that it was more important to get Athens County Children's Services annexed And strike while the iron was hot versus trying to muddy up the situation with a bunch of other property owners. And then if these property owners want to annex for those backyards, I don't know if there's much benefit to them to do so. Probably there's a little bit of property tax savings. If they wanted to, because property taxes in this portion of Athens Township are slightly lower inside the city, like the tune of a couple bucks over a year for that vacant property in those backyards. So, you know, people may want to do that. But I saw it, and I think all of us kind of saw it as a separate issue. Makes sense. And we didn't want to delay the annexation of Athens County Children's Services because we were dealing with multiple property owners.

Totally.

agree also I'm sorry one last note that particular provision under state law that allows for annexation by petition can only apply to county property okay government property basically and so we'd have to go a different route if we included those private properties okay okay and so what we're what we're being what we're asked here to do is recommend to City Council a zone for the property and

Okay, looking at the I guess the contours of the northern half of their Property on from the plat map they have some fairly tough contours on the northern half So I'm not sure how likely it will ever become a larger commercial development so if you are interested you could always zone the properties and North of that area as r1 rather than b3 make it more compatible with the zoning there to the east of it the existing r1 zoning But that's up for it for your discussion basically be the northern end from Hillcrest up Hillcrest up Hillcrest is the last Northern Street.

Great. It has a cross-section there.

Oh, I Think that might be two different parcels So like this would be our one and this would be p3 Can put the map back up the map back.

Yes, please Scott Orion I do think my screenshot kind of cut off the northern half. Okay. See where Hillcrest.

So there is Hillcrest Yes, so there is a property line there at Hillcrest. There is so it would there'd be some logic to breaking that and so the If I may So the annexation is

The entire?

Yeah. Yes, sir. 29 acres. Okay. There's more property up here that belongs to the commissioners that are outside of this picture.

Okay.

And that's not part of the annexation.

Thank you. Okay. But we're just dealing with the parcel that is Hillcrest all the way down, or are we dealing with the whole thing at this point in time?

The annexation is the entire map. If you look at the map on the last page, I think they are talking about this too. Interesting. The 29 acres is well up the hill along the highway right away. That may very well, I would have to look at it physically, but it may very well be where the cliff sides are on that side of the highway. I couldn't tell you specifically, but Hillcrest is here on the map. So I think what the planner's talking about is perhaps a B3 designation here and an R1 up here in this area up here. Is that your understanding, Director, what she was talking about?

Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. That's good, and it's interesting. I mean, and I'm familiar enough with that to be dangerous, that northern parcel that is county property, and R1 or... Could it be considered, since we're just in communications right now, being OS? You know, is it developable? I guess that's the thing to really look at.

It's wilderness right now, I believe. It's all forest.

It's open space, you know. You're saying no? Okay.

I disagree with, you know, I mean, and the only reason I say that is the city is surrounded by undevelopable land. And not to say that it's going to get developed any time in the near, the next several decades, but, you know, the more things that we, the more barriers we create to future housing, you know, by zoning things, open space. I mean, open space is great. For for what it is, but you know, we've surrounded ourselves completely by and now we can't build houses because because stuff's on open space So I would say I don't think it's gonna get developed for a long time probably but I would say our one would be more Appropriate than open space. That's good Any other comments So then I do actually okay. Go ahead. Can we talk about the benefits for the lower half of B3 versus B2 versus B1. One of the things, I talked to Otis, I talked to the Director of Children's Services, and he says they're not opposed to B3. I asked him specifically about Do they have any current residential there? And he said, no. And I said, do you expect there to be any future residential there? And he said, at this time, that is not in our plan. And the reason I asked him that is because you can't have first floor residential on a B3. And so if we zone a B3, that would prohibit first floor residential in that particular area. Would there be any benefit to doing a B1 instead of a B3? And would that be incompatible with the use?

interpretation that's a little bit more restrictive zoning a b1 if there's concern about that maybe there's not concern about the beginning of the b1 zone reads that principal permitted uses allow for any local retail business or service establishment supplying commodities or performing services primarily for residents of the neighborhood. So we're looking at that text now to interpret whether or not this use would qualify for B1.

I see. I mean, B1 does allow for office, business, and professional, things like that. But in general, as you said, pointed out, B2 would only allow residential on second story and above. I don't see this property creating residential use. on the first floor, as they've indicated. So, I mean, we looked at both B3 and B1, and I think where we landed was B3 was the most appropriate, and if that didn't, if that met objection, then B1 would be the appropriate fallback. I don't believe B2 is necessary.

Does that answer your question? Yeah, I think so. You know, you talk about the escalating restrictions as you get closer and closer to R1. I didn't know if making it a B1 would somehow make it not, like something else that B1 restricts would then all of a sudden make what Athens County Children's Services. Again, understanding that a governmental entity doesn't necessarily have to comply with zoning, but we'd hate to go and zone it something that it was incompatible with existing. Okay.

Yeah, I think our take is that B3 is the least restrictive business zone. Correct. Then it was made the property, I don't know what the word would be, pliable or usable. So we really hadn't considered the R1 until you mentioned it, this northern section creating an R1 there. So that is certainly a possibility.

Any other comments? All right. The only other thought, and it just jumped into my head about R1 in that area is, you know, that would preclude multifamily in the future if they ever, if the county ever wanted to do something up there, if they still owned it for multifamily. But maybe that's what we'd want. Maybe multifamily is not the right use up in that area. And then if someone wanted to do something different than what the R1 would allow, that a PUD might be the way to go.

Right. I will say with the B3 zoning designation, a lot of the more intense uses that would create negative externalities on the neighboring R1 have built-in buffers to a neighboring R zone. And so, like, for example, a common buffer is 200 feet to an R1 or R2 zone. There are even greater buffers for even more, I would say noxious, but that's not the right word, Intense uses and you give an example for the viewing sure like for example a hospital here has a 200 foot distance requirement from any our zone So if the hospital tried to locate on this property the use itself would have to be more than 200 feet from in our zone and Looking at the plat map you measure the width of the property itself

Looks like, I can't read the number. Looks like about 300 feet.

Yeah, the lot itself is, I'm picking right by the Zenner house, so right where Stony Brook comes in. It looks like it's 230 feet to 250 feet. It tapers there a little bit. So it would be, you'd have 30, 50 feet to fit a hospital in.

I think one of the things, Mr. Chair, that I've heard, you know, specifically from this neighborhood is objection to some of the businesses along East 8th Street being noncompatible. But, you know, that's a commercial corridor that's been there for a long time. And there's the need to have a buffer. And I think there would be a concern from the residents in that area that, like, oh, could something like... You know a car dealership or what have you be?

Located on on that property and I think this this would would make that hard They're built into the b3s on the 200 100 to 200 foot zones almost almost every Principled use has some kind of is on it. Not all of them, but a lot of them do buffers Well to your point director stone that

If my memory serves me correctly, again, along this retail corridor, which is Columbus, or East State Street, you know, several years ago, there was a stretch that was R2 all along there, and it was council action to change that to R1. So there's been changes in both directions in this corridor.

Of note, I mean, I think just for our own I think everyone here probably knows it, but just for the viewing public, that southern boundary accesses or touches East State Street right away, that's federal limited access right away. So there's never going to be a situation where a curb cut will go through there. So there will never be the ability of somebody in the future to go and place some sort of use on the southern end and then get immediate access to East State Street because that can't happen.

Well, then I guess I would recommend that the proposed 29.4240 acres of Athens County Children's Service property be zoned on the southern half, B3, and on the northern half, R1.

Perhaps, sir, we could ask for them to repair a map for next meeting. Okay. We can seek to, that reflects what you propose. Okay. That's what we can vote on when it goes forward. Okay.

The border would be at Hillcrest Drive, correct? Correct. Very good. It looks like there's an existing parcel line.

Yeah, it looks like there's an existing parcel line down here. For sure.

Yes. Okay.

Fantastic. Okay, so then we'll move on and the next item on the agenda are reports. Mr. Pyle, do you have a report for us today?

Nothing prepared. If there are questions about Avenel Crossing, I can potentially answer those, but I don't have any specific report for that.

Is there any update on Avenel?

I spoke with the developer, it's been well over a month ago now, over the telephone. They're looking into alternative locations. They have ceased all work on that project. And he told me on the phone that it could take some time. He casually mentioned six to eight weeks, but I didn't feel like that was a firm timeframe for him, and there really isn't one. Yeah. But the formal information I have is that they have stopped working on that project and are looking elsewhere, and that at some point we will get official notice, but we have not received that yet.

Good.

Go ahead. Ms. Jennings, do you have anything for us?

Sure. I'd be happy to report out on the Welcome Home Ohio planned unit development process. At the last meeting, I had mentioned that we would be moving forward with the planned unit development application for that site, and that ball is finally rolling. The application has been submitted to the Code Office, and we hope to bring the initial review of that proposed PUD to the Planning Commission on your September 2nd meeting, which is your next meeting. And then we would also like to schedule the final review of that planned unit development application for September 16th. So both of your September meetings, we'd like to have the PUD application be reviewed by you all. Ahead of those Planning Commission meetings, this Saturday, we do have a meeting scheduled at the Community Center, and a notice has gone out about the, it's an informational meeting for the neighborhood residents to come and learn more about the project, see what the proposed site plan is, and also what the proposed homes will look like. And so myself, as well as members of the development team, We'll be giving a presentation at the start of the meeting and then we'll basically open up the floor to any questions that residents may have. And we'll be sure to have informational boards printed up and displayed around the room that share like a larger picture of the site plan, some of the environmental concerns, as well as the proposed kind of like a 3D rendering of what the site would look like post-development. and then also the floor plans for the units. We are aiming to have one of the eight units be fully ADA accessible, and that was a priority going into the site design. So we're excited to share the floor plans for that unit as well as the other seven. We're also planning, it's not yet scheduled, but there is a meeting on the books for any prospective buyers. So we're hoping that this informational meeting at the neighborhood People can come and learn about the program and see whether or not they would maybe qualify as a prospective buyer. And if they're interested in learning more, we'll have a second meeting specifically for prospective buyers. We'll host that meeting at the new fire station headquarters on Stimson Avenue. But that meeting is not yet scheduled. We'll basically have mortgage lenders there. As well as organizations that will do the required financial literacy and it'll just be an opportunity for buyers to learn more about the program requirements.

Any questions about- Did you say what time the meeting was Saturday?

I did not. It's at 10 AM. 10 AM, okay. Thank you.

Okay.

It's in room A, which is the big one at the end of the long hallway. And we try to time it up with the farmers market so maybe we can catch some extra people if Neighborhood residents are shopping at the farmers market. They can kind of hit two birds with one stone great

Yes. I would suggest being prepared to speak to infrastructure improvements on Hudson in that corridor and what the thought process is at this point to make sure that we can get an adequate water line to accommodate not just the housing but fire protection down on Hudson Street, which at the end of Hudson does not currently exist.

Okay. Yep. Good. It's in the slides. Good. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor.

Anything else?

The other update I'll just report out on kind of our comp plan process so far. This week we were supposed to have a meeting with the Northside neighborhood on Monday night, but it got rained out. So that had to get canceled, but we are looking to reschedule that for next week. I'm meeting with I'm emailing with neighborhood representatives now to choose the best time for that so once that's finalized I'll get another post out about it but we're starting our meetings with the Northside neighborhood next week and then also we're getting our first stakeholder group off of the ground we're meeting with the culture and value stakeholder members starting this Friday and so that group will focus on our arts and culture our community values and DEI initiatives will kind of be all encompassed within that group and then I'll just report out that I'm also working on updating the comp plan website this week I'm trying to find the best way to incorporate a calendar so that all of the meetings that we'll be scheduling can be found in one concise location it's tricky to work on the editing of that. So I'm trying to figure out the best format. Um, and then the last thing I'll mention is we did host our kickoff public open house. It was kind of a review of all of the things that will be covered in the comprehensive plan. And that was on August 5th. That was a Wednesday night. We had pretty good turnout and received pretty great input. We did kind of launch our first public input survey and we got some feedback on some of our questions. So we've revised some of the questions on that survey and we'll be pushing it out on social media and then as well as making it live on our website here this week. That's all I've got right now on the comp plan. More meetings to come, many more.

Thank you. As a part of reports, Mayor or Mr. Stone, do you have anything you'd like to report or you want to wait to announcements or how would you like to? I guess we don't traditionally get a report necessarily from you folks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do. An announcement anyway. I'm fully recognizing that in late June and then again on the 11th of August that we had significant downpours in the city of Athens. Richland Avenue was certainly affected as was East State Street was significantly affected. What I wanted to do is just kind of speak a little bit to Richland Avenue. I was sitting here just searching for how much rain fell on the 11th of August a week ago last Tuesday, was somewhere between three and five inches within a very short period of time. And we've heard from a number of business owners in that corridor. We are meeting with the businesses this evening to kind of have an open conversation about several things to include the Corps of Engineers report that we received in 2025 that specifically speaks to Coats Run. And the outcome of that report, that'll be probably the centerpiece of the conversation this evening, but also looking at whether or not actions can be taken when you have three to five inch rain falls in a very, very short period of time. So I wanted to get that information out. The city is listening. The city is having conversations with the affected areas The most challenging thing I think that everyone needs to realize, and I think most people do at the end of the day, is that climate change is affecting our rainfall amounts with these flash floods with a higher level of frequency. And we have seen, I've spoken to several business owners who have been in the Richland Avenue, Coats Run Corridor for many decades, and To their recollection, they've never seen anything like this before, nor the impacts, but again, the city is open and wanting to listen and see what could be done collectively. We will also be having conversations in the future with the Ohio Department of Transportation to see if there's assistance or work that we could be doing together as partners to see

we can help but yes I'll just put a full stop there so the next item on the agenda is opportunities for the citizens to speak about items not covered on this agenda nobody wanted nobody raised their hand and tending to speak I'll ask again is there anybody who'd like to say anything at this point okay And then the last item is announcements and other business. Do we have anything additional? No.

Okay.

Well, short meeting today. Productive but short. So I will move that we adjourn. Second. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.