City Council - Regular Meeting

All right.

Welcome to Cleveland Heights City Council Committee of the Whole meeting. It's July 13th at 5 p.m. Tony Kuda, would you please call the roll? Tony Kuda, here. Gail Larson, here. Kurt Cobb, here. Jim Puch, here. Joe DeWitt-Flohr, here. Sarah Stone, here. Jessica, here. The Stone line with Cohen-Mary. Stone.

I pronounced Cohen correctly now.

And we have the mayor here, Jim Petras, and... our city administrator, Michael Reese. The first item on the agenda, and just for people who are listening, we have deer management, community relations, we have a parks and rec update from Director Gonzalez, and then we're gonna talk about short-term rentals and housing needs assessment with Sarah Stone, and then planning and development with Councilman Cohen, and then I have a 10-minute or less update at the very end. So... care management? Who wants to take that one?

I'd like to. That's okay. It's all yours. Part of the Public Safety and Health Committee. And a lot of work has been done sort of in the background with Council Member Gail Larson. I feel like we're sort of brother and sister trying to work together on all this stuff. It's We have city administrator, Michael Reese, who's also been part of the cadre of trying to figure out what to do. Although we're trying to come to council with some recommendations and we're fine tuning some things, Michael, from the administrative perspective, Gail and I, just from the relationships that we've been building with ODNR, and the metro parks. It seems like some of those are slowly getting passed over to the administration as they take over this. We have Chief Britton coming to some of the meetings that we've been having. But the big thing that has happened within the last week is ODNR has finally given us a draft year management plan. I have shared that individually with a council member over some key issues in a second. This is a public document. If anybody wants it, they can reach out to me. If Addie was here, I'd ask Addie to post it as part of the agenda. I mean, this is pretty hot off the presses. Essentially, just to kind of go over some core kind of facts when it comes to urban deer populations, they unnaturally grow 30% a year. and it's just an unnatural growth. Many urban cities have been dealing with this, especially our neighbors, such as South Euclid, Shaker, and Beachwood. They have put together deer management plans. Deer management plan is a nice way to say that you're eliminating or you're cutting your herd. You are not eradicating your deer population, but you're trying to get your deer population to a point where it is sustainable for the for the community to digest having a smaller deer population and what it takes to get there. We have a recommendation from ODNR to call 200 deer this winter, 100 deer next winter, and 75 deer the following winter. If we wait on doing any calling for the first year, it essentially means that we are going... If we call 95 deer a year, it basically keeps our population in check. So otherwise, we're growing essentially 95 deer every single year. And the issue is trying to get to a point where we're maintaining a healthy balance. for the community to understand that, you know, this is a proper amount of deer within our community. And so the deer have enough food for themselves and they can survive. And we have to kind of look at our neighbors to see what our neighbors have done because we're sort of like late to the game. Most of the key neighbors are key neighbors. Again, this is South Euclid, Shaker, and Beachwood. I have to say University Heights right now is looking at building on to be part of this regional effort to maintain our deer. But essentially, it's pretty likely that we are going to be getting a recommendation to call up to 200 deer within the next year, hopefully this winter. The administration has been thinking through this. I believe they've been talking to neighboring partners use. I mean, Shaker and Beach would do this absolutely together. I think it's one PO. Well, we found out that the Shaker plan, they pay about $2,000 a year, which was a little bit of a surprise to us. When we individually spoke to them, they gave us a number, but we didn't know it was a number that they actually both had to pay together. We thought it was about $1,000, but in reality, they're paying $2,000 because they're basically splitting their in how it was happening. The South Euclid option is much more affordable, but it's a little bit different. The Shaker is very turnkey, where their vendor handles everything. The South Euclid relationship is not as turnkey, but it works really well for Okay, so what happens to this whole process is with the calling, the deer are actually processed by a butcher, and the end result is meat that goes to food pantries and the food bank. We have a public hearing set for July 28th at 6 o'clock. This is going to be very similar to the public hearing that we had at the end of April. 2025. We have presentations by the Metro Parks that are going to start. Essentially, their naturalist is going to come in and discuss urban deer populations and how they've been exploding and why they've been exploding. And some of it DEER THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF AND THE CITY HAS BEEN RUNNING PUBLIC INFORMATION MESSAGING TO TRY TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM FEEDING DEER. IT JUST COMPOUNDS THE PROBLEM. BUT THE PRESENTATIONS START WITH METRO PARKS. IT'S SIGNED be concerned and they should fact check all this like I think we have done. The second part of the presentation, the shorter part is going to be from ODNR and they will be talking about the deer management plan they presented to us. What it takes, why it's important, what the options are, because there are options. And then we're going to have a public comment section.

When you talk about the options...

The cost situation is really handled by the administration at this point. I mean, when they take over, they will be coming back to council with some recommendations based on what they feel like. I mean, this really is a decision that really needs to be made with our support, obviously. But they have to be running this program, and they have to be comfortable with it. ODNR can't tell them what vendor to use. out, we have neighboring cities that do this and do it very safely. I think we'd just be tacking on to what they do using some of their expertise. There will be some ballpark costs that I think will be shared along the lines, but I think it's a little bit too early to figure that out.

So on that note, do the costs then, it really depends on the vendor is what I'm hearing, just like anything. So it would be GET A SENSE. IF IT'S IN THE WINTER TIMING-WISE, DOES THAT MEAN FOR US IT WOULD FALL IN THIS BUDGET YEAR? DO THEY HAVE TO START? WHEN DOES THE CULLING SEASON START?

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Cohen and members of council. So it really depends on what vendor we go with, but there could be, we will definitely, we will look to, if we proceed with this program based on all the public hearing input and some additional due diligence, we will look to budget something in the 2027 budget. And depending on what vendor we go with, yeah, they may do some calling in early 2027, as well as late 2027. There could be two cycles, um, depending on, um, how, how we, uh, what vendor we go with and how we structure our program. Um, but regardless, um, you know, we hope to do more than 95 because that's just kind of status quo. So, um, And we haven't officially ruled out sterilization either. That's something that is potentially on the table. But culling will be the focus.

I'll tell you. It's one of the most frequently asked questions when I'm just out and about. What do you guys actually do? Everybody seems to know that we've talked about it. We've had a hearing and so forth.

I know you want to say something, but I just want to make one quick kind of follow up to that. I mean, so we did have this public hearing in 2025, and there has been some disappointment in the community because they didn't see us do anything last year. And I think we need to recognize that the... The prior mayor, the former mayor, was really ignoring this issue. I mean, and it was something that was not on his radar. He didn't want to touch it. And that's disappointing from a number of reasons. I mean, one of them is now there's more deer that we have to address. And, you know, calling is a nice word for killing. I mean, we have to kill more deer now because we waited too long and we could skip a year because maybe we as a council choose not to do this. It's just going to mean that we have a more unsustainable situation. And I think this is why it's important that people come to this public hearing and sort of hear from the experts on what gets done and what's the cause of all this. I mean, we grew up in a situation where, you know, deers were cute. They ran around. I mean, they're

growing the way it's growing today and that is that is the major difference you know i'm sorry that's all right i'd also like to add that the vendors that we're gathering information from there really isn't that much difference between them in terms of the process and the space they need for processing the carcasses and that sort of thing i would like to make sure you all understand that Our sister cities, Shaker Heights, Beechwood, South Euclid, are very interested in working with us. So we're not in this alone. And any experiences that they've had, South Euclid's been doing this since 2020. They are absolutely willing to share with us and help us through this. And I think that's, to me, reassuring because for their own personal deer counts, they want this to work.

And Euclid, by the way, when we had first suburbs, I actually conned them.

I mean, I asked them to have this as a topic.

They did take it up. There was probably, I don't know, 20 cities represented at this meeting, and Euclid was another one that was interested.

Councilwoman Larson, you mentioned South Euclid started in 2020. Do we know when?

Maybe a year or two after.

It wasn't long.

I think they've been doing that for five years now. That's right. And most start without sterilization. And sterilization was new to Beechwood and Shaker last year. South Euclid, I believe in 2010, Well, well for the following year, they got the still. So I got a very generous grant, I believe from, I believe from the County to try sterilization and it's, it's effective for a very long-term plan. It doesn't really address any short-term issues. It is pretty expensive. And, um, The only people in Ohio that I know that do it from the management meetings is South Euclid, Shaker, and Beechwood. It's done on the East Coast a lot, but not so much here in the Midwest.

Is Cleveland involved? I mean, they're contiguous to Cleveland Heights.

I don't know what the city of Cleveland does. I mean, that would be important.

Well, Metro Parks within the city of Cleveland.

Well, it's done in every single one of the Metro Parks.

Okay. That's something we'll take a look at. We'll do some research on the city of Cleveland.

Other than voting on this as a budget item, is it anticipated that council will be asked to vote on a resolution calling for this, or is this strictly going to be an administrative function?

I don't know the answer to that yet. I've talked with the law department today, and I'm going to be getting some information to them. There may be a need for legislation yet this year, but I don't know yet. Obviously, this is separate from any budget piece, but we'll have answers to that soon. Go ahead, sir.

I just two things. I mean, I just would like to say I really endorse this. Having been lived in an area that did not have deer culling and that was surrounded by areas that did, the deer know where to go. And it's probably exacerbating our problem that we don't have programs. One of the things that I saw in the proposal is the requirement or desire that the city have collect more data about the deer related incidents related to traffic. So I would just highlight that to say that that's a missing piece and I think will be very persuasive to the public. We all suspect, but probably don't know the number of incidents that involve deer and how dangerous they are.

because those are key measurements. I mean, auto deer fatalities because of auto, they get hit by a car, dead deer found on private property, sick deer that have to be euthanized. You know, John Barber in his public statement in the public hearing we had a year ago, today but we're basically doing it with our cars and that's kind of difficult to comprehend so I do want to say that the methodology that gets used is very humane it is very safe and I think when we get closer to You mentioned that South Euclid's program is slightly less turnkey than what Shaker and Beachwood are doing.

What do you mean by that and how do you see it?

If it's an additional burden to the city if we go that direction? Well, I think there's a little bit more need to do some coordination. Whereas there is some running around that city staff is going to have to do. We didn't talk about costs. I'm uncomfortable talking about the USDA costs, but it is significantly less than $2,000 a year or $2,000 a year, which is why I think.

anecdotal thing but on Saturday I went to a block party in Derbyshire the 92 year old woman that started that block party 50 years ago was there and she she said follow me you know up her driveway she showed me what the deer have done to her She actually has a gate to close off at the top of her driveway. So right outside of there, it's bad. And I think what it made me think about was, I mean, obviously we're not going to eradicate deer, but we do need to come up with strategies for people who, like some information about how they can protect their, All right, anything else about this?

I have one thing. The city has put out some more public information requests to get people to take a survey. It's the Urban Drill Survey that ODNR puts together. Anybody that's listening, whether your gut reaction is you hate this idea, please take the survey. If you like the idea, please take the survey. can um we need to know what people think uh come prepared to make a public comment uh on the 28th uh it's the six o'clock council chambers um i believe wednesday the 28th or tuesday tuesday the 28th um please show up are they um publicizing the survey on social media uh it was

Great. Parks and Rec.

We have Director Gonzalez from Parks and Rec to come on up. And I think we're going to start with a general overview of how the last few months have been going and then kind of what you see for the

Kind of give you an update on what's kind of going on. Parks and Rec all together. A lot going on. But just go park by park here. I'll start at Denison Park. We'll start with the splash pad. The splash pad is moving along. There was a lot of things that when they originally planned for the splash, way. So a lot of that fell on my lap and you know, down to like underground utilities and tying into like Cleveland water putting meters on things and whatnot. So we're moving along with all that stuff. We have an application into Cleveland water currently. Once we get that permitted, we'll move on to the next phase, which is which is hooking up the water line. And we're pretty much done with everything else. Last and different things like that. That'll be completely done this week. And then we have some walkways that are going to be going in and different things like that. And that'll be completely done. And like I said, it'll just be up to Cleveland Water to get us that that thing operational. So regarding the timeline, I know that's probably what people are going to ask, like when? I don't have 100% of like, we were hoping to have it up and operational by the middle of July. That was my original. But we did hit, you know, some snags with Cleveland Water We heard back from Cleveland Water on Friday. We had to provide them some additional information. So the good news is that they put us back to the front of the list. We don't have to go all the way back down to the bottom. So we should be able to get something moving very, very quickly over there.

It is a concrete slab. I know there's equipment that needs to be installed. So how long will the installation of the equipment take?

That'll take a day, a day or two.

I would ask because... This is so important to that neighborhood, to our neighborhood. If you can continue to give updates now as we're getting closer to the end, because it would be lovely to have an opportunity to use this in August when we're going to see hot weather again. We will see it again this week. I'd really ask for something out of the ordinary, and I apologize for asking for staff time, but people have been waiting since 2023. And I know that you got handed some stuff you weren't prepared for. But anticipate that the community is sitting out there waiting for a delightful experience.

Yeah, trust me, there's nobody that wants this done more than me because I'm getting emails and phone calls about it on a daily basis. And I understand why. But we're trying to push it along as quickly as we possibly can.

Thank you. So my question is about our working relationship with Cleveland Water. You know, is that... We obviously rely on them for a lot of different things, not only our water, but we have road repair and things where they have to come out. So who manages that relationship? And maybe this is a question for the mayor or city administrator, Michael, who manages that relationship? Who's the lead on that relationship? And when we hit delays like this, who's responsible for working through the commissioners on Cleveland Water or elevating issues so that they are responsive to us, even though they have

I have a relationship with the director and there have been instances whenever, for example, at the beginning of the year, there was a private property owner whose property was damaged from a Cleveland water project, was able to work with him directly to try to understand if the city would be able to compensate them. In this case, I spoke with Director Quintal about this. We felt that this was not necessary to elevate to that individual, but I think there are multiple people who have a relationship with the organization. Just building upon that, I know Director Klingscale, because her and I have talked,

As we intersect with them at different points, you know, I want to make sure that if it's not us, you know, we do. I think we have all received emails asking about the splash pad from residents and we want to be able to both communicate what the issue is, but also.

I mean, something and really targeted for the community, not necessarily citywide and go to the whole city. But, you know, this was really designed to make that community feel special. You know, a pool was taken out. They're getting a splash pad. There's some hard feelings about that still. And obviously it's taken so long and that's not on your back. Really appreciate the work that you're doing on it.

Thank you. We've talked about we've planned to do some type of nice ribbon-cutting for the community and whatnot so we could do something.

Noble neighbors could be really excited, I would think, about participating in something like that. They're just finishing up their festival.

And the noble neighbors have been great. They're actually donating some benches to the area as well, too, once we get the top playground. related to the splash pad like when when the splash pads close the same date as cumberland like is all the water we could typically leave the splash pads open a little bit longer um because they're very little maintenance to them um there's no chemicals that are needed different things like that and it's just a simple um opening and closing of valves and then um you know winterizing and then de-winterizing so they're a lot a lot less maintenance so we can

consideration for you know the weekends or you know to a lot if we have i mean who knows it could be snowing in september but um and then the other thing was on the splash pads we somebody had an I don't know if I received an email or a phone call, but it seems like we leave the water on the splash pads all, or the cane park, like the entire time?

They're on timers.

They are on timers.

Okay. So there's a button on the side of the building. Push the button. And I'm not sure on the exact timing, but they are on timers.

Okay. So you can, it will turn off and then you can turn back. Okay. Yeah.

When you leave, obviously the water is still on, but it will turn off. Okay. They're on timers.

I was going to ask, I think some systems are motion activated. I mean, maybe when you're in a wooded area, that just doesn't work because you're getting.

Yeah. Even the new splash pad that we're installing is on a timer. It's hand activated. So you have to hit like a button and then it'll, it'll activate it to be on for, let's just say 30 minutes. Okay. And then they'll automatically turn back off and then you have to go back and hit the button again or not. So an effort to save water. Sure.

You mentioned the top lot.

Yep, that was next on my list. Yeah. So the top lot, the top playground, call it, everything has been ordered. It was ordered back in the spring. So we're just waiting. I'm waiting on an update from the company to see when they're going to get all the playground equipment in. I know that because it's been super nice out, the playground installers have been very, very busy. Yeah. manufacturer. So, but that'll be a nice, nice addition over there as well.

Are you still on Denison? I know that we had to have some police stationed up there. Is that still the case now?

It's the police are doing patrol and they're making a presence. It's not as bad as it was at the beginning of the season, because I think the police presence has really, really helped. We still have some problems every once in a blue moon up there, but nothing that we can't handle, nothing like it was before. problems with the expanded hours at the beginning of the season yes we were having problems with a lot of gathering just not not using the field there was just a lot of gathering up there um we were having issues with kids riding their e-bikes and scooters on the actual field itself um but since then we've we've added some some signage um and no damage And we have a monitor from Parks and Rec that monitor our open turf times. And then, like I said, the police presence have been coming through. So we've been doing a lot better since the beginning. Thank you. Any other questions about that? Move on to Kane Park, the sledding hill. So that was on a hiatus just for a few because we had all of our big events that took place over there. But Febreze is going to be coming back out. What they're going to do is not the side of the sledding hill where the steps are. We were having a lot of problems last winter with the kids coming down the sledding hill and going straight towards the the steps and it got kind of dangerous. We were putting up a fancy temporary fencing and different things like that. Hay bales to try to protect it. But, um, Fabrizio is coming back out and they're going to build up that side of the hill. So it directs people to go down the hill instead of towards the steps. Um, and that'll be the last piece of the puzzle over there. Um, they'll do that. Then they'll repair, um, the sidewalk and curbs and different things like that. And, and that'll be done. So they're hoping to come back out sometime, uh, at the end of July-ish, early August to complete that work. So that'll be completed.

Will there be any trees planted that were to replace those?

We're working on a landscape. That was one thing that Karen Canuto was working on right before she left, but she left it in good hands with Brooke Siggers. So we're working on a design. And then once that's all designed, The tennis courts, they started today, resurfacing the tennis courts at Kane Park. That'll take them a couple weeks to complete, but that did start today, so we're excited about that. Two weeks ago, we had a public hearing for the skate park, the last public hearing. Very good turnout. We've got about 40 people that showed up to that. It was very nice. So they got all of the feedback that they needed. And now they're in the final phase of creating the construction documents for that. So we're hoping to break ground here very, very soon. Hopefully as early as the beginning of August, if the pieces of the puzzle all kind of line up. And as long as everything does line up, they still said that they can complete the work If they fall behind a little bit, then they'll have a little bit of work left to do in the spring of next year, and then they'll be completely done with that as well, too. And then we are applying for some CDBG dollars for next year to replace the playground, the play structure at Kane Park as well, too. So as long as that goes according to plan with CDBG dollars, we'll be able to replace that next year. The future works. That's the Cumberland Ring. Yep, that's next on my list.

Will it have the same footprint that the old one does, the playground?

It'll be similar but different. Like they have two separate structures now, and now they have more convenient ones where they're kind of like one structure where you can go from the swings to the playgrounds. And what I thought is really cool is I had them design in a zip line. So it would be kind of cool.

Coventry Peace Park.

So hopefully fall goes according to plan. Like I said, we'll get that at Kane Park and then I'm going to Cumberland if you guys are not.

Go ahead. Question on Kane Park. The new stairs heard some complaints about the way that they're designed. The grass grows in between the concrete. How are we managing bad? I mean, is that just part of the regular landscaping and it is?

Yeah, when they cut, when they cut, it's difficult because when they cut the grass over there, obviously they can't, they cut the entire park with the right on, you know, right, right. You can't use it in there. So it either has to be weed whacked by hand or it has, we have to take a physical push mower in there. So fortunately that's the way that it was designed back then. But yeah, we, we try to maintain it as much as we can. Like I said, either

the lovely people um at the front showed me the ramp um or not the run the path from the disabled lot to the path i guess that leads in from lee road and i'm just i don't know if that's your area or perhaps city minister and the mayor if that's um another area but i wanted to check in because we have heard a little bit about that as well we we have a holistic ada program to about it okay yeah and i'm i'm less concerned about like compliance with ada and more just like if we can get it on the list to get re repaved like the the broken part but it's still at an elevation that's like too high i don't know right i mean i was just concerned about the material of the concrete unfortunately be a bigger I mean, that's also good to know just on its own that this is a bigger project than just replacing the pavement, which I think we can communicate to whoever asks us about it. So that's helpful. Thank you.

Before you move on, when the contractor comes to address the sloping, can you ask them to make sure that I've noticed that some of the steps of the stonework is loose already? Remember, we noticed that when we were there for Juneteenth. Yep.

me that they had gotten a splinter from the wood rail that was also installed and I don't know if we were coming back to finish that at all the broadwood what is that on the south side well the only thing that we can do is like stain it or seal it but it but it needs a full year like because it's treated wood so it needs a full year to to set in the elements before we can treat it or stain it or paint it or whatever okay Yeah, but we're meeting regularly about that. So we're still trying to figure out the final details on what that looks like. On track for 27, or sorry, for 26.

We should have some type of work done in 26. I'm sorry, one other thing. The retaining walls by the bathrooms that are leaning in, do we have a plan to address that? Or at least I think we need to put some kind of fencing or safety tape up

Yeah, we're very aware of that. I'm hoping to address that in the 2027 budget. It was we tried to figure that out in our in the bathroom plan at the same time because we have to do some some things. walking along yeah um we we had uh historical people come out to take a look at that that do that masonry work and whatnot and um they were pretty confident that it's not going to collapse but it's it's it's to the point where it's very dangerous okay so we've talked about the strap that's not a strap you talked about retaining walls let's talk about something good the

whole park looked over the weekend it was gorgeous and i mean when i was there i mean and i ran into you in the booth you know we we had family in town and it was just a pleasure to walk through it was just so nice and everything seemed to be kept well nice the everything was friendly i mean it's know, just everything was clean. It's nice. Thank you for that.

Thank you. I'll just add to that. I saw the staff at the Kensington last night celebrating and it was really nice. You know, everybody was happy and, you know, they gave them like that one side, you know, all of themselves. And it was, you know, they were very proud of, you know, themselves. 14,000 people came, you know, everybody.

Yeah, it was nice. 14,000 plus. And I have to give the credit to the King Park staff down there. They did a fantastic job. I mean, they really, They did a good job, and our laborers did great preparing for it before the storm and all that good stuff. So they did a really good job. So I have to give them credit.

Sure. Go ahead. I hate to be this guy, but I just have to do it while it's on my mind. The food trucks, do they have to be in that area? I mean, is there another place for them? seemed a bit out of the way.

We put them there because of power situations. So the infrastructure for the power is located up there. There are some independent who bring their own generators and different things like that, food trucks, but a lot of them rely on hardwire power and that's where the infrastructure is for that type of situation.

I know there's some local businesses that that they would have really liked to have been asked.

Understood. But we try to mix it up. I mean, between all of our events, we had food vendors for Juneteenth, for Pride, Arts Fest, all that different stuff. So we try to mix and match as much as we can and give as much love as we possibly can. Move on to Cumberland. So at Cumberland, we just mailed in the application this morning for the NatureWorks grant. It's highly, highly competitive, but we're going to give it our best shot here. We feel like with the resources that we have, we stand a good chance of getting that. And what we're using that for, if we get it, is to replace the playground at Cumberland next year as well, too. So it'll be very similar to the King Park one. They're both like the identical structures, pretty much. So they both need to be replaced.

How much money is that?

That one's $160. somewhere in that ballpark-ish. It was $150,000, and they just recently increased the grant to $150,000, up to $100,000. So it doesn't mean that you would qualify for the whole thing, but we're hoping. Director, on that note, when do we expect to find out? In the next couple of months. And then throughout all of our parks, we're between, you know, this year and next year, we're going to be addressing benches throughout the entire because all of our benches doesn't matter what park you go to. They're all very old and outdated. So we're going to be the mayor and finance director Brzezinski. They found some money. that you guys will see coming your way as well for 2027.

Picnic tables as well?

That'll probably be part of 2027. Okay.

Are you considering benches that have these shade things on top? Like I've seen in some of the, I can't even remember, park descriptions. Like, I mean, it doesn't help in the winter, but in the summer in some areas where there's snow.

We can explore it. I haven't really given it much thought. Honestly, we were just kind of replacing benches can explore those options. The pool season at Cumberland is going fantastic. It really, really is. We're losing very little water. we were just losing a crazy amount of water. This year, we're losing very little, which is good. Because we're halfway through the season now, the memberships are now half off right now. So anybody's watching out there, you want to buy a pool membership, they're now half off currently. So that's going very well. And then regarding just a very, very quick update on the update of the pool itself, we have hired an architect designer. So we're, we have the kickoff coming up very, very soon with, with the design company. So we're very excited for that moving forward.

Yeah. It's really, everybody's very positive at the pool about what's coming. And I don't hear any grumbling this year. Last year, there was a lot of grumbling about taking away our pool. This year, everybody's very positive. Yeah. One question for you. We've seen some operational changes in terms of adults are being, and perhaps if you could just have whoever's in charge of the pool email me with a response, that adults are being tested to prove they can swim in order to be in the dive tank, and it takes time for a lifeguard to go over and test these adults. It seems like it's an extra burden on the lifeguards to have to do that. We don't understand why.

Well, I'll tell you why, because... swim, just to be honest with you. So, um, we, we are being very strict on that because, um, we, we don't want to save lives. We want lives to stay on the deck and in the pool. So, um, that that's the main reason why is that a lot of our saves aren't necessarily kids. They're, they're, they're adults where we're having to rescue people jumping off the diving boards or creeping too far into

over in the dive tank? Do you have any data on that?

I'm not 100% sure.

Thank you. If I could add one thing to that, we visited a lot of other pools and we asked

So my four-year-old has been enjoying Cumberland Pool very much. The gate, I know, to the toddler baby pool area has been like off and on. But I actually, I think it was working last time I was there. But I don't think it's my four-year-old opened the gate herself. So I guess my question is, like, can we investigate a different... type of locking mechanism on that. Like it is working, but it's not exactly childproof for like the older.

So we'll get something that's more childproof. Yeah.

I think we need a little bit more. And I, I just want to, I, at the lifeguards have been wonderful. A lot of them are the same kids at the high school to do the tiger shark lessons. And they are just the nicest, most polite kids. I mean, they're really just, they've been really wonderful. Even when they have to tell you you're doing something wrong, they're very nice. I just want to compliment the lifeguard crew for the great season so far.

They have been great this year. And something new that we did this year is we actually partnered with

All the kids that take Tiger Shark lessons know the lifeguards. And so it's like a friendly face right away at the pool. So it's always great.

Thank you. So we've missed that over the last couple of years. And I'm really glad that you've noticed that. I've got a lot of family members that hang out at Cumberland. And the relationships that you see with the older kids and the younger kids just seem to get lost over the last couple of years. there's a very different vibe at Cumberland pool this year than there was in previous years. And I know you put a lot of like cool furniture there last year and everything like that, but things are rocking this year. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's, it's just a staff situation, but you know, something, something good is going on.

We were able to hire a lot of real rock solid people this year, which is really helping in there. You know, they're, they're making it an enjoyable place again. So thank you for the kind words and I would definitely pass it on to the staff. They deserve it as well.

Another one lifeguard read the part of the Declaration of Independence. Really nice kid. Had

couple more things and i can i can fly through these pretty quickly um just want to uh forest hill park um we're working on resurfacing in between the fields and all that stuff if you've been there it's in really really bad shape so that was part of our capital budget for 2026 um so we're that we actually put that into the roads program this year so we're able to work with the same company um and move that forward so that's going on here now um and then we're going to be replacing the scoreboards here very that that was part of the 2026 gap as well too. And then at the community center, I just wanted to let everybody know that we're going to be doing a full shutdown of the entire facility, which includes the community center, the senior activity center, and the ice rink from August 3rd to August 9th. We're gonna be doing a real deep cleaning of it, some necessarily updated maintenance on it. We're gonna be doing some painting, different things like that, trying to get it up to speed. And then the ice rink will be down for the whole month of August like we always do. We're usually down in July and August, but I extended July for skaters. They seem to be enjoying that. So we're only going to do the month of August for some general maintenance as well to cleaning, repainting the ice, replacing some lights, replacing some windows that are broken, all that good stuff.

So we'll be doing that.

Are the basketball players enjoying the new floors? I'm just going to mention that the main gym is officially done now, too. Last week, we got our scoreboards up. So if you guys have not seen the main gym, I would suggest checking it out because it is awesome. And everybody is highly enjoying that. So we've got the new floor, new bleachers, and new scoreboards. So thank you to City Council for approving those capital items. The people are really enjoying it.

For sure. Did we budget for this year? mills. We're working on that as well too. Yes.

There's a few.

There is one elliptical that is particularly popular. Are you aware of that? And the other one is broken. It is impossible for one of your council members to get on. So this is just for you.

No, I'm just saying. I know exactly what you're talking about. The one particular one gets a ton of use because it's very popular.

I hope that we're going to order multiple of those and the other ones that have the legs spread out. We have three or four of those. I think we could probably reverse the number.

my agenda actually here. The plan is in administration's hands right now for review. So we've already had one meeting about it. We have a few people going through it, just making sure, double checking everything and then making our final recommendations to the company. And once we make our final recommendations, they'll make those changes and then it'll be final and then they'll present that to city council. Okay.

We know when you, you know, always.

I'll reach out to them, see, or we'll coordinate and figure out when that should be wrapped up. Then we can invite them to a meeting in the fall. Sounds good.

Can I just ask a quick question about Turtle Park? What do we call that?

Turtle Park.

Turtle Park. Okay. Is that, is the gate okay there? And is that on the list for any sort of updates? Or where does that sit?

Nothing for this year. Okay. like i said our cane park playground and then um cumberland so we're gonna focus our attention on those two for next year but if there's anything little that we can do to turtle park in the meantime we will take a look at that like um for example over at um kennelworth park we just replaced some decking and different things like that and made it a little nicer so simple things like Beautiful. So that pretty much concludes my report. We have a lot more going on.

Is the basketball court open again at Cumberland?

We're working to get that back operational. Awesome. Anything else? All good. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Sarah Stone, you're up. Short-term rentals and housing needs assessment.

All right. So as we return to considering short-term rental legislation, Director Hanna suggested that I might summarize the background of this draft order. is important now. First, I would like to recognize the history of Ordinance 190-2023 and the work that President Kuda did to create the initial draft ordinance with our law department over two years ago. His research and initiative provided a really valuable foundation going forward, so thank you very much. I would also like to thank Mayor Petras for his support of our current effort, especially facilitating recent contact with Airbnb. This year, municipalities across Northeast Ohio have actively considered short-term rental legislation. Many, including the city of Cleveland, Lakewood, and Westlake, have either initiated it or tightened existing ordinances to promote safety and prevent large-scale parties and other neighborhood issues. I believe this legislation, begun by Council three years ago, is a balanced approach to the more than 140 SDRs now operating in Cleveland Heights, our only local hotels. It is also responsive to our law enforcement officials' advice and local experience, as described to me and to Council this spring by Chief Britton. And it protects the rights and safety of all parties involved. For those who use their property to generate additional income through rentals, it provides clear guidelines about their operations and a first-time registration process that gives the city the names of local contacts to respond more quickly to complaints and emergencies and extra protection for guests. For the neighbors of STRs, the legislation provides enforcement for everyday nuisance like parking issues, as well as decisive penalties for violations of community standards by property owners, including the revocation of their local registration permit and fines. This legislation also prohibits the operation of short-term rentals in accessory dwelling units, ADUs, or carriage houses. For Cleveland Heights, the legislation calls for implementation of a 3% transient occupancy tax paid by the guests who enjoy our city. Such a task can help offset costs associated with enforcement of community standards for the rentals operation. I am pleased to report that we are in continued and productive discussions with Airbnb to initiate a collection agreement whereby the 15 minutes ago. Such an agreement would both ensure and simplify the payment of the tax, a new source of revenue for Cleveland Heights. The updated legislation you have before you this evening responds to comments at our May meeting. We will also seek your guidance about a still developing tax section of the ordinance, specifically about tax reporting by property owners. So I'd like to turn it over to Director Hanna for his comment, and then we'll have time for questions and comments about the information that I shared with you individually over the weekend.

So thank you, Councilwoman. And I'm not sure that I actually have a lot of comments other than to ask if there are questions. And among those questions might be like, do the, or the question that I might ask is do the modifications DIRECTOR ZAMP TOOK THE FIRST PASS AT THAT. I WENT BACK THROUGH IT AS RECENTLY AS LAST FRIDAY AFTER LISTENING TO THE MEETING AGAIN. IT WAS VERY EXCITING. IT SEEMED LIKE THE MODIFICATIONS CAPTURED THOSE ITEMS THAT WERE DISCUSSED BY COUNCIL. neighbors of an STR being established. That's a requirement that is not yet reflected. That's a fair point.

I still would like to see that happen. Just because it's today and maybe people watching don't know. It's my feeling and I think others when I was going through the legislation that when a short-term rental which are all in some neighborhood or another it's good for the neighbors to know. So when they see people coming and going, it's not,

that it would be submitted.

That would make sense. I'm sorry.

Multifamily buildings, we were hoping that the additional units would be informed that- We put a provision in that it would be publicly displayed in the public areas.

With regard to the general notification of an approved registration, what proximity, let's use that term,

I didn't really.

What's our proximity for planning commission notifications? Because I think I would like to expand that, but I think consistency in the interim would be.

So actually, as it's written, it's the immediately adjacent properties, which is we go beyond that normally. But for the code, it's the properties that touch the property, essentially.

Well, that's why I want to expand.

for every one of these people see traffic or comings and goings at a property they can check out the website to see if it's a property for which registration's been i would just like to enter airbnb's objection to that because i that was a question i asked if you do that you enter you put the property at risk of break-ins stalking um you know there's a party here um discussion with them, but they really didn't. If you go to an Airbnb site, you'll notice that you never see the address. It's only communicated when the rental is actually confirmed. So it's a way of protecting the individuals who live there.

Which protects the neighbors as well.

Correct.

So from that, there should be no

attack and have conditional use. I can accept that. So that's the same.

I can accept that. Although I like Councilman Cullen's a little broad.

So we can come up with a requirement and insert a distribution radius or something along those lines and then council can. Okay.

I can just add one other detail that Director Hanna has been working on with we are successful in our conversations with Airbnb and the tax is then remitted directly to the city, we also are working on a working in companion with our registration process, a simple tax return for the property owners to file. I mean, tax return is a more of a report that would allow them to report the tax that they have collected for the city and other information. So all of that we believe can be, can be managed through the housing department in the citizen serve program.

The questions.

I have some a little bit more detailed questions on the red line. Is this a good time? Okay. In the two requirement, so we have the registration requirement. There's two sections, which thank you for switching the nomenclature on that. The first section, it says in 769.03, it has all operators must register their short-term rentals. But in the following section, 766 by the owner. My preference would be the owner, but I think no matter which direction we go, that has to be consistent. Well, we're on the same wavelength here. And again, my preference would be the owner unless there's a strong objection to that.

I think that's where that came from.

Yes, I edited it there.

But that seems sensible. It's easy.

And then, yeah, I mean, none of this is. We had a parking provision in here with the registration requirements in the old draft that short-term rental should be required to comply with existing on and off street parking requirements. Did that disappear or did that get moved to somewhere that I can't find it quickly?

anywhere that I've found.

So I guess, you know, the policy question is that acknowledgement was originally part of the list of requirements in the registration. If we've, I don't know if I have strong opinion, but I'm pointing out that I think it needs to It does have in the code in what...

It's in 04.

It does say you have to be aware of it, but there's no specific acknowledgement requirement, I think, got taken out.

Well, there is an acknowledgement that the short-term rental is required to comply with all existing on and off-street parking requirements, not blocking driveways, parking overnight on street, and not intruding into the sidewalk.

Where? Oh, I see. Okay, fine. I see an E. Okay, great. And then can you just, one question I had around the renewal, can you just walk us through like what that looks like? Because I think there was like a requirement you only have to share what's changed, but the registration is going to be valid for one year. And then what are we saying has to happen at the end of one year?

So approximately three months before the end of the year, every short-term rental is

And there's actually no fee either. I was going to say there's no fee anymore, right, because we took that out.

Okay, that's what I mean, because I think that's a reasonable annual requirement. And I guess it just, like, operationally, are we envisioning, like, a web form or something that people can certify to?

We can envision that. Right now, I think we would use citizen service. concrete forms in that.

It is a form. It's not like they're going to have to email the city or anything. It'll be like a link to a form that they have to complete.

This is also where they would report their income and it would be tied to that annual report there in December.

That requirement that describes the changes is in 06B. An update of any information that has changed

that makes sense. And I also wanted to, I thought that the revocation, the additional condition that you put in there, I thought was very good about not uninvited entry of users upon private property, because I can see that being another reason why people would not

If there are instances in which somebody at the short-term rental, described as a short-term rental user, they're in somebody's yard, they're in somebody's driveway, congregating, something along those lines.

And parking would be the bank. Right. Including parking, right, which is also specified. Okay.

I think that's captured somewhere else, but I think this contemplates unauthorized off-site parking on a private property than 500 feet.

A neighbor.

Right.

Parking in a neighbor's driveway.

And walking in their yard.

No, I was really pleased with how this draft turned out. And I just think the additions are really excellent. Thank you. You all agreed last time we were together.

So, yes. Thank you for this work, everybody that's participated. Come a long way, right? Yeah. Very happy. My question about the lady with the five bedrooms, and I hope you can just restate the email you sent to me about the section 769.10B6 states that for single family buildings that are for rent, one short-term rental is allowed. And then in 769.10B8 states, It states, for buildings containing dwellings units used as short-term rentals on or before the effective date of this ordinance, the greater of one the number of short-term rentals permitted under subsections B1 and B2 are applicable, or two, the number of units used as short-term rentals prior to the effective date of the ordinance. And you suggested, Director Zapp, there was something else that could allow this to continue for someone that's in that position where they've been doing this for a long time.

Yeah, the way it was described was as boarding house term that we have defined in our code and there's lots of conditionally permitted use and there's a process to go through to get that permitted as opposed to trying to turn this short-term rental code into a pretzel to try to fit it.

So you would prefer that individual go and speak to the housing and planning department about

Andrew and Brooke are here in the room. They're the best people to talk to.

I communicated that to the resident last month.

Okay, but I still don't understand what this business is. Is this currently used? Let me finish the question so we know what it is because I haven't said it yet. Is this actually being run as short-term rentals or are these people all there for more than 30 days?

As described to me, this is an individual who has a five-bedroom house. She occupies the house and for some time has rented individual bedrooms to unrelated people. They lock individual lockable rooms. And the individuals come and go at different times. Some stay more than a month. Some stay a few days. So it's much more of a lodging house situation. Yeah. Got it.

Thank you. someone can hear that 10 feet over on another, you know, across the property line. That could be just a conversation at this level in a backyard. You could hear it from another backyard. So that feels, it's certainly more restrictive than our existing noise ordinances. And I have concern with, you know,

Well, for two and three as part of your application and therefore Yeah, this is in section 10.10. Limitations on the operation. So that's where it breaks down number. Maximum number of short-term rental units permitted by domain type.

That's different than number of occupants and number of parking.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think maybe this fell out in one of our versions. The intent was to match the two.

parking as well I mean our other ordinances are just you know overnight parking and you have to park you know on the driveway or in a garage so are we thinking of making something more restrictive than that or you know it's referenced but it's not defined anywhere

I think that's a fair point. I think the idea, and I think Dublin may address this in a more restrictive way, but my recollection of our last discussions on this was that it would be the off-street slots made available by the owner to renters that complied with not sliding into the sidewalk. That sounds reasonable.

Oh, off-street. Sorry, I was thinking street parking. Okay.

And for number two, it's really, we can reword it, but it's that there shouldn't be essentially more units in there that are permitted in your registration.

Right. I'm referring to occupants. Yeah.

That's the occupants that we've used.

So does that include things like homestead exemption of property tax or a credit to the property tax or other benefits essentially to?

I don't think that it's intended to, but I think it can be potentially made more clear.

My understanding is that is a property tax credit at the county level.

Right. And that's what that says. Well, it says affordable housing grants or affordable housing credits.

That did come up from a resident who was looking at this, so that may be worthwhile.

So I don't think that would capture the homestead exemption, but I do think that the section is...

I have a couple questions. On the short-term rentals where it's mixed, in other words, four units, two units short-term rental, two long-term leases, are there any provisions for that that are different? Well, first of all, is it provided for? And second of all, what's the difference? difference between? The general rules and regulations and that specific instance.

You mean like 7, 6, 9, 10, where it says if you have X units, you can have Y units of short-term or long-term?

No, it's not the number. It's just, you know, are there different regulations about notification about when people can come and go and so forth. Some of the complaints I've gotten over the years have been specific to that. Four units, two short-term, two long-term complaints. You know, we're here. Some of these people have been there for years. The rest of the people are there for days. And it didn't mix well. And I'm wondering if we carved out some regulations that are different or just applicable to that case because it is so different than other short-term rentals. I consider it to be a pretty different situation.

We didn't. And my... recollection of that meeting is that there was some discussion at one point about landlords losing tenants if they abuse using some of their units as short-term rentals and to the aggravation of their other tenants. But I thought that the consensus of the council was to

My additional recollection is that that was how we got to the numbers of short-term rentals per unit to minimize that. So what we have here was the result of that conversation.

Yeah, but that was kind of more about apartment buildings.

No, we did like a two-family or two-unit can only have one unit as a short-term rental, four-unit can only have two units. So we calibrated it.

Could there be some expansion of the noise statute or noise provision that's for single-family homes that could somehow give those rental residents some measure of protection? I don't know how that would work.

It's not a single-family home.

It's the non-single-family.

That's what I mean. It's giving the long-term renters some recourse if there's a large...

I do have that same recall on what you're saying. It's just that you have talked about it a lot. Did Councilman Stone, the Westlake Court, remember we were talking about that? Did you look that up?

I think they were just, sorry, go ahead.

The reason I'm asking is, were you satisfied that that was covered in this legislation?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I think they had a different, they were actually requiring, kind of trying to create the conditions that parties are not happening. They're just saying, we understand that parties happen, so you have to register them in advance, was my understanding of what they were working on.

Well, and so that was the ordinance. I thought the ordinance was... banning that that's what i mean is that it was yeah okay i misunderstood um lastly with the occupancy permit i know what you know i can only speak to the last four years i know one of the when when somebody would lose their occupancy permit the the trepidation was that This situation, if somebody loses their occupancy, I mean, it seems to me that, you know, there's a lot less to worry about in the sense that people are coming and going anyway. So it is the process for that. I don't know, consolidated in some way.

So in addition to the city's, you know, kind of oversight of this, if there are sufficient complaints to the city on a single property, the city can go to Airbnb and say, this is a problem property. And then they'll remove them from the platform. So they can't advertise their rentals.

So when they lose their occupancy permit, what if they lost it while somebody was actually staying? Well, I'm just saying whenever they lose it, it's going to happen at a given time. And I don't know if at that given time somebody will be there or not. I don't know the answer.

I don't either. It's an interesting question. I tend to think that the complaint that might be filed that would lead to that, of course, you've got the staggered first violation. WOULD BE A REPORT AND THEN THE MAYOR IS TO MAKE THAT DETERMINATION AND THEN THAT DECISION IS APPEALABLE. SO I WOULD TEND TO SEE THAT PLAYING OUT BETWEEN RENTALS RATHER THAN TRYING TO DISPOSSESS PEOPLE OF AND I THINK GUIDANCE WOULD GENERALLY BE NOT TO TRY TO EJECT PEOPLE ON THAT BASIS AS OPPOSED TO MAYBE SOMETHING ELSE. Just to minimize liability.

That might be different from, say, the police arriving to shut them down.

the reference to occupancy permit. I agree with that. I understood the reference to occupancy permit to be the registration. All right.

Thank you all. We will probably be bringing this legislation back in early September and have set up some public hearings and hopefully we'll have more to tell you about.

And we'll follow up on those items enumerated tonight and may reach out to some people to

So we wanted to, I wanted to give you, dedicate a little time here to talking about this very important initiative that we're working on this year. We should really set up decision-making for this year and beyond. I know I only have 15 minutes. 15 minutes is already sort of cut down. So this presentation is meant to get posted and shared. There's going to be a lot of information in it that you're not going to have time to process today.

Don't feel bad.

Yeah. So what's really important here, and I think we've gotten some of these questions from folks of why are we doing this and what is it and what isn't this study? I want to start quickly with a question I've asked in other contexts, but when did Cleveland Heights reach its peak population? You know, raise of hands around the table. Who thinks it's the 50s? Who thinks it's the 60s? And who thinks it's the 80s? Okay. And anybody think it's the current decade? Okay. So those who said the 60s would be right. But as we know, our housing stock is old. It was built mostly between the 20s and the 40s. And a number of people in households have decreased. So we have a mismatch. We have housing that was built for nuclear families or larger families. And people who don't really fit that need anymore. So that's part of the purpose here. The city wishes to ensure that it has a comprehensive understanding of the local housing market and is able to respond to any gaps with the appropriate housing policies. This is a planning document that gets us to policies and strategies and things that we're going to adopt in the future. What it isn't is an actual market study itself, which is about a project. It's not a report on code enforcement and inspections. I think a lot of people, when they hear housing, they think this is the housing department. It's not about the housing department per se. It's not about a specific project, and it's not about adopting a policy change. It's about all of these things in a larger context. We've got a team, Stantec and Squirrel Planning. Here's the folks that are leading from each of those teams. And here's the scope of work that this project's supposed to follow. And test two is the big part of this project, which is data, data, data. Because we wanted to have data to be able to make these decisions. So you can see here are the areas that are being reviewed. There's stakeholder and community engagement, which I'll talk about in a second. And then task four is that analysis, the gap analysis, housing needs and barriers analysis. And then there's recommendations and report. There's a long list here, but you'll see I've added an asterisk at the bottom, which is this is where I think council can be really helpful, useful, is take a look at what's going to be included here. in the recommendations and see if there's anything that you think is missing, things that you think should be prioritized. Now's the time for them to know about those things so that they can start to craft those recommendations.

going to be based on the data from the slide beforehand?

It's mostly data-driven, but you'll see in a second there is some subjectivity that we wanted to factor in. Just in terms of schedule, you can see really four parts of this, but three main pieces. Research and analysis, that's the bulk of it. That's being wrapped up. July and August are the strategies and then the document itself is towards the end of the year. I'll come back to the schedule at the very end and ask you a question. Stakeholder engagement, which is not the data part of this, is really important, but it's going to help supplement the data, which I'll get into a second. And these are the different ways in which community that we're seeking engagement from the community. So on the left, there's a story map. On the right, there's a survey. We had an open house on the 24th. Those QR codes which has been really helpful here, that's helping to guide this project and its advisory. And you can see we've got about 17 members, and it really tried to capture experts in the community, including residents, that deal in the housing space. CDCs, realtors, the county itself, the school district, MAHO, which is an accessibility and disability organization, the county land bank, developers, UCI, which is University Circle. And I think I said the school's twice here. There also were developer interviews. So they spoke to developers and they asked, you know, like what's, responses to that this part here I'm going to run through very very quickly you're going to see slides that have a lot of information on it I'm not going to go into any of the information it's really just there to show you the type of analysis that's being done but I do encourage you to review this that we come back and talk about it. So there's really four main areas that they're looking at, economy and growth drivers, demographics, inventory that we have itself, and then the market analysis. And you might ask, why is economy the first thing? Well, it's really interesting to understand why people are living in Cleveland Heights. And that's partially or primarily because of our proximity to University Circle, to the job centers that are in Cleveland. And you can see that there's a small percentage of people who actually live and work in Cleveland Heights, although that number probably is growing by the day. So again, there's probably about 10 other slides that are related to economy, but you can see there's some key observations and housing market impacts here. And I'll just run through them quickly. Instead of being driven by regional growth, demand for Cleveland Heights housing results from household relocation from the urban core or from the more distant suburbs. People want to live in Cleveland Heights because we have that sweet spot of but not in the city, not in Cleveland itself. In the short and medium term, there's a push towards smaller units, rentals and flexible housing, but that's short and medium term. Our workforce will continue to need attainable rental housing and moderate-sized ownership options, but we really do have a good location here and So then demographics, again, what's driving the type of housing that we have, the housing size and the typology. As you can see here, compared to the state and some of our pure cities, actually our household size, while decreasing, is on par or a little bit higher than some of our neighbors. We have a lot of smaller households now and single person living arrangements. doesn't really reflect that. And young adults are heavily renters, but ownership rises steadily with age. Home ownership increases with age as mortgage obligations decline. So again, a lot of things tied to demographics. And then here's sort of the burden, housing cost burden. and vulnerability and instability. Again, I'm not intending for you guys to really review any of this right today. So key observations from the demographics. Housing demand persists through household churn, lifestyle changes, and tenure shifts. We've got people who want to stay in this community in all aspects of their life, but their housing situation doesn't necessarily match where they are in that cycle. There is a demand for small units and diverse living arrangements. Housing options are needed along the affordability continuum, not just at the lowest level. These demographics might improve the lifestyle. We do need rental housing here, and there's an opportunity for reinvestment and repositioning, particularly in that missing middle section. HOUSING INVENTORY, SO THEY'VE LOOKED AT EVERY HOUSING UNIT IN THE CITY AND TRIED TO CHARACTERIZE IT. AND AS WE CAN TELL, MOST OF OUR HOUSING STOCK IS THAT PRE-1940, WHETHER IT'S MULTI-FAMILY OR SINGLE FAMILY. AND NOT SURPRISINGLY, WE'VE GOT OUR HIGHER ASSESSED VALUES AT THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE CITY. And let's see what's this one. So sort of combining those things together, are there overlapping trends that we can see between age, condition, and location? And there's a thing called naturally occurring affordable housing, which is housing that is just priced at a lower level, even though it's not considered quote-unquote affordable housing. And this is primarily how housing affordability is dealt with in our city. Here's special populations within our city. Again, a lot of information for people to take a look at. And so one of the key observations from housing inventory, not surprising, we have limited greenfield development opportunities, but a lot of infill. redevelopment opportunities. There's a limit on flexibility and mobility and getting people into homeownership. Preservation, maintenance, and reinvestment really should be a priority of our community. And again, affordability is an important component of all of this. It's a repeat. And then they get into a little bit of I want to skip ahead. Let me talk a little bit here about, as you remember, we added in with council's approval, a focus on artist housing and creative spaces. And that's been really amazing. A steering committee has been created. There's been two artists focus groups, a tour, special meetings, equity and space meeting, and getting some real funding people in the room because there's a particular challenge around artist housing and And you can see some really cool photos here of all the engagement that happened around that. And I wanted to try to capture it in one line and I don't think it does, but the arts are not an extra. They're really a part of the fabric of this community. That's, here to leverage and work with this amazing arts community that we have in the community. But there are limitations to what they can do right now. One example is we've got a lot of artists who are working with materials that emit fumes and the single family home doesn't have a requirement to have the proper ventilation and that costs money. So is there a way maybe that the city can assist people converting their spaces to allow them to work in their single family home?

Did the tour of the artist's housing include all parts of the city?

It covered all parts of the city. We're creating a map that's going to show that because we really have a tremendous and diverse geographically and every other aspect of the city. and artist spaces in the state. So it's really amazing. Spaces you wouldn't even realize are art spaces.

That would be acceptable for maker spaces and artist kilns and everything.

Right. So just, this is what I wanted to spend a little extra time on tonight. So this is their preliminary gaps analysis. And these are the steps that get you to this last slide that I want to point out, which is this one here. So you can see the red is obviously where the gaps are. The green is where we have sufficient inventory or sufficient opportunities. And what's not surprising is that there's a gap on the low end of both rental and ownership. The surprise is that there's a gap on the high end. And what's happening is the folks on the higher end who can't find a place to own or rent, they can move down an income band and rent or own in that income band. So what starts to happen is there's a compression and that's where our mismatch and our gap is really happening is that while the inventory is there for people who are making between 58 and $77,000 on paper, it's not actually there. buying those spaces. And so what's been a surprise to me, and I think this will come out, is that we will need, one of the recommendations will be we need more market rate housing of both types, rental and owner. So for those of you who thought this was just going to be an affordable housing study, it's not that. It's actually showing some other aspects that are And so there's a couple of slides here on housing needs that I'm not gonna get into, but this is again, So last couple slides are cross-pollination with other studies. The housing team, Stantec has already met with ZoneCo, our zoning team, and the housing typologies, which is going to be a big part of the recommendations, is going to be shared between those two parties because ultimately we want to make sure our zoning code allows for those housing technologies. And we're hoping that that happens in August, that sort of cross-pollination. And then the new, well, Stanek has met with our building folks, the building commissioner, and we're going to have a meeting with the housing folks to understand the preservation side of things. And ICC, who we're bringing on board to do the building housing code updates, will be briefed on the project. One example of this is that single staircase building options are something that many communities throughout the country are looking at. The Ohio building code doesn't necessarily permit that. And so that's a limitation on housing typology. So we want to explore with ICC if that's something that we could do, just as an example. Last few slides. So again, here's the schedule. And what I wanted to ask you today is you can see here in the Last three months of the year, we've got in 3A, a TAC meeting, which is that advisory group, a community meeting, which was actually the second community meeting, which was earlier in the schedule, and then a council presentation at the very end. I'd like to propose, and I've spoken about this with our consultant team, September, August, hopefully, they come and they present to you their preliminary recommendations. That gives you guys the opportunity to provide input on that. Then after that input is integrated in September, before the document is finalized, there's a community meeting to get the community's input primarily on how to prioritize this report. So if that's okay with everyone, that we schedule something for like the end of August to bring our consultant team in and sit around the table, then the homework assignment will be to go through this presentation and particularly that scope of work and make sure that the things that we want them to recommend are being considered. And this will all get sent to you to review.

We're going to have to do that, and we're going to have to do a zoning code update workshop, so maybe that should be a special Monday. Unless there's a Monday that we can vote just to those two things, but that seems like that's going to be both.

So you're suggesting late August as opposed to what the third week of September or something like that?

Yeah, because again, the way it was planned out here, that would be

31st.

I was just thinking about that.

Yeah, well, I, yes, I had already sent some dates to Addie for the week before that for the zoning code, but if we wanted to look at Monday.

I know, it's just like, come back all refreshed and let you learn out before the month's over.

Do you want, if you're not, you're not available the 31st? I'll be out of the country for the last...

We should still think about what we need to do.

All right. Thank you for that.

Just a reminder, it's up on the screen. There's QR codes. Go visit the story map to learn more about this. This is public. Take the survey and then you can always send comments or questions to planning.

Brilliantly done in 15 minutes.

Thank you. If it's okay, I wanted to just give Eric Elmy two minutes. Two minutes. To talk about something. We're planting the seed for something down below.

Good evening, everyone. Unfortunately, that was a last-minute decision, so I had to make a presentation for you guys. Last month, through our law department, we requested some public records from other municipalities, such as Shaker Heights, Moorland Hills, which we'll stop you with that later. to see how many permits they're issuing per year in general. Those permits, anything that requires a building inspection, such as electrical, plumbing, mechanical, or just a beauty building. We received some of those numbers. Shaker Heights, we're still waiting to receive from them. Moorland Hills issues 673 permits only per year. Beechwood and South Euclid, they are issued per year. Lakewood, who resembles us a lot, they issue a little bit below 2,700. Cleveland Heights issues 3,300 plus. So we are almost like a 700 more than Lakewood and Doubla Beachwood and Euclid South as well. Our numbers this from 2025 resembles a lot 2024 as well. On 2024, we issued 3,400. Technically, you're giving you an overview of the volume of our city, of the building department here, which, of course, federally works for the planning and housing as well. Housing inspector is going point of sale. They issue something, find some violation of these softwares. Those work made quite professionally. WAY MORE THAN OTHER MUNICIPALITIES.

BUT IT'S JUST GOOD NEWS, ACTUALLY. IT'S VERY GOOD NEWS.

DO YOU THINK THAT'S BECAUSE OF POINT OF SALE? NOT NECESSARILY. BECAUSE THAT'S A DIFFERENTIATION WITH OTHER CITIES.

THIS IS PART OF MANY DIFFERENT FACTS. ONE COULD BE POINT OF SALE, BUT ALSO WE HAVE OUR OWN INSPECTORS NOW. THEY CAN GO AROUND AND ISSUE A STUFF RECORD IF SOMEONE IS NOT WORKING But I think people got overall the message in 2024 and 2025. People are high, so I'm not joking, going into the business as well. So the numbers, which was looking at 2022 all the way to now, 2023 was higher. It was high, same as 2025 and 2024. But we see the increase coming up since 2024.

You implemented some efficiencies, too, as well in the permit process, didn't you?

Correct. So right now, like some municipalities, they're only doing issuing permits purely online. We have both. We have online and in-person as well. So we are more encouraging people communicating with emails online because there's always a record into it. They can apply online at 2 in the morning if they wanted to. But if they are not computer savvy, they can always come in person as well. But overall, the numbers are good.

So we want to periodically, whether it's building or housing, give you updates. It goes back to the question from last Monday night, telling council some of the good news sometimes. So this is one of the pieces.

detail on, you know, past, you know, past years. I mean, you told a little bit about 2023, 2024, but, you know, looking at that trend, you know, that seems to be stuff that does get looked at by somebody operationally. And you're right, good news. I mean, This department is asking for X number of more people. Correct. Why? And so we, in the past, in budget cycles, we haven't gotten that information.

Which we will provide. We were talking about exactly. Tonight, just giving an idea of what's the volume we are talking here. and myself at the past I worked for this small municipality and a large municipality as Cleveland and when I started here in 2024 I was quite a bit surprised by the work here overall and then I said okay maybe it's 2024 and then 2025 my goodness the same thing last year what's going on here so we talked about it and did some more search, and of course, population is condensed. The only thing who resemble us is Lakewood on the west side, geographically and demographic as well.

I'd be interested in how many of those permits are related to a project that received a GROW program tax abatement, because it could be somebody's just fixing electric, Or it could be somebody's renovating their entire house. And so it'd be good to also get a scale. I had initially, my initial thought when you said that how many permits we had is that, well, our whole housing stock is so old that people are constantly pulling permits to fix things or, you know, rehab, et cetera. So some sort of scale or scope would be helpful. SO WE'RE GOING TO MOVE THAT ALONG TO THE LANDMARK COMMISSION. SO SIMILAR TO THE SHORT-TERM RENTALS, THIS IS LIKE THE FOLLOW-UP TO THE MANY DISCUSSIONS WE'VE HAD. AND I THINK IT WAS PRETTY I THINK IT WAS PRETTY EVIDENT WHAT HAS, YEAH.

SPRING VERSION?

NO. OKAY. I hope so. What else to look at the red line? Yeah, I think the red line is probably the best document to look at. And I was hoping we gave some initial feedback, just like short-term ransom, gave some initial feedback to the law department. And you will come back, Director Hanna and Director Zamp with some recommendations. So do you just want to give like an overview of where we landed on a couple of the items? Sure.

So the high points were the deletion of the proximity concept throughout the chapter. There seemed to be essentially unanimity on council to do that. In addition, the historic district concept was restored in a way that's broken out more separately from like a landmark concept that would include districts and individual properties. So this is more like the current ordinance than the last version that council saw was in that you have a designation for single properties or landmarks and then a designation for districts. There were a few small clarifications with regard and tweaks for like meetings and things of that nature. One of the additional large concepts was consent and the consensus of council in the last discussion was to maintain the existing consent requirements for historic district designations. And initially it sounded as if council was leaning toward a full restoration of the consent requirement for all landmarks. And then there was some discussion of the potential need for the city to landmark a property over a lack of consent or over an objection of a property owner. And so... I think we were charged with coming up with something to try to accommodate that. And so what we ended up doing was to restore the existing for single landmarks, but then to provide for sort of a super majority approval process for the Landmark Commission, if it thought it was important to landmark designate a property and couldn't get the consent of the owner, to send a resolution to council with a two-thirds majority approval and then provide up to 90 days, I think, was the period for council to determine by a two-thirds majority as well that it would override the requirement for consent. So in an exceptional case where there's a really important property and consent can't allow for that to be done, but it shouldn't result in a lot of requests for council action to override an owner to come before you. So that was how we balanced that out. I think it works. It's not necessarily the only way that it could work, but it seems straightforward.

I'll just ask in a 143.3 Yes, right.

All right, go ahead. Yes, so that's 081. There was a little bit of renumbering. 08 is general designation of landmarks. And again, that reverted to essentially the status quo provision. But for the reference to 081, which is procedure for designation without owner consent. And then 085 was sort of the restored and separate language for designating historic districts. I think it's here. Maybe I'm conflating this with another section.

No, I thought, no, it's B in this one. It says, yeah, sorry, sorry.

Yeah, so in 143.085B, the provision says that greater than 50% To the designation, each individual parcel shall have a single owner vote. And the question was, well, how does the Landmark Commission need to convene some sort of election or something along those lines? So we looked at that a little bit today. which would say each individual parcel shall have a single owner vote. And then we would add with consent indicated by the signatures of the owners on a petition or similar consent document, which may be signed by the owners of multiple affected parcels, so long as the relationship between owners and properties and parcels is clearly indicated. And this was a little bit like a discussion we had on one of the proposals that was in the Landmark Commission modified ordinance, which had separate petitions being required, I think, for removal of the designation, perhaps. And I think we had some conversation about how that could be difficult to manage administratively. And our recommendation there was that, you know, multiple signatures on one petition could reliably evidence that same petition. WITH REGARD TO APPEAL AND AFTER LOOKING AT APPEAL OF LANDMARK COMMISSION DECISIONS, AND SO AFTER LOOKING AT LAKEWOOD AND SHAKER HEIGHTS, The proposal is to have Landmark Commission decisions be appealable to the Board of Zoning Appeals. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that some other communities do it and it seems to work and it seems stable. The BZA is a body that is conversant with and accustomed to dealing with issues of this type and conducting quasi-judicial proceedings. proceedings in which they determine the legal rights of an applicant, which is really what's happening here, and is also necessary in order for a decision to be appealable to common pleas court under Revised Code Chapter 2506. The previous appeal provision kind of had an appeal to council, you know, upon further review. And then it said appealable to court under 2506, which may or may not actually be available depending upon the nature of the hearing that the council might have had. So the feeling here was that this is a clean pathway to a body that has experience doing this and that should make the process work for the city. It would require some modifications to the language that describes the jurisdiction of the Board of Zoning Appeals. And I don't know, we didn't talk with them about what they might think about having additional cases come to them, but based upon the lack of appeals or challenges in recent years, it seems like it probably isn't a big burden.

Would you see a time constraint that the appeal has to be filed within a certain amount of time from when the decision was made by the landmark commission so it doesn't linger out there?

Yeah, I think that the last draft had 10 days, which I thought was short. So we changed it to 30. And then under the ORC, the appeal from a final decision, It would have to be a decision of the Landmark Commission. So it could be on a certificate of appropriateness is another potential point of appeal. And I suppose it could also apply in the event of a request for removal of landmark status that was denied. But yeah, so it has to be a final decision of the commission in order for it to be appealable then to the board.

Okay.

I would ask the Landmark Commission, since you graciously attend our meeting this evening, how you feel about this current revised document.

I was going to say again, we're excited that this is happening. And I think But it feels and is true that this has been a very thoughtful process on our end, but also on Council's end in planning and with Council.

And so we appreciate it.

I think the draft landed in a really good spot balancing what the Landmarks Commission was trying to achieve and listening to concerns about owner consent. I really liked the creative approach that the law director came up with to address that. And I think it is important to have a path to overcome owner consent in those rare, you know, when you can't obtain it in those rare situations. I had a very minor issue. comment on this that can be addressed easily. We had spent time working on making the ordinance more concise in some of the language. And so you probably noticed this already. In the defined terms, we defined properties to include district, site, building, structure, object. And when you broke out again and went back to the language separating the district from the individual, you kind of use the term landmarks for just the individual and then historic district or landmark.

So it's just a language thing that I think got lost in the translation of going back. It's easy to address, but I think it's great where you all landed.

I really do. So thank you.

For those watching, we have the chair of the Landmark Commission, Maisie Adams, and Margaret Land on the Sorry, remind me. Oh, Wendy Naylor. A historic consultant with Naylor Wellman. Naylor Wellman, the outside counsel.

Question. I didn't notice this before. Why did we change the qualification provisions from what's in the current statute? I didn't want to notice that.

What do you mean? What number are you on?

143 of 3. shall be a resident of the city at the time of appointment. Well, that's suggested if someone leaves the city. They could still remain on. We took out the five-year resident

So those, I think, are changes that emanated from the Landmark Commission's process, and I don't think those got discussion from council, and so we didn't make any further changes.

Yeah, I didn't really look at them previously. Does anyone have an objection to going back to what was in the original?

I think the only change we've made, we added an architect requirement. As you recall, there would be a member that's an architect. You're talking about qualifications.

And I'm fine with adding additional requirements on that raises the level of professionalism.

We were thinking about changes down the road, so we added an architect being a member of the commission at one point in case there would be applicants that were coming directly to Landmarks at some point for review and bypassing. Architecture Review Board, that was in discussion. So you can go either way on that and change that later.

And I seem to remember in the past when we've had open positions, we don't get a lot of applications for the board.

And that five-year period of living in Cleveland Heights was limiting.

Which we can waive if applicable. I think my preference is longer-term residence in the city. And if we can't meet that, then I don't, well, council would be glad to waive it.

Can we waive it? Yeah, well, under the current provision, we can. And what about ongoing residency?

Well, I think you need to be a member of, I think you need to be a resident of the city, not only at the time of the appointment, but you must continue to be a resident of the city during your service.

So the five years is longer than council or mayor, right?

Yes. Council is one year. I don't know if mayor. I think it's the same. Yeah.

I'm just pointing that out. I don't know. And if they're, but maybe it's, I don't remember seeing that anywhere else.

Well, let's have, you know, I think it does help that you've lived in the city for some time and have some appreciation of our architecture and our unique neighborhoods, maybe even more so than serving in the government.

I think the longevity is good. I mean, I'm fine with it. Yeah, it was just, being one of the members, but I think you pointed this out, Eric, that it's Shelby persons who have demonstrated special interest in one of the following areas, and there's architecture, history, historic preservation, law, or realty.

We had talked about architecture at one point. It may have come out. You can take care of that later.

It's the same way. That's true.

Okay, so three years to become a member and then residency maintained throughout.

Well, I would just simply use the language in our current 14303.

DO THESE CHANGES? WHAT ARE THE MAIN BENEFITS THAT YOU SEE FROM MOVING FROM OUR CURRENT ORDINANCE TO THIS PROPOSAL, GIVEN THAT THOSE TWO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WERE MADE IN THE INTERIM?

SO I THINK AROUND OWNER CONSENT, THIS PROVIDES A PATHWAY TO OVERCOMING, WHICH IS SIGNIFICANT FOR US. AND SO IF THE COMMUNITY AND owner consent. So that's an improvement.

Sort of a middle ground from our current structure.

Right now that we require owner consent no matter what.

And then what was proposed was essentially just being able to overrule. So given the current structure of a pathway to that.

And then the other one around the districts I think is more It's just how it sits in the ordinance, right? That's correct. But we'll ask them. No, that's correct.

But you still see that as a substantial improvement from the current?

I don't think there is. We didn't change. It was more around logistics around the districts than it was on districts.

We work to clarify the process, consistency in language, so that a user coming in and trying to read, figure out.

clarifying that and that made a big difference and actually I do not want to dismiss the making it more clear and easier because that is significant. It's really significant for us just in practice but also for the public when you're talking to current owners but also potential

Yeah, question for the law director. So what avenue of appeal does a homeowner have in the event that council passes a resolution upholding over the owner's objection, their designation as a landmark?

I think it would end up being something in the nature of a taking theory because you can't send council's decision to the BZA.

Right.

But they would, I mean, they could, they could argue they have a claim undertaking as to whether the court would agree with that or not.

But in my thinking about this, this was for like a property, I mean, yes, it could be in that case, but it's also a property that we can't find the owner or, you know, that we can't have that, you know, it's an out of country, you know, there's all sorts of cases where we're not going to be able to find the owner.

a high barrier to designate property over an owner's objection.

Do you want to make it instead of two-thirds? What's the other one?

Three-quarters would be six.

Let me just give this some thought.

It's two-thirds from the commission and then it's another two-thirds when we get it. Those are two

owners have some avenue of appeal from our quasi-judicial bodies.

Well, just to put it back, like this is a landmark designation. It would be restricting, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but restricting any changes to the external, but this still would not prevent a property owner from changing the inside of the property, nor perhaps adding on, you know, all of that. It's not, you know, allowing the city to demolish or force you to keep your property. It's merely the external historical structure.

Yeah. I mean, I, I hear you. I just, again, I'm just, we're, I'd love, let me look at the statute again, Bill, and I'd appreciate you, you, you weighing in on that as well.

Sure. So easy come, easy go. So easy come, we vote for this, and then we find out that the process is failing, we could adjust our rules. So, I mean, there's ways that I think we can address this if it becomes problematic. I guess what I'm suggesting, let's not overthink this too much.

There must have been examples of something like this elsewhere.

I'm sorry, go ahead. And Director Hanna suggested, you know, as an option that should we move this into the zoning code? And I would say no, precisely for that reason, because it's easier to revise this as needed outside of the zoning code. So I would leave it where it is.

I don't know if I got into that tonight, but that was a... So I think you would still at least need zoning code amendments to allow... under the code, but it's not necessary.

And I just say that in support of Councilman Posh's assertion that if we put this into ordinance, then we can revise it if we need to, and it wouldn't require a complicated process like we do for the zoning code. Okay. We hadn't really nailed down next steps past

I'm sorry. I'm looking at I actually didn't notice this initially. The removal of landmark designation language as it was essentially moved, but I don't remember a decision to get originally designated. Is that maybe just a typo of putting the other language back in?

Are you in 143.12?

I'm in 08 right now looking at language that was struck from the last version and then yeah in 12.

2.12 right?

Correct. And so the language had it's essentially the same except I It had read, the owners of a landmark may petition the commission to remove landmark status from a property that has ceased to meet the criteria for designation and the qualities for which it was originally designated have been lost or destroyed by submitting a letter. And that loss of those qualities Sure. Yeah. But just in case anybody, I thought I would mention in case anyone has an issue with that being done.

No, I think the last conversation we had about this, I think we were okay.

Yeah, I don't remember anyone asking for that to come out.

You're just saying it.

Yeah, I think it needs to get put back. Okay.

So just quickly, next steps on this. Councilman Cobb, we might need your input on this since you have a pending, the last, I think it's the last pending issue on this.

I'll just get a quick Gemini Google search. So, I mean, I got the answer to my question. to look at it, provided Google Gemini has given me a correct legal basis.

Okay. So then you're good? So does that mean you're good with how we have it drafted?

I'm going to look at it again. Google Gemini says they make mistakes sometimes, so I just want to make sure. But they've given me some good information and sources to look at.

So I guess my question is, I think that this is less... dramatic changes than had originally proposed, and that we should get a revised draft based on the input, the things that we've caught, and then introduce that. After we come back from recess, does anybody feel that we need to have a public hearing on this, or other than having it for one, the standard two readings that we would normally have open, so consensus.

I just want to make sure that we put a lot of public notice out about what we're doing and make sure that everyone, particularly in some of the neighborhoods that may have a concern over this, are aware of what we're doing and they do have an opportunity to come to our city council meetings and address us, particularly on this. I think the controversial part is going to be on the owner's consent.

I mean, we can always with just going into first reading. Okay.

So first reading on the 17th of August.

Yeah. I mean, is that, do we have, yeah.

Okay.

And then the second reading on the 31st. Yeah. That's our next meeting. 17th, August 17th. After the 17th. Oh, not in September. Yeah. I think we just couldn't advertise it as such.

Well, then there's time, right? Okay, excellent. Thank you so much for all of that. Director Zams, we wanted to just go through the hot list, the zoning code update. I don't know if this will take 30 minutes unless, you know, we have a particularly robust opinion on this, but do you want to be able to... Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That's interesting.

Do you want us all just to pull it up and you want to walk us through?

Yeah, I think I can walk you through how the whole thing is being implemented.

we the staff have put together a list of things that we want the consultant team to look at closer or we need to talk to them about and we'll go through that list but we want to make sure that there are things if there's anything that you would like the consultant team to look at with the idea that you will provide this list to the consultant team and then when we schedule this workshop with them so here's your issue with such and such this is how you know we're going to recommend moving forward with that and so it's going to give i think a double opportunity here for input as we have plenty of opportunities for input going forward but before it gets too too far and just as a reminder there's a whole scale comprehensive look at the zoning that they're already doing so there's a lot of things that may already be incorporated that's why i tried to things like business district boundaries, both regulations that they're taking a look at as well.

And there are, I mean, there are things that have come up, if I can just summarize, like a few things that have come up since we started this process. We've talked about minimum house sizes in general. We've talked about invasive species, which I know is on the list. We've talked about... That was the third one that was in my, oh, which I think Believe is on the hot list of, grandfathered, but non-conforming uses that are affecting the ability of owners to get financing. So those are things that have come up that have already been put into the queue. And this, just for the rest of council, like this hot list is not, I just want to reiterate, is not the only topics. This is just if we have input on these in particular or additional ones to make sure that are being covered in the update.

These are, again, are the ones where we feel like the consulting team will need some more information coming from us, the staff, and slash council, as they look at them in closer detail.

Do you want to go through that? Yeah.

Okay. And this was no particular order, but it probably was the order that we were thinking of things at the time. And so we tried to provide some language here. I'm not going to read everything, but start out with conditional use permits. So we have as a right things that happen in our code. And then everything else. The other thing else is the things that we want to allow, but we want to allow in some conditions. And so those conditions have to match a impact that we're asking or concerned about. And so that's number one. It's like, let's make sure that our conditional uses are actual uses that meet conditions and aren't just either uses we want to see as a right or don't want to see at all. But then more so than that is You know, how do we then continue to review and enforce a conditional use permit? An example that I'll give you, one that drives us crazy, are the auto uses in our city. So they're conditionally permitted. They tend to cause impacts to our neighborhood. So how do we enforce that? They were approved for a conditional use purpose. So we've tried to institute a parking plan. It's not in our code. It's something we want to add. So you've got to submit a parking plan. That gets approved by council or by commission. And then we, the zoning inspector, can go out and enforce that. Right now, we don't have any of those conditions built into place. Now, there's an advantage to that because they understand all of the conditions then. But it's also somewhat of a burdensome thing if they're just doing the same exact use as the previous owner was doing. So is there a better way for us to handle that? So that's conditional use permits. Any questions?

you have to have or put regulations on you know making sure things get cleaned up i mean behind a lot of our properties and i don't know if this is the right section but we seem to be getting a lot of of this size or some blanket code that says you can't have overflowing garbage?

So the answer is it's both this section and not this section. do this, we can bring you back and revoke your conditional use permit, as opposed to just an as by right. We can't stop the use from happening. We can fine them or violate them for that particular part of the code. So that's an example of where the conditional use permit has an advantage.

Well, I think there's certain areas.

THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY IN THIS HOT TOPICS TO, THIS IS WHERE WE TIGHTEN THIS GROUP.

I KNOW WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE REVIEW OF WHAT WE CURRENTLY REQUIRE CONDITIONAL USE PERMITS FOR, AND I KNOW THAT WE HAVE HAD SOME INTEREST IN PERHAPS manage the proliferation of that, you know, in some way. So, and then also, you know, I brought up to you, I don't think we have anywhere in town where a data center operator would want to build a data center, but that is something that we can clearly make a non-permitted use through the code also. Again, not related to conditional permits, but just in terms of like permitted, conditional, and non-permitted uses.

Our code is a exclusionary code. What I mean by that is that if it's not a permitted use, it's not permitted. If it's not listed as a permitted use, it's not permitted. So if a data center is not listed, it would mean it's not a permitted use.

I've got a lot of

for them. I know that's what you're thinking, but I'm not saying that that's not, well, first of all, I think realistically, well, I don't know, maybe someone would put a data center at servers.

I will say I already took care of that because we made it a non-permitted use when we did the, so if we adopt the zoning overlay as we, as planning commission sent it over, that was one of the discussions we had. was precisely for that reason. That's maybe the last remaining site.

I think if it was regulated the right way,

be discussed it's either or i would say that these are things that even if you guys show no interest in them we want the consulting team to look at so if there's you have anything to add to our concern or our question and certainly additional time i mean besides running it by the for Cincinnati's planning division. So he's a practicing lawyer. It's one of the reasons why I made the recommendation to hire him. So we already have a legal view. But yeah, Loa is going to start to become a part of these conversations. Anything else on conditional use permits? Next up, something I think you all will agree with is meeting processes and notice requirements. It's something NOTIFYING PEOPLE ON SHORT-TERM RUNNERS. SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE NOTICING MEETINGS PROPERLY AND THEN THE MEETINGS THEMSELVES ARE BEING RUN PROPERLY. WE'VE BEEN WORKING VERY CLOSELY WITH LAW TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE GETTING THAT MORE IN LINE WITH REALLY WHAT IS RECOMMENDED.

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD ALSO THAT BECAUSE WE HAD THIS DISCUSSION IN THE MEETING WITH ADMINISTRATION SERVICES WITH ALL THE COMMISSION CHAIRS AND COMMUNITY CHAIRS. THEY NEED TO GET FOR THE OPEN MEETINGS ACT TRANSPARENCY. ALL THOSE BODIES NEED TO HAVE THEIR AGENDAS POSTED ON THE WEBSITE AS WELL AS THEIR MINUTES ONCE APPROVED. I JUST WANTED TO NOTE THAT AFTER THE ADMINISTRATIVE

I've been talking about public notice for maybe over five years to try and fix this and have a larger radius. So I'm very excited about what the recommendations will be so we can actually get to neighbors that care about a particular site or particular change.

And just one note on this, you'll see it in the sub bullets, is that there is a difference between meeting and hearings. And we just need to understand because I think we're all confused about that terminology. But in the legal sense, it makes a difference. Next bullet, nonconforming uses of structures. This is an example of where the industry has outpaced the planners. Appraisers haven't been calling us up saying, by the way, insurance requirements have changed and you're going to start to get all these were a couple of cases, not cases, but inquiries in the past couple of years where the person couldn't essentially do what they wanted with the property based on the new insurance requirements the way that ours and just yell out if you have any questions. Supportive housing, this is something that you probably don't hear all that much of, but we have to deal with on a regular basis. People who are looking to have sort of congregated or supportive living arrangements, group homes would be the term that a lot of people use, but it's actually not a term in our code. And it just is unclear, it's subjective, and there's got to be a better way to do it. We've asked a whole bunch of people about answers seem to be satisfactory from our point of view. So we won.

Okay, this update to address that. I agree with you about the form. You mentioned the form, so I looked at it. Yeah. It asks some good questions, but they're not necessarily the right questions.

So home occupations, we do allow some home occupations, but BUT TECHNICALLY IN OUR CODE RIGHT NOW, WE MIGHT CONSIDER THAT OUTSIDE OF THE DEFINITION OF THE HOME OCCUPATION. SO, AGAIN, WANT TO LOOK AT HOW WE'RE DEFINING IT, HOW WE'RE PREVENTING IT. DOES THAT MATCH?

IT FEELS LIKE JUST READING THE ORIGINAL, IT WAS not what's happening in the house, but what's happening outside.

Planned development districts. So if you remember with the Park Synagogue property, that was a very intense process to sort of create a whole new zone out of the blue. And that was specific to that site. But we also have other special districts in the city that are just there. They don't really have any.

districts, and then the next one, subdivisions. Do you feel you're going to be considering whole new based zoning subdivision plan. What do you see coming out of the study?

So Xavier is shaking his head and he's right to shake his head, but I would say a little bit differently. We're a built out city. So there's very few opportunities for something to radically change, but it doesn't mean that the underlying processes can be really improved. So subdivision regulations is one of those examples where right now,

broadly so for example for our infill housing where does that fit in in this conversation because it's such a you know enterprise that in some cases is really focused on a specific section of the city yeah an example out there i would give is that let's say we have um

to individual bonds.

That could apply to the Noble Triangle.

The Noble Triangle, severance, you know, like there are these places where there's a conglomeration of properties.

And just to follow up on that, do you feel in this study that the prospect of severance is something that you're taking into account? And are there things that, I don't know whether you can talk about them or not, but you will make proposed adjustments?

they shouldn't contradict each other. Auto uses, we spoke a little bit about before, and this is really more of a, even a larger issue. You know, do we want to permit auto uses in the city? And if so, where? So it's a bigger conversation. You know, everybody loves to go to the neighborhood mechanic. But everybody loves to go to the neighborhood mechanic. Nobody wants to drive half an hour to drop their car off. They want to be able to go around the corner. But there are trade-offs with having that mechanic around the corner.

So right now, there's a very limited amount of auto repair uses in the city.

And so I think we just want to address that head-on. It's like, do we want to allow this in a certain place in the city? And if so, let's have regulations that speak to it directly. And then, you know, it's a big part of what Xavier has to do as the zoning inspector is deal with the complaints about these auto uses. Housing, I alluded to this earlier, but, you know, there are other studies going on that are going to inform the housing residential side of it. And so we want to make sure that ZoneCo knows about those and they do. up parking and traffic um an earlier attempt at some zoning changes we were looking at requiring for conditional permits traffic and parking management plan i still think that's an idea it just didn't make it through the zoning process and so we want to particularly when we have

And I think there are good examples of places that have done just that.

Next page, sign ordinance. Should the sign ordinance be pursued on its own or integrated into larger zoning code update? Our stance right now is that should at this point be integrated into larger zoning code update. While it's something that we deal with on a regular basis, Since there's going to be some other changes around our business districts, we felt like the synergies make more sense to look at holistically as opposed to piecemeal.

Wasn't something just done by either signing regulations?

There's a draft of the signing regulations. We took them pretty far with the zone code. But we came to a point where we said, well, if we're going to be making these other changes to the zoning code, that would change the way the sign ordinance would be implemented should we just wait until the 2. vary up to together at the same time.

So your plan is to merge that work into this work? Exactly.

Okay. In the interest of time, I'm just wondering, is there anything...

Sorry.

No, it's okay. No, is there anything that either hasn't been on the list or we haven't mentioned that we feel needs to make it into the zoning review or that hasn't been in the RFP?

I'm just... I'm... Happy to see that you'll be discussing the housing code because that's a concern of all of ours, so especially opportunities to empower our housing inspectors to assess fines. I'd like the city to encourage via code, and I know that you have had this discussion before, I don't know how far it got, but encourage developers not to use natural gas in their newly built homes. because its use for cooking and heating and cooling can create safety risks and health hazards. So just to add that. And the invasive species, 1166.04 is landscape design standards. I'd rather not refer to a zoning administrator's list someplace. I'd like to have at least the five highest most invasive species listed, possibly even 10 in the code.

There's a great example of Worthington, Ohio. When that topic came up from the Resonize site, I looked a little bit, and Worthington, Ohio is something worth looking at, specifically about bamboo, but also how they envision invasive species.

And Director Zams had some experience with bamboo, so happy to hear that. I'd like to see a revision and strengthening of the section on feeding wild animals, Ordinance 551.01.

That's not in the zoning. Okay. That's not in the zoning code, right? Okay. So it's not considered to run separate legislation housing.

So any codes dealing with dendine trees and resources are not included as well.

Unless it's in our landscape section. So I think we can

it doesn't address it already addresses it properly yeah that'd be great it was one one was five five five one zero and another one was um this leash ordinance is 505 so maybe um on the uh sorry what did you say species the next one that you mentioned um oh not feeding the deer

maybe we can make some mention of like wild animals or something like that in the planning conditional use standards, like injurious, you know, the standards, like non-injurious neighbors, something like that. Thank you.

So two themes, one around like operational processes, and I'm not sure if this fits more here or on the housing side, but in terms of reviewing the, match up our city goals with our rules and ensure that the goals that we have are able to be met by the rules that we have and that the rules aren't making these things harder. So, for example, we have a goal of reducing reliance on, you know, one specifically but you know looking at everything and ensuring that the goals that we have for the city are reflected in our own rules for how we do things down to like permitting and other operational processes so i'm not sure if that lives here or in you know the housing study and the housing code um review but i'd like to see that um and then the other one would be

use to transportation policy and ensuring that we are maybe getting some recommendations on the zoning code review and in our land use planning that then support transportation planning such as you know if we want to encourage multi-modality transportation or increased transit use which i think there

does our land use get us closer to reaching those goals? So ensuring that we're looking at transportation as well.

Yeah, and just on your last point, to take it one step further, so a land use, which is dictated by zoning provisions that allow for that land use. So it's taking the sort of desired land use and making sure the provisions, the zoning regulations allow. So on our tag group for the zoning study, RTA is on the group, and the county is on the group for the TOD study. So it's a big focus on making sure that our zoning is aligning with those TOD and transportation principles. And on the first one, I think it goes both here and in the housing part.

Thanks. On your bullet point about transparency standards, I think about the conversations we've had about making public and to users, and that the same thing could be applied in thinking about how the public is informed about the processes of zoning and zoning inspections so that it's visible, so that they aren't necessarily always seeking information about where things aren't.

It's interesting you mention that because this was actually meant to talk about window transparency.

Oh, window transparency. More than an issue for you.

I don't know.

It was kind of a general thing.

But you're right.

I thought you were talking about, you know, information transparency. But the window should be transparent. Well, it depends. It depends. Yeah.

I have a question for Brooke, but not on the selling card.

I mean, and I feel like I've been sending things over as we've been going through this process. So I'm excited to get the initial feedback.

And again, as a reminder, this is just initial feedback. We're going to send it off to the consulting team. If you think of anything between now and the workshop, let us know. If you think something in the workshop, let us know. If you think of something after the workshop, there's plenty of time.

But I can follow up. Yeah, I can just email you to just summarize.

Oh, well, if you spoke to her then it's good. I didn't realize that.

Sure. Thanks. Thank you. It's great.

All right. I do have a few quick update things. Any other questions?

draft legislative process. Vice President Larson had some initial input. She worked on it with Patty in terms of the operational side. And I put together what I think is kind of reflective of where we've ended up, but also spoke with Director Hanna, and he's gone through it, and this incorporates all of his whatever changes he wanted to see that he wasn't comfortable with in my initial draft. So This would be, I think this falls under, like, this is not a Chapter 111 ordinance change. This is kind of the internal rules that Vice President Larson is working on on the ethics side. So maybe my suggestion is we put these together the next time we talk about council rules and legislative process and we can discuss it together and finalize it. It's very helpful. Thank you. I think it's great.

Yeah, I mean, this puts some meat on the bones of just we're not doing committees, but, you know, and then, you know, that decides whether something moves on, but then what happens, right? So that's this part.

Just interestingly enough, on the thing about prior legislation history, I sent everyone an article from 2019 discussing when the city attempted to revise the last landmark legislation or And I'll let everyone read the article for themselves or go back and view the tape. And for anyone that's watching, it's from April 2019. Interesting. Heights Observer, their articles are available online from their website.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay, so we're just moving that along.

Yeah, I mean, it's a one-pager and so is the other one, so this is good.

of simple and we have agreement that's you know always the good part of the law department um so um mayor pedras asked me uh several months ago to work with legal aid society that was interested in doing some public presentations about tenants rights particularly about the rent escrow process So, about advocating for your home condition, flood safety, how to make a housing complaint to the city. And there is discussion in the courts about revising the, approving the process by which rent escrow is applied for possibly making an online process. And there may be then an online webinar and discussion about that if that comes to pass. So I just wanna let you know that's happening. The first one is on September 16th at the Family Resource Center. And when we come back, I'll have more flyers and all that.

Just an update on the application. Oh, sure. President Cooter and I have been working on the application for when council has a vacancy, and we've also been working on a new job description that Sarah got started, and we are probably going to present it in August in Committee on Law.

Oh, yeah, the 24th. Yeah. All right. Anybody else?

Um, okay. So, um, you know, Gail and I had two community meetings, one in Noble Library, one at Leroy Library. We had 15 people at the Noble, maybe 30, you know, at the Leroy Library. Um, you know, people brought up Shaker Lakes. I mean, that ended up being pretty lively, as you can imagine. Um, some people actually wanted to know about resident committees. Um, collaboration with East Cleveland. It was so great to be able to talk about our mayor's relationship with the new East Cleveland mayor. Police presence, crosswalk issues, safety, you know, and that kind of thing. Blanch extension. You know, I sent, you know, of course, sent everything to the administration. It's really good to have somebody there. This is just a suggestion to take notes because, I mean, you seem to be able to do that and pay attention. I can't do that. So we had an intern doing that. It was very helpful.

Can I ask a question about that? Because actually Councilman Posh and I are very soon to finalize a date for the last week of August, August 25th or 27th. We're working on that. Is this something, can we either borrow your intern or can Addie come or how can we?

You could ask Addie, but I mean, you're certainly welcome to ask. Kristen, who's, she's delightful. She was great.

And she's your intern?

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And if you're interested in getting an intern, Elizabeth Kirby has this thing she calls the superintendent's cadre and it will start to meet, They probably won't meet until September, even though I think they're back at some point in August.

August 14th or something.

But, you know, and she's always welcomed us to attend and talk to students who might be interested in interning. Not that that's the only place you can get an intern, but we actually have an ordinance that allows us to do this. Can you share with us how many people attended? Yes, I think 15 for the library, Noble, and about 30 for the Lee Road Library. And, you know, have it, I mean, if you think another place would be better, or just, you know, knock that around. Eddie probably has some ideas on that. If any of you have anything that you think Eddie might be able to help you on, especially the next five weeks, just because... she has somewhat less work to do, you know, just not having to prepare legislation.

Quick question on that. Can we just approach her directly or?

No, always approach her directly. There's no gatekeeper. She's our collective clerk of counsel. And I just wanted to let you know that I did ask the planning department to reach out to the owner of the Alcazar, to see if there was any leeway on my pet thing about the rent, and they were very willing to do that. I'm only saying this to you, I have no idea what's gonna happen, but if the terms are changed, I didn't want you to be surprised.

It's an insignificant amount of money versus the significant tax break that he is getting. So I really think that he needs to come back with the number.

It would be nice. I think we're all very supportive of the project. It's going to be a great improvement. I would strongly suggest you can go in there. It's already underway.

You could just go in.

You know, I feel bad that I just blurted that out. It was open. And the area that you walk into is a common area. It's not like you're walking into someone's apartment.

Home and not necessarily public.

And I have a few more modifications wondering, should I just go to the law department and do it or do you want to discuss it? I mean, I don't want to discuss it now, but... Why don't you...

My suggestion would be share them with the law department and just have the law department mark them separately because they're going to have to come back.

Oh, absolutely separate.

No, but just so we know.

Yeah, I don't. I'm late, so I don't expect anything necessarily to be adopted, but I just wanted to put them.

Would it be possible to send those to Addie to share with us?

I mean, we always do the abundance and caution thing. But that's what I would want to do is just share it.

And then we'd have an opportunity to discuss it before it necessarily gets...

Right. Instead of like, you know, here's what we all discussed. And then there's these few extra things that we have to cut. Yeah. All right. Anything else?