City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome to Clinton Heights City Council Committee of the Hall meeting. It is Monday, August 24th at 5.03. Tony Kuda, would you please call the roll? Tony Kuda? Here. Vice President Larson? Here. Councilman Cobb? Here. Councilman Posh?

Here.

Councilman DeWitt-Foy? Here. Councilwoman Jessica Collins? Here. And we also have the mayor with us. Wanna wave? You don't have to. And we have our city administrator here, Michael Reese. And first thing on the agenda is the finance department update.

And we have Rashaun Caldwell.

And I don't know your last name.

Where?

Okay. So do we wanna start with you or? Not necessarily. I mean, I think we can just go for it.

So we'll look at the June financial statements first. For the second time, we'll start on page four. Well, a lot of the variance analysis, nothing's really changed here today. And I'll mention any ones that have changed.

But for the June, we included the budget.

Thank you. You're welcome. I saw that immediately. I appreciate it. So that way we can know where we're at for the end of the quarter two and the half of the year for 2026. So overall, our income taxes, we've collected 56%. Our income tax for the year, our charges for services, we collected about 46%. Our government contract, our intergovernment grants and contracts, now we're below budget by 23%. Right now, because of we're meeting, in addition to the budget meetings that we're having internally, we're meeting with each department and we're confirming what they received in the in their budget, as well as come from their awards, anything that they were awarded, excuse me, and are expected to receive. And with the government grants and contracts, usually that is offset in other than personal services, which we're a little bit down in the expenditure category. Looking at our property taxes, we're up 55%. And our fines and forfeitures just really touching on the high level. We're down 39%. This has to do with the court system. And let me go to my notes. So the court is currently reconciling their 2026 activity following the transition to a new system for recording court transactions. Cassandra indicated that the reconciliation process So they had a person, she wasn't using the court system, and now Cassandra is using the court system to record the court transactions. She was basically using Excel and then putting them in, I think generally, but Cassandra says she But overall, our revenue total, so far, we've collected 48% to budget, so we're doing pretty well.

To confirm, it sounds like even the slightly under 50% for the intergovernmental grants and contracts and fines and forfeitures is more of an operational, like we should see that catch up just because of the record keeping.

Correct. We should see it either catch up or if perhaps a department hasn't received grants or contracts or maybe it's a little bit lower than they're expected, then it would also reflect other than personal services. Okay.

Tiffany, I'm going to be an optimistic with a glass half full. Are you looking at July or June? I'm looking at June.

Page five?

No, it's on page four. Oh, okay. It's a summary of revenues versus expenditures. And what, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me like at this point in the year, last year, we were more were spent than revenue and this year it's and I use a parenthesis because it's still more spent than received but it's only $1,738,001 so does that reflect we might be looking at a pretty decent picture of the financial status of the city oh absolutely yes the finance department we're doing a better job at looking at every category meeting with

departments, looking at their, uh, their budget categories, as well as their expenditure revenue categories, as well as their expenditure category. Um, yeah, I think compared to last year, this time. Yeah. And also if there's any questions or, um, if we need to look at our, um, Really, the expenditures, if we need to do any adjustments, we're working well with the department.

Thank you so much.

We had a big increase in health care this year. From what I understand, it came in late in the game. How are we dealing with that? I mean, just sort of looking at the numbers, I would have thought any surplus we would have had would have gotten eaten up by that. You don't need to come back to us now, but that's something that you can look at.

So in our charges for services, hospitalization, well, it did increase. However, it was offset. I think that's the benefit revenue.

So that should be the employee share that comes.

And it may be small where it's not, it's the larger variances or I guess it might be one of the smaller variances where I might not have consent. All right, looking at our expenditure categories for June, we are at, so far we spent 36% to budget. I think that is really good. It shows that we are being fiscally responsible. Personal services is one of the larger categories in which we've spent, but we're down. We spent 33% of other personal services and in capital, we spent 23%. And right now we are working with the departments with the budget to look at the capital expenditures year to date, as well as meet with them to go over any forecasting on whether they think that we'll be spending either what was in the budget or close to it. Moving on to page six. A lot of the same comments. Income taxes, we have collected 56%. Property taxes, we have collected 54%. Fees, licenses, and permits, we are at 69%. Intergovernment grant contracts, we are down by 30%. And fines and forfeitures, we're down 39%. The fines and forfeitures, again, that is what the court system and the grants and contracts, again, we are. Looking at our expenditure categories, capital, we are at, we're pretty close to capital so far. We spent about 73%. Other than personal services, we're down. We've only spent 40% Page seven and eight, just a fund balance report. Nothing unusual here. I am on page four, looking at our revenue. Our revenue was $16 million year-to-date for July, which is about $1.7 million ahead of where we were at last year. Some of the drivers are charges for services. which increased by 1.3 million. Earlier I was talking about the hospitalization, but the CDBG, $324,000 of the lead abatement, which is off to the expenses, and which is really nice, $527,000 of the charges for services, Arcane Park. Our grants and contracts, increased by 2.1 million. This is primarily 1.2 million. Some of the same talking points from May, the NERC Community Member Infrastructure Program, 763,000 of the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG as well, 388,000 of the State of Ohio Lead Safe Program, and 264,000 of the NERSD Regional Stormwater Management Program. Fines and forfeitures, we talked about that in June and that has to do with the court. meeting with I've met with Cassandra twice already I actually went over to the court and she showed me exactly her process moving away from being Excel focused now to moving it into their system so it will be more timely posted she expects after she reconciles it will go back to monthly Any questions on revenue before I move on to expenditures? So looking at our expenditures, our expenditures are 66,000. I'm sorry, it wouldn't be nice. Would that be nice?

It'd be a very small city.

66 million for the year. Actually, the variance compared to prior year is only 273,000. Some of the key points here for the expenditures, personal services increased by 3.1 million compared to prior year. Department of Public Works, again, this is local 860, Pancreas, as well as out of staff, the fire department, Parks and Rec, especially with the annual additional staff, and community relations, and the planning department. Other than personal services, increased by 3.0 million. Again, the Park Synagogue project, 750,000. Also included in this is the $555,000 of the Crossroad Group lawsuit. That's the refund of the out-of-county landlord fees. $290,000 of the CDBG-led abatement. That's offset in revenue. $250,000 of the Park Synagogue building permit fees. That's separate from the grant that was paid in error that was refunded. And about $200,000 of liability insurance.

I'm on page six in the middle of the expenditure category. Help me understand the capital. I mean, we've approved a lot of expenditures for public works trucks. I don't know how else to, plows, attachments, things. Do we classify that as capital? Because then 290 seems very low. I mean, I think we've at least had... personnel? Like, where do we, where does that fit in in this, these broader categories?

So, oh, no, go ahead.

It would be in Fund 402. So, this is just the general funding. Oh, no, we're on page four.

Oh, she said six.

Oh, wait, what page are you on? Six.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So, is that other than personnel?

So, page six is only the general funding.

So then can you just break down so in the general fund what do we consider a capital for the general fund purposes?

Typically you try to steer away from putting things in the general fund. But some things slipped through last year but they're like small dollar amount equipment say software things that I need your IT request but the larger dollar amounts capital you know projects definitely are on 402 but some did slip through the general fund I mean I think that makes I mean I do think you need

a capital account for the general fund, 80,000 in computers for IT, the Microsoft 365 annual subscription.

We just won't capitalize it. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. It's not depreciated. All right.

Thank you. My pleasure. I have been tracking the capital expenses by department in terms of what they ask for in the budget, what the department has asked for in the budget. And Public Works has quite a few items they haven't purchased yet. Are you encouraging them to buy what the budget outlined for us or not?

this year so we um right now i am in the process of reconciling the capital budget with each item that was in the capital budget and uh we're going to meet with each department to go over you know what their plan is are they going to Proceed with it. And also with Joe moving to, I believe, a five-year plan, if some of those capital items might be included in that plan.

Thank you. That reassures me because I don't want a bunch of orders coming in at the end of the year. So doing it now makes a lot of sense.

She assigned that project to me, so. So we're moving right along. I believe we are set for an October go live date.

Yeah, October go live date. Just at a high level, I know that the employees have been trained, the employees and managers have been trained on time keepings. And so that occurred maybe a few weeks back. but we're rolling right along. I think the last we checked, we were trying to get everybody registered, so that was the next thing is to get everyone registered into the system so that when it's time to start punching, that would all be squared away.

And those of us who don't use a time clock don't need to worry about that.

That would be the salary. Yes.

Do we need to register for ADP? Because I believe some of us have emails that we haven't been responding to.

Yeah, and so that was part of the issue with the registration is that whatever email you put on file when you first came on board as an employee, that's where it's going to, and so you would have to go, I believe, into eSuite So that information is on file with eSuite. So whatever was on file, they put it over to ADP. And so that's part of the disconnect. But yes, you need to register.

Maybe just an operational note. Maybe Christina can let us know exactly like what we need to do. I mean, I think all of us were nervous about responding to random links, you know, an ADP. But if we could get, I mean, we're happy to do it. I just want to make sure we're doing the right thing.

I'll follow up.

Okay.

I also wanted to know how the, if you foresee a return of the completed audit for 2024 and 2025, when you're timing on that.

So in terms of the audit, no, the 2024 financials were filed roughly a month ago. And then we're in the process of closing out 2025, but we have kicked off. The audit has been kicked off. They started testing a few weeks back. We've sent some information over to them. And as we continue to get requests, we'll just feel through those. But 2025, I would say within the next several weeks, fingers crossed. But yeah, it's just been a lot of competing priorities and we're just trying to juggle all of them. We definitely look to close this out and get this past us.

Can you let us know if they finished the gap conversion and if there's going to be any issues with

We don't need to know right now. I was just going to give you a brief update that the infrastructure, we did get an appraise on that for 2025. So that was the finding from 2025, and we did get that address. Or 23, and we got an address for 25. Okay.

Anything else?

Just a question for you, Councilman Cash. Can we, before we move into budget hearings, get one more conversation and committee the whole on the debt service? little bit, but the director, Director Brzezinski, was going to...

They asked us to cut. The administration asked us to hold off, but in my next meeting with the mayor and Michael, we can talk about it.

Okay.

Sounds good. I think that makes sense.

Did Joe ask that we hold off on it? Yes. Okay.

the 2025 audit and our bond rating for that as well. It would be nice to get updates on those two things.

Because they will have to be working together.

All right, so are we ready to move on? Everybody knows Kelly and wagers chair of the common environment.

And this is her wagers. And chair of the committee, Kelly and Waiters, is here tonight to present you with a description of how the program could work in restaurants in Cleveland Heights that use plastic foodware in their dining and their dine-out delivery systems. So please feel free to ask any questions and give us feedback on this initiative when she's done with her presentation.

Thank you. Go ahead, Kelly. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. I want to thank Councilwoman Larson. I want to thank Diana Berger-Fisher for all her support. In the room, I also have Cathy, Dr. Cathy Smacklow, who has been a lead partner in this initiative. I'm going to start with what's the issue. And it's just very simple. Most restaurants are providing automatically single-use plastic accessories. What do I mean by single-use plastic? I mean, forks, knives, ketchup packets, mayonnaise packets, straws, napkins are part of this takeout practice that everything goes in the bag. And most of them are takeouts and most of the customers don't need it. So let me see how this works. What's the impact? Well, nearly one trillion disposable food service products are used each year in the United States. One trillion. From them, 79% are tied to takeout and delivery. And I think there is something wrong with our phone because you guys cannot get to see all the rest. So maybe I just go back and, oh, something is weird. I'm going to go back. Sorry, guys.

Sorry.

I'm not familiar with this.

Okay. So just to give you a little bit of context, we're talking about disposable utensils only. So forks, knives, spoons. About 36 billions are used in the United States alone every year. We're talking about the little struts, the coffee stirrers, $142 billion. Our annual spend in restaurants is about $19 billion in just disposable foodware. And local governments spend about $1 billion managing the cleanups and the waste management. The impact on the environment, I don't have to repeat, is obviously plastic pollution and litter. You guys probably have heard a lot about microplastic contamination in the little invitation that you have on your desk. Actually, it's... Something that we've been working on about educating our community on the impact of microplastics. Most people don't know what that means, so we would love for you guys, if you could attend, please, so you understand what the problem looks like and real health issues, greenhouse emissions, and obviously wildlife and ecosystem harm. At the end of the day, and when it's not there, it's about... 49% of all the single-use plastic things that people put in their bags are going directly to the garbage. They've never been used, they're not open, they go in the garbage.

So what's the solution?

There are many, many cities, municipalities, states. Now we have about three or four states in the United States that have said enough is enough. Restaurants need to ask first. So what we're not saying is you cannot have it. What we're saying is you can have it. Just ask for it if you need it. So we're not talking about a major cultural shock here. We're not denying people their rights to anything. We're just saying, just ask for it. And that should be the default action, which basically, unless the customs request them, you don't put anything in your bag. So why is this attractive? Well, first of all, it saves restaurants money. It reduces waste and it prevents litter pollution. Now you all know I am with the Cleveland High School team. I've been working for five years in our community to clean up our community. I cannot tell you how many forks and knives and ketchups and McDonald's bags and Burger King bags we pick up from your parks every single cleanup. So So what do we do or how does this come to be? Well, the Green Team and its partner, Young Plastics, which is a nationally recognized organization, we follow the lead from other cities and states and we develop with the guidelines a proof of concept. So there were three things that we wanted to learn what to do. The first one we wanted to assess the community support for the idea of upon request. Is the community interested in this? The second one, we wanted to conduct a pilot test with restaurants in the city to learn about how the program will work and what would the community say about it in the restaurants. And then last but not least, we will measure the data and publish the results, which I have to say, we have been working on this since 2025. We completed the proof of concept in January, 2026. And the effort, like I said, was spearheaded by the Cleveland High School team with the guidance of Beyond Plastics. So the results summary. The first thing, we had 1,055 people sign the petition to reduce single-use plastic waste at Northeast Ohio restaurants. Most of these petitions or the signatures were collected in person. So we got to talk to so many residents and patrons of our restaurants, and this makes so much sense. Thank you very much. In the fall of 2025, we conducted a test with nine local restaurants. We provided them with everything. Training for the employees, the language for their website. We provided them with signs. Everything that they needed, they got. The only thing they needed to do is sign. launch the pilot, and make sure that we were not putting anything in a takeaway bag. And third, we measure and share, and we shared the data with the success committee a couple weeks ago, and they unanimously recommended advancing the proposal. So what did we learn from the proof of concept? We provided questionnaires to the customers and questionnaires to the restaurants, specifically the staff. And we also had questionnaires to the management, the owners, or the manager of the restaurant. The customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Do you like the policy? Yes. And I think that the most important part is it makes so much sense. Thank you. That was pretty much what we got. We asked, did you decline any accessories? And for a policy or a program that people are not familiar with, as soon as they heard You have a choice. We had 51% of people say, yes, we don't need that. Which was, in our way, in our way to measure, this was very successful. Staff feedback, they said that 60% of the time, they practice the policy. 20% maybe here and there. It requires a little bit of training. And then we asked, what did the customer say to them? What are we here for? We're here to make a recommendation. It is implementation of a citywide only upon request ordinance. directing restaurants to provide footwear, accessories only if the customer requests it. If they don't meet them, restaurants and customers can prevent waste and reduce costs by exercising their right to skip the stop. Skip the stop is a national movement. This is not something to skim up with. This is something that's been gaining a lot of traction. New Jersey is the latest one. We're talking about state level that has created a law. It's become a part of the law. And we have municipalities across the country doing this. So why Cleveland Heights? Well, because first, we're awesome. And if anybody in the state is going to do this, it's the city. So, but besides because we're awesome, we also have another reason, which is the CARP. And our committee, SESC, has been working very hard with our Councilwoman Jason and with Diana on supporting and moving forward initiatives to advance the CARP. And it is a specific section in the CARP It is in our action plan. So why an ordinance? And I know that's probably a question you're all having. Well, first of all, just voluntary programs are difficult to push through. You know, we have restaurants already doing the right thing, but there are restaurants that honestly don't even know that they have options. And at this point, it's not on the radar. So it will achieve broader participation because the businesses are already into sustainability. They're already doing it. It generates environmental benefits at scale, so it will make a difference to our local environmental assets. And we will see that very clearly. Obviously, legislation will produce larger detoxes in waste, reduces enforcement uncertainty, If we're not clear on what we're asking people to do, that is going to create a lot of frustration in our businesses and with our residents. And honestly, the environmental and financial benefits are shared by the public, the businesses, and the government. This is not something that we're taxing the businesses with. This is actually helping the businesses to save. So, Okay, so what are the benefits? Well, lower purchasing costs and that is proven and there is data that Obviously, less inventory to manage, and fair competition. Because one of the things that businesses worry about is, well, if I don't do it, will I lose this customer? So if everybody is on the same playing field and is as expected, it'll be a real problem. And we have examples, for example, in Florida, a particular small, this is a small restaurant. They save $3,285 and avoid the 64,800 disposable items per year. That's one example of a small restaurant in Florida. We're not talking about here, Colorado or Oregon, Florida. In New Jersey, a study of 20 participating restaurants reported a 94% reduction in single-use cutlery and condiments. And like I said, New Jersey, in the past three, four months, passed a law, and it's become a law, and by 2027, I believe, the end of 2027, it's going to be enforced. What are the benefits for Cleveland Heights? We're going to have less waste and less garbage and less damage to our environment. You guys have been out there, you have seen what the garbage in the middle looks like in our streets, in our parks, and we're moving forward towards our and continue to work with the art art. And honestly, guys, this is the most important part. By doing this, we're gonna set an example to other cities. We're gonna be a model, a role model, and we will see So what are the components of the bylaw? I'm not a lawyer. This all has come from what people already have done. It's simple. It requires the residents to make accesses available only upon request. by the customer. It requires that the businesses update their online ordering software. But if you look at people like Aladdin, they already have been doing this forever. There are several restaurants that already have their software updated. This is not a burden on them. It just means they need to talk to their service, their program. And it becomes a default. of you don't get anything unless you ask. And you can ask, I need a fork, or I need a straw, and then you get that. And this is the best part, I think, It requires that full-service restaurants where people are seated and then it's a waitstaff. So we're not talking about McDonald's here. We're talking about real restaurants that provide reusable place tops and utensils rather than disposable. And that single-use straws and stirrers and condiments are only given when the customer requests. So how many times we have go to a restaurant, we sit down, there is the water and the straw. That all goes to the garbage. If you want a straw, you can ask. And it's amazing when we tell the wait staff, please, no straw. It's like, you know, they kind of like get surprised because they are so conditioned to just do this without thinking. So how is the implementation of this? How will it work? How the people have done it? It is just a default setting. We're not asking We're just saying stop giving stuff unless the customer asks. Education is prioritized before penalties. I know that the biggest concern that I've heard from other people is how are we going to enforce this? Are we going to have people going into restaurants and policing and giving fines? The truth is it's part of code like anything else we do, but if this is a clear or happen in other cities. Compliance. If we want to check compliance, it's very easy to verify. Just place an order and see what happens. And then if things are not working out, there will be education. And, you know, most businesses have a financial incentive to comply. We're not asking them to give money. We're actually saving them money. So resources. That's another thing that people get concerned when we talk And to be honest, there is a wealth of information out there. People already have done it. They have done it right. There are model ordinance language available. We have guides, toolkit, education, outreach, press releases. Anything that the city will need to get this done already exists. And we will be more than happy to share all those resources with our city and get this going. So this is a Q&A time, but I want to close with Skip the Stuff ordinance offers Cleveland Heights a low-cost, proven opportunity to reduce waste, support local businesses, and their sustainability goals in labor's existing implementation. I want to introduce you to our new logo, which is the Skips of People and Nights logo, just because I'm very hopeful. And that's it. If you guys have questions, I'm here. Kathy's here to answer any questions, Deanna, that you may have, any concerns, comments. Yes.

Okay, so the idea is great. I personally love it. Or what happens if it doesn't take off and you have an ordinance that nobody's enforcing? What does that look like?

We haven't even started. I mean, this is just the very first step for council to consider and determine if they want to pursue it and how they want to pursue it.

But to answer the question, is it illegal? So in the state of Ohio, unfortunately, they did pass a, I would call a law, that you cannot tell people that you cannot give plastic bags. So that is, you cannot tell businesses you cannot give plastic bags. You cannot tell businesses that they need to charge I did a lot of research on that. We're not saying you cannot have it. We're saying, yes, you can. Just ask for it. And that is the big difference between what the state of Ohio has stated versus why this does not create a conflict with the current law.

I mean, I echo what you asked about the enforcement. I mean, I understand that you're not envisioning a enforcement regime where, you know, restaurants are checked. But I think also having a law with no teeth brings to bear, you know, why have it at all? And I would be concerned about two things, I guess, on the enforcement side. Like, one, what does that penalty structure look like? Like, I would be much more comfortable with a voluntary penalty. you know, like a resolution or something like that. And I understand all the reasons you put forth as to why, you know, you want it to be a mandatory ordinance. And then also, you know, just the burden on like right now, if I were have a choice between amping up our housing enforcement or amping up our restaurant enforcement, it would be housing enforcement every day. And so, you know, like as we're getting our feet under us, that's something that's on top of my mind is how we might, how that might, play out?

So the enforcement, so I'm not saying over here that there should be enforcement because all the cities and states and municipalities have adopted this. There is an enforcement component. It varies by case depending on, you know, if we're talking about Washington is one of the states versus New Jersey. There is definitely a difference because these So if we were going to move forward with looking into this proposal as an ordinance, there are many, many laws, I said templates, that they can look at specifically to the enforcement area and see how that will work. I don't think any of the states or municipalities that have passed you know, this is not something that's creating a problem or a burden on the restaurants. It's actually making it easier for them. So I totally understand. I know that that's a pushback. But if we're interested, the law department will have a lot of cases that they can refer to. There is a fine, but there is a year, at least a year transition period. You know, so you give them a year to transition.

I mean, what I'd love to see is if, you know, we pass something that created the awareness and the educational, just, you know, that we did it and it was publicized and restaurants were like, oh, we're supposed to do this. you know, on the radar of the businesses where it's not on the radar now. But I completely support this effort. It's just a waste. It's just pollution. It's just...

There aren't any restaurants doing it here. This is not like, oh my God. No, people are doing it.

We have a lot of restaurants.

But we have a lot of restaurants.

And takeout has gone wild since COVID. Since COVID.

And that's the only...

okay. I mean, you know, it's not up to us.

But when you look at the graph of waste, pre-COVID and post-COVID, it's just staggering. It's just a lot of waste.

So we have to move on. Thank you. I would like guidance because this is why I brought it to the council because I don't know what the next step is if we encourage our We need to work on an educational campaign now, try to promote, get more restaurants to sign up. If I would encourage, not if, I would encourage Catalina and anybody that wants to go with you to go to the SID meetings in the business districts and Noble Business Association and Taylor Business Associations to expose them to this concept because I think a lot of would be on board with an educational campaign right now.

Well, there's two things. I mean, there's the ordinance because that's what the committee decided, right? That it needs to be an ordinance otherwise. It won't.

The committee is an unanimous support to present this to council.

As an ordinance.

As an ordinance. Yes. And they had questions. Okay. Just like you guys have questions. I think that any committee, one of the independent Jump in. The conversation was definitely a heavy emphasis on education and language to the students. The purpose is not to come in with a hammer and say,

sample ordinance needs to go in front of the law department. And then I think that that's a great idea to go to the SIDS. And then maybe after that, after we get that feedback and the law department feedback, maybe we do something with public engagement.

And then we can talk about it at campaign at the next.

There are some logistical problems that come to mind that I think we'd have to work through. And fortunately, with New Jersey taking the lead, it might make it easier for us to implement. So I'm thinking about the hurdle of trying to get some of these behemoths like Uber Eats on board with something like this with updating their platform for something like this.

It's already updated.

Okay, so.

own room, wherever you want to sign it. That would be very helpful, Mayor, to have your support.

Absolutely. Thank you. That's a very important point. People already are doing this. And it's already, there's a template out there. not new. It's just implementation.

Thank you so much. Thank you guys. Thank you for having us. I appreciate you all. All right. Deanna Brummer-Fisher is going to come up now. And this is really just to share with you what the thought process is in the employee administration.

Exactly. So we've had, obviously, we have monthly SESC meetings, and we've had a couple conversations about the budget already, getting ready for budget season. So I'd like to share with you some of our thoughts. It looks like it's a PDF, so you scroll down. Oh, okay. That's great. So you're missing a little bit. With our CARP, we've got seven different categories. I've organized this presentation by these seven categories to give us some structure to talk about these things. First up is buildings and energy. You can see the strategies there. What I attempted to do is take each of our discussion items and map them to one of the strategies. One of the big things in buildings and energy is really about providing public education materials. that there are to weatherize, to electrify, et cetera. And so having some printed public education materials, a one or two-pager about EV chargers, for example. I just bought an EV or I'm thinking of buying an EV. What do I need to consider in terms of charging it at my home? How do I get an EV charger installed? What are the things that I need to think about, et cetera? I'm proposing a sustainable home fair for next year. If you remember, the Home Repair Resource Center used to have a home fair in the spring when people start thinking about projects. This takes a similar concept, just puts a little bit of a sustainability twist on it. We will talk about weatherization and how to button up your home and how to make repairs around the home, but also how to live a more sustainable lifestyle. We'll have presentations on composting and recycling, electrification, et cetera. So I'm envisioning this being on a Saturday or Sunday at the community center. There'll be four, at least four workshops, 50 resource tables with organizations education to our residents. In addition, a sustainability dashboard. The public is very interested in the work that we're doing on sustainability. We get questions and comments all the time about the work that we're doing, and so we'd like to communicate out to the public how we're doing in terms of how we're making progress the strategies and the plan and how we're doing energy wise as well. And so this would require getting a subscription through ICLEI or through another program that we're looking at to be able to create a dashboard that we can share out with the public. Another program that we've been talking about in terms of light pollution, we know that And oftentimes when they do that, they are brighter than they used to be. light intruding on their residents. And so we're thinking of doing a pilot program where we'd set aside a certain number of funds. People would request a shield. We'd evaluate it and authorize that up to the amount that we've set aside. In terms of transportation, you have already approved the match for the EVP. We also are looking at EV chargers here for our fleet. At the moment, we've got two, and you can see that this picture down here, if I can scroll down just a little bit more. up. You can see that we've got two. It's right outside the service dock. It's not very convenient for receiving deliveries and not very convenient for charging our, I think we've got 25 electric vehicles at this point. So we need more chargers for our fleet. And I estimate at this point that'll be about $125,000. I'm not really sure. We're working to get more specific numbers on that. Materials and waste. There's been a lot of interest in this with the SESC and with the public in general. So there's a lot here. As you know, we started the compost pilot. Now we've expanded it to the entire community. We would like to continue that composting program next year. We're also looking at adding some ADA accessible bins to that program. So that's one big effort here. We have also heard from folks who live in multifamily buildings that they do not have access to recycling or composting. Actually, they do have access to composting because they can just sign up for the program, the drop-off program. They can petition their building owners, and a lot of times they're still not able to get access to recycling. So many communities have a drop-off recycling program. This is something that we've talked a little bit with Public Works, we don't really have a Styrofoam recycling program pilot currently. It's been extremely popular. We have more than 550 families that have signed up for that program so far. And so we are looking at continuing that service into the following year. Again, public awareness materials. You just heard about the Upon Request Initiative. And Recycling is difficult because sometimes the rules change when we get a different provider or when the market changes And you can't just tell somebody wants how to do something People need continuing education on that new people are moving into the community all the time People have questions. We need to be continuing to educate people on how our recycling program works and there are potential grants that for things like this, both from the Solid Waste District and from the Ohio EPA. This is a picture of the Business Paper and Cardboard Recycling Pilot Program that was started sometime last year. There were four containers in four business districts. What we found from the pilot so far is that there are too few containers in too few locations and they're too small. And so we would like to expand that program. Also, our businesses have requests mixed recycling. And so this is something that we're continuing to talk with them about because it needs to be somewhere that is enclosed, locked, so that it doesn't become contaminated and residents are not using it specifically for the businesses. And it would be something likely that we would ask them to cost share in. So that if the city provided the pickup service, for example, that the businesses would be participating in that. Some other things that we have done recently or looked into recently, oops, sustainable disposables. Just last week we visited a company in Highland Heights that sources sustainable products from all over the country, and their products, they have compostable products as plastic products and their compostable plastic is taken by Rust Belt Riders so we know that if we were to purchase things through them that all of those things could be put into our compost program and so the city itself through its operations is looking the paper and the plastic that we use there, cups, napkins, serviceware, etc. If we use this, cane park would be another option as well to set that example, especially if we're asking businesses to be more mindful of that. Another one is reusable bags, and I did bring my Cleveland Heights reusable bag today, but there is another option that we are considering, and I'm sorry this is from another city, but I did this in another city and we used their logo and worked with a local designer to come up with a bag that serves several purposes. First of all, this is made from recycled plastic water bottles. So that's one thing. It's city branding. It's also encouraging people to shop local and it's encouraging businesses not to use plastic. Yes, I'm sorry. Okay. So these others don't have nearly as much. Again, public education materials around water and wastewater to educate residents. On air quality, as you know, we do the lawnmower and leaf blower exchange. And we're also looking at, I'm working with communications and we meet monthly, but really laying out a PSA campaign for the entire year so that you will hear sustainability messages that are timely to that season at least once a month, if not every week. Oh, and we're also looking at using resources such as the Heights Observer for that as well. And then finally, food, sorry, not finally, and ultimately, food systems. Cleveland Heights Garden Walk, if you're not familiar, this has been going on for several years. It's a group of volunteers who put together a self-guided tour of Cleveland Heights gardens. And it's a great way to see homes and neighborhoods. And if you remember, Heights Community Congress years ago did a home tour And that sadly is no longer in existence. But this is a great way for people to see our neighborhoods, learn about gardening practices and sustainability. And so we would like to support Clean Garden Block. And I believe this is the last area, natural areas and land use. I mentioned earlier in an earlier presentation, the Tree City USA Awards coming up in 2028. We will need a small amount of money in 2027 to plan that and to promote it to our other cities in Northeast Ohio. We are working, as you know, on an urban forestry master plan, and we will need monies for implementation on that. And then we are also talking about forming a tree commission. I hope that you will be considering that this fall. And we would need a small amount of money for training. There is training offered by the Ohio EPA that's pretty inexpensive, but it's very high quality. And so we'd like to provide that for our residents. And of course, with the And this last slide really kind of brings all of this home. What we did is we took all of these initiatives and costed them out and then rolled it up to see where we are. And you can see that it results in a much larger total. But really, some of these things could So a lot of these expenses may not end up being in sustainability per se, but maybe in other departments because they are capital expenses or, for example, with communications

Quick question. Go ahead, John.

Yeah, quick question. So you referenced the blue bins as a pilot for paper and cardboard. Was that something that we collected in-house or did we contract that out?

It is collected in-house. Public Works collects that.

And then if we were to do anything for multifamily or commercial restaurants, are there any restrictions in...

drop-off area. We just don't have any room.

Yeah, and then just ensuring that they're getting picked up on the right schedule based on, yeah, because all of that is different than what you would expect from a single residence. Okay, thanks.

Did you have a quick question, Jim?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little unfair to kind of include the EV chart It really should come out of the cost of those car purchases. I know we've never really thought about it that way. From an optics perspective, I think maybe the city, maybe we can look at this a little bit differently by not including that as a new initiative and stuff that we should have been doing before.

Ten seconds. Our share

Pardo project has contributed to anything that any of these initiatives, you know, have they covered? I mean, I would assume that everything you put up here is not.

Correct. Correct. These are all new initiatives or initiatives that we'd like to pursue for 2027.

The dashboard's part of that, though, in terms of determining what the energy costs are and if they've changed.

Yeah.

of our energy use.

And I guess what I'm asking is, is the implementation of their work affecting anything in these initiatives?

It isn't, and that is because we don't have, or I don't have, a clear picture exactly where that stands. And so there could be additional things once we get all of that sorted out. But as you can see, there are plenty of other things to work on.

Oh, okay.

get through everything we need to we needed more than 30 minutes anyways but why don't we start with the transportation product we'll start with the transportation projects this is the demonstration the million dollars for the demonstration money here mark to go

Let's skip this slide and come back to it for a second. But we've, over the past couple of years, done a bunch of planning. And planning is only so good. But it's only good if you . And so the whole idea of our transportation approach is to try to implement these two really important points. CSAB, which is the safety action plan, and then the Heights Regional Active Transportation Plan. Just to go back for a second, I love this picture. It's the Heights and Cedar around the turn of last century. And you can see there was a lot going on. It probably wasn't very safe. at least have a scoring mechanism to try to Your job in terms of helping us to get OHM on board is working with East Cleveland now. But that's a 2028 project that should really implement a lot of things that come out of the original TLCI plan and the two plans that we were talking about. But more importantly is the demonstration. demonstration funds, and it took us a year and a half to negotiate a contract with the feds because of an administration change, and that led to a lot of, as I'll say in a second, some ambiguity about what this project could actually be. And then we've applied for implementation funds, and we hope to hear for that by the end of the year. The demonstration project has these major components. Updating the action plan itself, And then daylighting crosswalks, and I'll give some more details on that in a second. Signal improvements, the neighborhood traffic calming program, well, those are the main components. But we're looking to, as this map shows that we included in the grant application and then in the contract, trying to spread it throughout the city. So even though we, you know, pretty much any street, pedestrian and vehicular safety. The goal is to try to get as many of these spread across as possible. And there's monitoring that's part of this process. So daylighting crosswalks. For those that don't know what that means, at many of our mid-block crosswalks and even at our intersections, parking is like right up the gap. up against the curb. And that makes it really hard for pedestrians, even other vehicles coming out of the side streets. Think about Lenox and Cedar, which thankfully through public works has been improved. But daylighting means let's pull back the parking for these places and give a little more space for pedestrians and others to see. And so that can be done with paint and plastic. exactly what that means. But the idea here is to particularly look in our business districts, because that's where parking and pedestrian is probably conflicted most. So Coventry, Leith, and Fairmont. That's where we're going to be looking to try to do these test cases to send search cases for daylighting. And that can be not just paint and plastic, But these are the intersections where signal improvements were recommended in the plans, and that's where these attempts occurred. And then the Neighborhood Trafficking Program, if you all remember a couple of years ago, we had a Neighborhood Trafficking Program. There was a petition, and then it went through a process, public works, police department. And even though it didn't succeed at the time, we think it was a good idea. here is that through this demonstration grant, we would look at four neighborhoods or streets to go through a traffic calming, neighborhood traffic calming process and learn from that to create a toolkit that then we can apply throughout the city, whether it's particular types of streets or particular neighborhoods, but something that then we don't have to always go back to an engineer or consultant. How would we choose those? Well, that's a good question. That actually comes to this next slide. Additional stakeholder and community input. That's one of the big things that we want to do when we update this plan and when we have to monitor this plan. If you remember, we had a technical advisory committee, which was really good, and that was made up of folks from the county, but also a lot of local folks. I'll throw a name out there if you wouldn't mind. Sam Bell was on that committee, and it really, I think, helped us get to a place, but there was also some ownership. And so we're going to use them, along with the TMC and this committee, to help guide this process. Where we're at is we issued an RFP. We received five responses. We're actually... We've got the city administrator and some other folks from outside the city government sitting on that. And what we want to impress upon our consultants that we're So, installation likely of this demonstration would be around this time next year or maybe a little bit earlier. We hope, and we hope to work with our consultants to try to bump those things up to do it sooner.

Do you have a vehicle that...

There will be a couple of metrics. So that's it on demonstration. was a little bit of a stretch because there wasn't a lot of work that was going to be happening. So that's why we're thinking about doing something different in this program for TNCI.

So we really aren't going to see any traffic calming from this effort until really next year.

And that's really based on what

the consultants are telling you what we can fit in to this demonstration grant.

Yeah, when we started out, we were hopeful that we could do more of this in 2017, but it seems like the federal grant guidelines are making us go through a longer process before we can just start doing this, unfortunately. Those are the strings attached to the federal funds.

Question.

demonstrate that they can really reduce the cost of installing them. I think that having a city engineer on board and other team members in public works who are specifically responsible for this is what's needed in order to make sure that it gets done. There's nothing standing in our way right now.

We really need to start doing something. We've been talking about this since you've come to the city.

a lot of good work so don't you know take everything i'm saying not as a piece of criticism you know but i mean we've had fatalities in this city because of the traffic situation that we're under and it just kills me that we just can't move faster um you know i'm encouraged on some of the conversations I mean I think it's that I think we almost have to figure out ways of doing this And I'm glad we're looking at models from the city of Cleveland that has its own task force in putting traffic tables in and have really gotten that price down to, I think it's just a couple thousand dollars, a traffic table by doing it themselves. But anything that we can do at this point to make our streets safer I think is going to benefit everybody. And I know we're working on that. on what we're hearing. So, I mean, I appreciate the work that's getting done.

Just to wrap up, this will not satisfy that concern that you've all raised, but there's some more longer-term things that we are working on. Just to go quickly, Washington Boulevard, just a reminder to everybody watching, this was only the area in front of the high school, but that's a 2030 project. Hopefully sooner, but that's, again, we're going through several months. But conversations with University Heights neighbors are always ongoing to try to see how much we can share resources and connect. As I mentioned, implementation SS4 some improvements. Just as a reminder for everybody, so on the transit side, we actually do have conversations with RTA on a regular basis. There is some service reductions that they're proposing, and there's a set of public meetings about that. We encourage everybody to attend those meetings and voice your opinion against those service reductions. On the shared mobility side, which is the scooters and e-bikes, if

is about the people that rent them should abide by their laws.

Oh, that goes without saying. And I know each of the vendors have supposedly strict standards that if somebody gets caught doing something against their standard, then they can... It's the getting caught. It's the getting caught, absolutely.

Just on the RTI and the reporting of the e-bike and scooter vendors,

But we'll do, I think, very much so. Quick build, which is what we've been talking about here. We really do want to pursue this as much as possible. And so I think we'll continue to work across the partners to see how much of this we can do without having to wait for these grants and processes. And just the last thing, there are a number of policy changes that we have yet to broach with you guys.

But these are things that...

There are some things here that can make a real impact, but are really actually in your wheelhouse. So when the time is right, we'll bring forward the proposed legislation and hopefully we'll consider that in the context of this conversation.

Hallelujah in the bottom two. Thank you.

Director, can you and I get together so we can talk about some of these things? So in our next meeting or in the future, we're all interested in seeing this. I mean, we're all hungry for this, so that'd be great.

Any updates on the ATP?

I know there was some progress led by South Euclid. What should we expect to see in Clinton Heights?

And then beyond that, further build out of the neighborhood greenway network, how do we

from, but

neighborhood greenway that

15, and I'm sorry about that. But thanks for filling us in. We're going to skip the deer management piece because we don't have time for it, but I do want to talk about the traffic safety in school zones. Under the prior administration, this committee had lots of conversations about traffic safety, which included conversations about automated traffic ticketing systems as a traffic calming tool. These conversations didn't lead anywhere because of the former mayor. After the mayor was recalled, the conversations were renewed, which included some additional evaluation by our police department. This included speed sampling in some of our school zones. I need to remind everybody, you know, school has started 20 miles an hour in a school zone. You all know my morning routine. I'm out early and it's just seeing everybody. It seems like they have to go faster this year than they went last year. I mean, on Lee Road alone, we've had pedestrian fatalities. Some of the police department data that I shared with all of you last week, I'm going to just cite two examples. This is one morning in front of St. Ann's School on Cedar going westbound. 53% of the vehicles were going 11 miles over the speed limit. So if you look at a violation, it's 31 miles per hour versus the 20. 53% of those cars going through that. were speeding 522 out of 976. And again, this is when the school zone was active and the flashes were on. One afternoon in front of Bumgarner, going eastbound 64 percent of the vehicles were going 11 miles over the speed limit you know that again is 31 miles an hour 988 vehicles out of you know 1500 cars during an active school zone with the flashers were going uh these cars were speeding uh there's data that indicates you know number of companies that assist cities like cleveland heights that are an automated trafficking ticketing system one of them is sensco gasso they ran a nationwide survey in 2023-24 that shows their systems were able to reduce violation rates by 81.3 percent so these are traffic ticketing systems in school zones down. I also want to remind everybody this year, we got our results for the recent resident satisfaction survey. Regarding public safety, we scored around 79% satisfaction with our police and fire work. This is really, really a great achievement for a city like Cleveland Heights. But I need to call out one of the negative pieces, the things that we learned, the things that we need to look at. 42% of our residents were We know our force numbers are down. We can't enforce as much as we used to just because of the nature of the game right now. So while all this is going out in parallel, our Citizens Transportation and Mobility Committee has been looking at the same thing. What can be done? And actually, one of the things that they were coming to us with a recommendation for was we need to be considering They wanted the money to be spent for, I mean, there's a revenue component to this. They wanted those monies to be spent on the Vision Zero initiatives. I really think... as a way of paying the bills and expanding government. I mean, I don't think that is the goal here, but I would suggest if we're looking at this, we look at any kind of potential revenue to be spent toward traffic safety, but don't budget for it. See what comes in. The mayor's office has asked us to look at this The format was very well received, I think, by the community and staff. Essentially, these would be similar hearings as the year management where the first half of the presentations are from experts. They come in, they educate us as a committee, us as a council, and then we have time where our citizens can actually speak their piece about this. And this is essentially the application this evening um is this something that we as a council uh can support uh we certainly did it um two years ago when we were looking at it as a safety committee um but is this something that we can um do more research at i mean does council feel comfortable with this school zone only school zones you really can't do it in any other putting traffic cameras in school zones.

The state of Ohio won't let us do it any other place, right?

Well, you can. It's just there's a revenue penalty for that. And I think at that point you're looking at speed traps. I mean, this is when flashes are going in school zones.

I have a big picture comment to make. One of the schools that was studied was Noble Elementary. The speeds along Noble during school hours and southbound on Noble Road, during this measurement time by Census GATSO, there were 642 vehicles that were speeding or would have gotten a ticket had we been ticketing at that point. 36% of the drivers were speeding in that school zone. If we start, we have complaints about speed. time on all the streets, it's like, is this a point? And I definitely support this, doing this and having a public hearing. But is this a point at which we can start to make drivers aware that their speed matters? And the only way that we're going to get them to slow down is to ticket. So I think big picture, it makes sense to us to start promoting safety for our kids. That's all I wanted to say.

We have to do something. And others have said this, I want this city to go back to having a reputation where you obey the traffic laws in Cleveland Heights.

Question and a comment. Are we confident that doing something like this is not precluded or will not be penalized? via the state law on traffic cameras. Has that been assessed by the law department?

There's not by our law department in the package, I believe.

I mean, and then the other comment I had is around, you know, the accuracy of when school is in session and when school is not. And, you know, one of, obviously I have kids that walk to school. I care about traffic in school zones. But I know from being a parent of kids at Hebrew Academy how often the Taylor Road school zone is blinking when school is actually not in session. Or on the other hand, when school is in session on Warrensville Center Road on Sunday mornings and people think school is not in session and then we'll drive on Sunday mornings as if there's no school in session. So One of the things that I would just be interested in understanding better is how we maintain the accuracy of that, because I could see a logistical nightmare of having folks being automatically ticketed when it's flashing, but it's actually a holiday or school is not in session. And then what does that mean for the city in terms of reimbursing, like with the vendor? You know, that's just something on top of my mind, knowing how inaccurate the signaling is, frankly. And then, I'm sorry, one more question. The other thing I'd like to hear is, you know, traffic cameras versus police cameras. perspective, like, is there a way to ramp up enforcement as a pilot to see if that, like, is there something we could be doing in between this and cameras that might make a difference or might change the tone around school zones?

Like Councilman Posh said, everyone knows, you know, resources have been a challenge, and I just checked, we have approximately 19 schools in the city that and private schools along with our regular tour of duty. I think some of you experienced and we get, we get more pretty busy police department and obviously safety traffic enforcement's important, you know, with the kids. And obviously, you know, we can't be everywhere at once. cameras are there. There is some component to it where there's a validation officer. That's a whole other thing behind it. So you obviously would have to verify times and so forth. But those citations are verified by an officer. Like Councilman Posh said, I gathered some... zones, not only on Noble, but all over the city, you know, which raises concerns to me. And, you know, there has been some accidents and fatalities. You know, so I think this would be an extra tool for us to help, you know, drastically improve traffic safety and flow.

I appreciate that. Can I ask you, I have seen, there's a lot of misconceptions around the, just if you would indulge me for a minute, a lot of misconceptions around the uniformed cleveland heights cars outside the hebrew academy but can you just clarify for the record that those are off duty and that is a private like that is not city funded traffic enforcement that is a private security arrangement but if you could yeah for the record that those are off-duty police officers that are hired by uh the various schools that i'm And I ask because I don't want the impression to be that somehow we have traffic enforcement, you know, in front of some of the private schools all the time. It's actually not there for traffic enforcement.

I know that we can't be everywhere all the time. This is, you know, seems like a way to just reestablish the baseline that when a school is in session in those zones, you're driving the speed limit or else you're going to get penalized. And then that allows our law enforcement to be elsewhere, you know, safe. So I'm certainly in favor of exploring it more. Yeah.

And I would just echo that. I mean, you look at Gail's 642 and you just extrapolate that out to the other. I mean, there's no way to do this effectively. I mean, with offices.

treat it like a speed trap i mean you have lots of notices lots of you know lots of messaging on your signs and the hammer and that's what and that working together will oh i think it'll achieve results so we're just like That is questions that we need to work through with the various vendors that provide these services, and in time for a public hearing, we'll make sure we have those answers for everybody.

When are you thinking of having a public hearing?

Well, I think we need to talk to the administration about that, and my goal would hopefully try to do it for the budget process, although these are generally non-budget items because the So you don't necessarily, I mean, I think there's a lots of different options, but I mean, I think you generally, they don't cost, I mean, they don't cost anything.

So to the city. Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming in.

All right. Next on the agenda is administrative services. Okay. Councilor Cobb, you want to come to an executive session?

I understand what I would propose to do. And I was going to switch anyway, but in the meantime, I need two minutes.

Yeah, sure. Okay.

I would love to be able to, we have time to talk about the deer management. I'd like to reclaim that if we can. Oh, I was going to skip it. But if we do have like 10 minutes at the end of this meeting.

I didn't hear anybody yield their time.

Craig did. Craig yielded it to someone now.

There you go.

You don't have to.

You know, I think I have deer every day in my backyard. Okay, so I wanted, Director Zamp, if it's okay, I want to do the park piece first because I think that can be, it's going to be much, much shorter and we'll spend the bulk of the time on accessory dwelling units. So I sent this out, I sent this out via email, but I just want to use my memo as kind of my, Crib notes for an introduction. This is a new piece of legislation that I am proposing in draft form tonight. And this goes back, I had, this goes back actually to over a year ago when as chair of the planning commission, I sent this to the previous council and previous mayor. Um, as something that I wanted to see done to fill what I believe was a hole in the code and the hole in the code is that currently right now the planning commission has the authority to review changes to public parks. But that's it. And so in my 10 years of experience on the Planning Commission, we would get plans for public parks, including the Coventry Bird Park, as we call it in my house, or the Stramp, the Horseshoe Park back in 2021. We were part of that proposed, you know, seeing the plan. But when it came to Planning Commission, that was all it was, was here's the plan. If the person was kind, like the library system, they said, do you have any thoughts? And we would give our extemporaneous thoughts, but it was not a codified review. There was no votes, no recommendations, no nothing. It was just here is the plan. And similarly, what really motivated me back last July on this issue was that The stramp for Kane Park, which was an ARPA-funded project, came to us as the planning commission as only being in the plan that we saw The planning commission at the time, which was earlier that year, was only in the northwest corner, right, that there was a stramp. The switchback ramp was not included in that plan. And then, as I said in the memo, you know, one day I was just driving down Superior and I was like, wait a minute, where are all the trees? That wasn't the plan that the planning commission saw. And I went back into the code and I saw that, you know, there was no obligation to kind of bring such a substantial change back to the planning commission. So this is, you know, where this comes from is that I, and just one additional piece, is that the Planning Commission, I think, because it's historically been given this review authority, but not authority to do anything else, and it's also tasked with opining and making decisions on the physical structure of our city, whether that's development or the zoning code and zoning districts, things like that, that this is where a review makes sense because this is a group of people that we have empowered to think critically about the physical structure of our city and how things fit together. And they've already had this kind of quasi-park piece to their role But what you see here and what I'm proposing is more or less what I've talked about previously in previous Committee of the Whole and previous discussions is that the Planning Commission, this will become a stop. mandatory stop for significant changes to park districts. And I can go into a little bit more detail if you want on that. Where the Planning Commission actually, it's not a change in their authority to approve anything. It is a recommendation to council. And with that recommendation to council, when things go to planning commission, what I'm proposing here, and this is something Director Hanna and I talked about, it might need some tweaking, but the procedure of the planning commission is well suited to this because it requires a notice to neighbors within a particular radius around the project. So for all those complaints we had from residents across from the park that they had no idea anything was happening or You know, if something's happening in Denison Park and the residents say, well, we never heard that anything is happening. So when something comes to Planning Commission, what I'm proposing here is the same radius notification to neighbors. And then the Planning Commission has a public comment period on it. that come to them, and that would be also something procedurally that this gives the public an opportunity to share their input with the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission filters that, as is their role with development and zoning code changes and things like that, and includes that in their recommendations. The last thing I'll say is, you know, this is meant to be very narrow. So the change is that the Planning Commission will go from just reviewing any substantial changes to public parks to recommending approval, approval with modifications, or disapproval of any substantial changes to a park district. And I included in there a definition, and it's a closed, you know, for those of you who love legislative drafting, it's a closed definition. definition of substantial change there's only four particular instances in which a substantial change you know the law department would say to planning this needs to be brought to the planning commission that's a construction of new permanent buildings or a demolition of existing permanent buildings significant alterations to the topography or natural landscape changes to the primary use or introducing a new use to a park district, and any modification that significantly alters the established design of a park district. So I'm open to more conversation about this, but this is meant to be very narrowly tailored. It's not meant to have this be invoked when you want to replace playground equipment with playground equipment or we're renovating bathrooms to modernize bathrooms. This is meant to be when we are putting in a stramp. When we are replacing Cumberland Pool, when we are, let's say, taking out one use for another. I know we're replacing the skate park, but just as an example, if we were to take out the skate park and the administration would like to put something else in there, you know, from any sort of thing, you know, that would be something that would come back. So this is meant to be very narrow, focused on significant changes to our parks. And given the focus of our residents on and the importance of our parks, I don't know if you know this, we have 135 acres of parks in the city. And I noted in the memo, Lakewood has an even broader authority with their planning commission, a mandatory referral to planning commission for parks in general. They have about 150 acres of parks and Richfield, believe it or not, has 335 acres of parks and also has a similar mandatory thing. So this is actually a middle ground between that mandatory referral that Lakewood and Richfield and perhaps other, I didn't go across the entire state, but, and then what we have right now, which is essentially just a review. Yeah.

So let's just use as an example, because it already, suppose this year plan was in place. So we got legislation. It would be referred to the Planning Commission. It would come back with a recommendation or recommendations. Maybe we, let's just say we pass it. Who would be in charge of making sure that it was as recommended

Well, so that's the thing. I mean, council ultimately has the authority, and I'm not intending to change that at all. No, no, no.

That's not what I'm asking. I'm saying, you know, we go ahead with it, and then somehow in the actual construction or implementation, who's watching this, making sure that it happens? I mean, is it the Parks and Rec Department? I don't know. I really...

I think the administration always has the responsibility of ensuring that what they have proposed and budgeted for is executed, right? They have the responsibility for execution. What I think this does is give the public more notice about a significant change, allow them to have input on a significant change, and then in the case of an administration that doesn't deliver on it, to come back and there is a political penalty for that ultimately.

I mean, I appreciate the public input part, but I'm as concerned about an administration, not this administration. I just want to know how it works for any administration, the implementation as voted on.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair. I know Director Hanna wanted to be here. I know he texted me that he's not able to. He and I did talk. I mean, I will say that's not my objective in this.

I'm okay with that not being your objective, but there's six other people.

No, no, no, but that is the one piece, you know, that he and I spoke about that procedurally, and that's frankly the piece that I focus the least on because I feel comfortable with the planning commission procedure, but My goal was to narrowly tailor this for very specific substantial changes and then lay out the criteria by which planning commission should be evaluating that with public input and make it very clear what their role is compared to what our role is as a budgetary and contract authority.

having the contractor do what this contractor did in this case without noticing anyone. And then I guess the recourse could be that a resident or maybe city council could then rely on this legislation to go to court and try and get it blocked. But, you know, the contractor could take down a dozen trees in a day.

I understand the damage could be done. I just want to know how it would work.

That's all. Yeah. stop the administration from violating this because it didn't come in front of the Planning Commission. I don't think we'll have that problem going forward. But in this case, there was no necessity for the prior administration to come back in front of the Planning Commission. I think the city should be required to follow the same standards as any other

And just to be clear, this isn't a conditional use in a permit, but it is a requirement for a recommendation from the Planning Commission.

So I'm not sure. Thank you for putting this together and starting the conversation. I'm not sure if you were able to speak with Director Gonzalez or

you know, we change things all the time in Parks and Rec. So one example would be restriping the tennis courts for both the tennis court and pickleball.

So ensuring that something like that, like I don't think that's something that should need this, but clarifying that and then also having a conversation with them around when we are making changes,

to allocate the funds.

feedback on that so one is you know i it's not meant that well the intention is that the the The decision around what is significant will ultimately always, like, the interpretation of this, and we can talk about how we might want to improve the wording if we want to improve the wording, but ultimately the interpretation will sit with the law department of that, and there's only so much certainty you can give, and that's a conversation that Director Hanna and I had today, just a little bit about, like, is there something we could do, and that's something we want to talk a little bit more about, like, let's say explicitly excluding things, like... parts replacement you know or striping or things so that's something we want to think a little bit more about I would say from a timing perspective and you know burden to staff and things like that I see a tremendous value in the accountability here for the administration to share the design with the public and notice the public from my perspective if that puts a 30-day you know, extra into the timeline. I personally am okay with that. I appreciate that you're raising it and we can definitely, I want to, you know, hear from that. But I would say that that's, part of the problem I'm hoping that this will ameliorate is, and not this administration, but moving too quickly, doing things without running a contract through with zero design, right? And we approve $100,000 and then you have something with zero accountability. So I don't necessarily see a longer timeline as an automatic bad, but I understand and

official i would really like to hear the administration's thoughts on this um and i think it's kind of i mean it almost i don't want to say handcuffs them but it provides some guardrails that don't exist now talk out of the other side of my mouth i mean i wish those guard rails were in place sort of lost a lot of trust in that process. And I don't think we want to go there. I don't think we want to see that. I'm a little worried also. I mean, first of all, I'm throwing a lot of cold water on this, okay? And in general, I see where you're going and I like the direction you're going. I'm a little worried about the Cumberland Park adding another element when very i mean they're they're gonna be stretched as far as time to get it done adding another 30 days in the process i'd be surprised it was if they had another 30 days in the process in order to get everything done in time it's also a landmark right so that i mean that's gonna happen that's what Yeah, but I don't know if this has been, if this was in play, what does that do to Cumberland Park? And probably more importantly, Shaker Lakes. I mean, I think we all want to see Lower Lake in its present form, but we also realize we're dealing with ODNR regulations and they're the people that are sort of looking deeper at this that have the expertise. I'm just wondering if you're dealing with, you know, half that's in Schafer, half that is in Cleveland Heights. I mean, really, how much authority does one city have over the other? I just think it's just, I think it can complicate things, and that's why I really am hopeful that, I'd like to hear the administration's perspective on this. Again, we don't have time for it tonight, and

for a while.

Councilman that I think there's some understanding of how this You don't have to answer the question. It's a rhetorical question. I actually kind of want to. My point is that when we have projects come before the Planning Commission, there's an application which leads to a permit. And in this case, it's maybe a square peg in a round hole. I'm not saying it's not something to explore, but I think figuring out how it's going to work, I was talking to Director Hanna about it, I'm just not sure when it would appear at the Planning Commission. Is it when it's coming back to go out to bid? So I think understanding how this might actually work out in real life is really important. And then hearing from those directors about how that might impact them directly. But in the long and the short of it is ultimately I think we'll do whatever council and the administration agrees to. It's a purely sort of administrative thing from our point of view. That was a long-winded way of saying

something and have, have the implementation be as like another, I don't want the project to end up being different than the thing that we voted on. That that's what happened. You know, it wasn't way different, but there was a difference. Okay. Well, okay.

It was very different.

Okay.

All right. I was trying to be nice about it. You know, like it was like an apple and an orange, but it certainly wasn't the orange that was in front of us. And you know, I do see a review of that and then something coming to council if the planning commission asks all the questions. You know, here's the plan. And they want to go, well, are you, you know. They need to go, I'm not going to tell you guys how to do your job, but somebody's got to go off the page and go, does that mean you're going to leave the trees as is? You know, like in other words, ask questions that aren't actually in the plan because that's what ended up happening. I don't know how to stop this from happening again, but I know I don't want it to happen again. And I see why this might help. I also am worried, like I think a few people said about, you know, handcuffing the administration in some way. I am worried about that. So I want to hear more. Maybe we can do that in another meeting because I know you've got to eat new stuff and all that. But that's I don't think we can get, you know, 100 percent insurance. But I want more than we had before because we voted on something and something else happened.

Well, let's do this. We'll have Director Hanna review the tape because he's not here and I know he wanted to hear what the feedback was from council. Let me explore with him if he has any more creative ideas on either the procedural part to Director Zamp's question or to your point about actual assurances that the plans will be executed and in the context of the draft legislation. And let me bring a report back to a future committee of the whole. Does that sound? Vice President Larson, I appreciate that. I've had a number of conversations with Mayor Petras. I think at some level we have a policy disagreement here on the value of public input versus time and execution. And, you know, I am willing to continue to have this conversation because I think that that's so valuable to me, the notice piece and the public input and the planning commission review. And if ultimately, you know, the six of you decide that you don't want to proceed, then I'm on an island by myself. But I do feel very strongly about the necessity to ensure that that significant park changes receive a public review, have an opportunity for public input, and that neighbors and residents in a certain my knowledge never been done when a review is just a new business on the planning commission agenda.

and pool this administration put together a plan that is very, has a lot of healthy public input and we'll have a lot more of it. And that is, I mean, that's what's telling about this administration. You know, my, my, my concern is it's another administration. We should have put the handcuffs on and the guardrails on, not this one, but what happens if, years from now where we're going to be and that's where I know your head is in the policy and I appreciate that I appreciate this work so thank you for that I think we're just going to have to try to find a way to make it work to really so we get everybody on board as as suggested by Councilman Larson so

So accessory dwelling units, still on the planning commission. No, I'm just kidding. Well, we did have, I'll just preface by saying we are at the point, and if you go to the ADU landing page on the website, which is very well organized and very detailed, the planning commission took the ADU draft ordinance and made some recommendations at their July meeting. And this is really our, do you guys want to come sit at the table?

Yeah.

This is really the opportunity for us to, as we've been kind of talking around the edges, to really opine on the guts of the ordinance, I'll say. So take it away and tell us where we need to make some decisions.

This is essentially what you just said, but it's a reminder that we're going through it. he says the goal of tonight

We did, and it was a planning and development committee meeting where we invited public comment to inform the draft legislation that we would introduce. So that informed the draft legislation that was actually introduced because planning staff did make some changes based on that public input at the planning and development committee meeting. But we do, because it is a zoning code change, the public hearing is a required stop on the train of legislation.

Okay. We did.

You were there. We had it. Yes.

And just a reminder very quickly that we had a lot of

Was that just for a period of time to see how it goes? And then... I mean, it's not written that way.

It's not written that way. Right, but it can be changed through changes to future changes to the zoning code. And I would say, can I just preface where you're going with this, is I would say that if we feel strongly that it should not be conditionally, like this is the time when we are going to come up with the final ordinance that we will present to the public and say, this is what we are planning to pass for final input at a public hearing. So that this is the moment right now, tonight. that we decide.

And these are the issues.

And these are the, this is the foundation of the legislation. These are the major parts and pieces. And I'll hold it off. Okay, sorry. I stole your thunder.

No, that's not on this slide because it's not in the zoning code, but as a reminder, as part of the short-term rental regulation, there will be a provision.

Everybody follow that?

Okay, good.

Okay, so Planning Commission had just a few revisions to this legislation. So the first two, removing the conditional use permit requirement and setback requirements for existing buildings. So this would allow accessory structure TO BE CONVERTED TO ADUS WITHOUT NEEDING A VARIANCE OR NEEDING A VARIANCE OR PLANNING COMMISSION-ISSUED PLANNING COMMISSION-ISSUED PERMIT. PERMIT. AND THEN A CLAUSE WAS ADDED JUST property owner to determine if those exist and the city isn't going to enforce those deed restrictions. And then the clarifying language was added to just make it clear that ADUs on lots that are exactly 6,000 square feet can have an ADU no large And we just made it clear that properties that are exactly 6,000 square feet can also have a 1,000 square foot ADU. And then a few commissioners also felt that not allowing internal ADUs is limiting for moderate income homeowners that are less likely to have access. to their home, given that ADUs are estimated to be about $150,000 at the low end. And Commissioner Wilbig specifically shared that allowing internal ADUs could potentially provide flexibility and financial benefits for a wider range of homeowners if we were to allow that. But it wasn't an official recommendation.

Just to clarify, that's why we put it in future, whatever we call that, is that they did not adopt as a body that recommendation. What's the internal ADU? Basement.

Basement or an attic?

Garage.

No, garage is extra. Okay, alright. Well, an attached garage would be better. Yeah, that's what I was thinking actually, but okay.

And in the current legislation, an attached ADU is allowed?

Yes. So you can add to your existing space, but have it be attached And that's allowed. But if you're carving out space from the existing building, that is not currently allowed.

Right, exactly. And part of the reasoning behind that is if you're building something new and you're pulling a building permit, it's going to be obvious to everybody what you're doing, including the planning and building departments. If you're doing something internal, you may not be licensed.

Can you guys remind me, because there's so many different kinds of legislations that have been sort of somewhat similar and overlapping to a certain extent, are we allowing businesses to open in an ADU?

forming place of worship has to

We did have a couple of concerns or really things that we think should be clarified in Planning Commission's recommendation. The way that they phrased their recommendation was that existing buildings. We just wanted to make it clear that that would exclude storage sheds. So from a zoning perspective, that is technically a building. We don't think that that was their intention.

There was no minimum size.

My mom is not getting my shed. I've sold her many times.

In one area of compromise, we thought instead of removing the conditional use permit totally for existing buildings, that could be done as an administrative approval. That's something we already do for chicken coops, home daycares. We felt that that would still get what planning commission intended as far as the more quicker timeframe for those structures, but maintain some of the controls of the conditional use permit for us on the enforcement side.

I just want to make it clear what you're saying. So everybody, so- The original, the legislation that was sent to Planning Commission had conditional use permit approval for any ADU. The Planning Commission said you shouldn't need, if a building's already there, like an external garage, right, then you shouldn't need conditional use permit because you already have a use of an external building. What Xavier is saying is that a middle ground on that existing building, that would be an administrative approval, not go through the planning commission process. But that is, if we want to accept the planning commission's recommendation on existing buildings completely, this would be a middle ground.

Was the planning commission's recommendation only for bypassing the, or not?

You know, I have a concern if that structure is a garage and someone wants to live in that garage, someone rehabs the garage. Now there's no place to park the car and the car ends up like on the street all day long. Now I'd be concerned about if I lived next door. I mean, maybe I'd be OK with it. Maybe I wouldn't be. I know it's a little bit extra layer of review, but I think it sort of helps things a little bit because at least the neighbors were able to come in and say something about it.

And I will say, watching the Planning Commission meeting, I heard what they were saying about the setbacks, but I also thought they made a very good point, and I can't remember if this was Chair Gagner or one of the other commissioners, that Even though there's some interest from residents in making this a by-right use, we have at many times, for other pieces and parts, put in a slightly stricter framework at the beginning. Chicken coops, the first example, garage changes being the second example, where for a number of years it was conditionally permitted only, so folks would have to come to planning commission, but then we changed the zoning code ultimately to make it an administrative code. And I feel like this has the same potential, right, to give, since this is a new concept and this was a point that planning commission members made, which was very, I thought a very salient one, is that to give people that comfort of this new concept. not only process, but this new idea to be able to voice their opinion come. And now, I mean, do we get any complaints about chickens anymore? I feel like we were getting complaints.

One to two a year.

Okay. So what we were getting all the time, you know, complaints about chickens, same with the garage, you know, people really concerned that taking down garages and not replacing them would be detrimental to the neighborhood. And now, you know, we do that administratively and people see it as an opportunity to kind of change their So if we were going to move in one direction, I would recommend keeping conditionally permitted approval for existing and new ADUs right now, but perhaps removing the, taking their recommendation on the setback piece. That's kind of where I came out on that.

then would the property owner also

Once you get that permission, then you can go through the APR and your design review. And then once you have all that, you go and you pull your building permits to build the structure. Once you build the structure, whether you're going to live in it or somebody else is going to live in it and rent it out, that's when you have to go through this rental registration certificate occupancy component of our code. Just like any property that you would So there's a bunch of steps there to get to the point where somebody is not moving into that space.

So then the recourse if someone is not to enforce the conditional use, if someone is not living up to the conditions set in that initial granting, what's the impact of that? We're not going to force

uh rent it is it uh outline personal use of that structure like what what happens if that conditional use is restricted well the can i okay so when a conditional one it gives recourse for the neighbors to alert the city to what they see as a violation of the conditions on the use then that goes through planning staff right in the administration that evaluates that and says do they have a they have a reason or not, are they violating the use? If they are, what happens is with the conditional use permit, you come back to planning commission and the planning commission chair sits very sternly there and says, we can revoke your conditional use permit if you don't fix the problems that we've identified that are in violation. I would say generally over the years, we have never revoked one conditional use permit in the 10 years that I sat on the planning commission. But we have had called applicants back to affirmatively show that they are meeting now the conditions of their conditional use permit. So I would say the likelihood of revoking a conditional use permit on an ADU is probably zero. It would have to be pretty bad. applicant, the owner, on notice and require them to remedy whatever violations they have to continue.

But what would the threat be? That they have to demolish the building?

Ultimately, that is the threat. That's the hammer. And I think people have to remember when we say something's conditionally permanent, we don't have on that recommendation. I'll leave it up, but I just want to, we'll come back to it in a second. But what we're hoping is that you agree to schedule a public hearing and we can, Addie's not here, but figure out when that should be and then figure out which version of it you want to sit that public hearing on. And I'll just sort of clarify what Chair, this part of the committee said, which is, as a reminder, you can, up until the time that you actually vote on,

So maybe, well, one, is everyone comfortable with having a public hearing? Like nobody's like, we're not doing ADUs and we should take this off the docket completely, right? Like we're going to, yeah, okay. So we're going to set a date. So I will work with Addie and the planning department. We'll set a date for a public hearing. Okay. Bigger question. Bigger question. Can you actually go back to the, yeah, the first slide? Okay. So. let's take out the conditionally permitted. Everybody's okay with the owner occupancy requirement, right? Everyone's okay with detached and attached ADUs only. Not heads.

I don't personally see the important distinction between an attached ADU and an internal ADU.

It's within the same like one building envelope.

that to me is a separate issue but I don't I don't see them as like drastically different things that are like somehow one is better or worse one is more impactful to the neighborhood so I personally don't see the need to make that distinction but I'll leave it up to others to see if we want to keep that in I mean you have a point there

It is either detached or attached. So for covering both, there's no exception. I guess I'm not...

So our distinction is this, is that if you are building something new, if you are doing an addition, you're designating that addition as an ADU, that would fall under this conditional use permit because you need to get a permit for that. It's something new on the property. If you're doing something internal to the property, in the basement or the attic, yeah, you probably should be getting permits. And so I think from our point of view, one was something we should absolutely conditionally permitting and monitoring, and the other one was going to be really hard to track. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try. That's the policy discussion here tonight. But that's the distinction, I think, from our point.

I like the idea of having it in here. I mean, I understand the rationale why it's needed, but I think...

or considering it and i think it feels better in there than not well i think the question is i think what councilman to what foya is raising is that do we want to add back in that basement i don't know how we want like internal i mean internal i mean i would prefer to start with this because it's easily regulatable. That's a word and see, but if others feel strongly.

I'm glad we went to that meeting.

It was helpful. I saw Gail shake her head on that on the basement. Anybody else? Anybody else affirmatively want to include it back in other than council? Okay.

Sorry.

We're going to keep it like that. Yes.

I'm going to back myself up a bit because I'm reading the language of the amendment for 146-126, 142-127. And I come out of it. I want to get an ADU. I want to put down my property. I'm not going to because I don't have enough space. But I was going to.

Where do I start?

I don't understand, we were talking about authorizing them, but where do I start the process so that I can go ahead and legitimately get this permitted so that I can legitimately build it?

I'm going to give you a very government answer, which is you're going to reach

and Brooke are going to give me a pamphlet.

I was going to say, communications will make a beautiful pamphlet.

Step by step. And I think that's one thing, should this go through, we would do a 80-101. Yeah, because the legislation suggests that. It's red lines here and there that nobody's going to actually understand.

Secondly, I'm trying to look for any requirement in the legislative amendment to notify neighbors

require that radius of adjacent yes of adjacent properties being done now a separate piece of legislation that i will get to at some point in the future we'll be expanding that radius because that's also on my agenda but that is the planning commission process for the conditional use permit last finally i sat through the planning commission meeting

going to have a car allowed to park out in the street because there's no room in the driveway well remember you're probably not going to be able to park on the street overnight because for most of the city it's so just like in any house right now you've got to figure out how you're going to i got a ticket in the morning with the number of vehicles and i've got people who are getting older and older and getting their licenses

So it's on the property. Thank you.

Is the five-foot setback kind of a standard?

That's our standard for space between.

That's what we have right now for pool houses and any detached structure. This could be a three-foot, but like a backyard office has a five-foot setback.

So the thought is on existing structures and not having that five foot step back, it's already there. And then the argument is, yeah, but nobody's living there. So now that's a different story for the neighborhood. neighbor notification, even if they're grandfathered in, for lack of a better term.

Yes, the question would be, I mean, I think where you're going with that is if they came to the planning commission with their ADU and in the code it says, well, this was a garage that you had before and you're three feet away, not five feet away. Is there any recourse if neighbors say this is too close? Now, the Planning Commission, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the Planning Commission could say, even though it's allowed, can they impose a five-foot setback?

Well, if it's code complying, they can make a recommendation. That's right. But somebody could argue, the applicant could argue, I'm complying with the code, so you can't force me to do whatever.

So I think if we feel strongly that there should be a five-foot setback no matter what, no matter if they had an existing structure there or not, then

We're trying to balance her between neighbors.

The question is, what do you do with... I think what the Planning Commission was bringing this up is, what do you do? You have a garage. It's three feet away already, so then you have to go to BZA and go to another meeting. But actually, Chair Zich from the BZA... didn't he speak in favor of coming to the BC on things like this? So he, he actually said, yeah, he said, come, you know, yes, you can bring it to us and you should bring it to us. So if we want to leave it like that, then, then you could just apply for a conditional use, right? Conditional use. And then you'll have to apply for the variance.

which is that the code says

I think the upshot should be that if there is, again, it's so different when you're putting people in there and their lives and it's right on your property line. If there's no complaint to me, then, you know, have at it, right?

so yes i think yeah i think that's that's the thing it's one more one more procedural step if you are using an existing i'm comfortable with leaving that as a conditional use approval that would be subject to whatever conditions the planning commission would place on that understanding that it's you know a three-foot setback it's closer than

and someone may- I see what you're saying. the five-foot setback for existing buildings. Who's in favor, like Councilman DeWitt-Foy, of taking the Planning Commission's recommendation to not require a five-foot setback? Everybody?

We do not require.

For existing buildings. I have a three-foot setback. So I have a three-foot setback. I'm sorry.

That's what you were. For existing buildings.

use permit process. I don't have an opinion on it.

Okay. I'm torn because if you have an opportunity to move property building back a bit from being so close to the survey line, maybe that's an opportunity to give that neighbor behind them a little bit of space. building um no you're right no their their lives no they're not gonna have to i would say they should be allowed to keep them i just i don't want people to have to go the expense of moving a building but certainly they would have to not make it any closer to the property line than the three feet it is

I have a garage with a second floor set of stairs. It could be converted. Detached. It's detached. I don't apply for that to be converted in part or in full to an accessory. It is very close to the property. So it is currently, I don't think it is three feet off my property line.

Let's just say it is. Let's just say it is. It's 3B.

It was built before we had these. Well, that's precise. Well, I'm grandfathered in, so I can continue to use it as a garage without the setback, but I could not use it as an AP. Once you are changing the use.

Unless we take the planning commissions. Well, two things. You could. You could apply for a variance. and make your case to the BZA, or we could take the planning commission's recommendation, and you would be allowed to do it without a stop at the BZA, but with whatever additional conditions the planning commission might.

I think it needs a stop at the BZA, but that's just my own personal. I don't have, I'm not converting my garage to a living space, so I'm just trying to figure it all out.

President Kuda, you've been strong. You're saying it's still conditional. Of course, I mean, no one's moving on that, so yeah. Yeah, I'm okay with that.

So I'm going to say we're going to, it sounds like, unless Councilman Todd feels very strongly about this, that we are going to go with the Planning Commission. recommendation on the setback piece.

We can always change that.

We can always change it later on, but that's what we're going to put forward. Okay, so that was one big question. Now let's go back. I think we've already come to... Oh, sorry. The lot sizes, these were actually changed midstream and improved. on a lot of study from the planning department in terms of how this might play out on an actual piece of property. So anybody had strong thoughts on this?

What is the minimum lot size you must have?

can have a very small lot, but the size of the ADU will be limited. There's also a permeability. Yeah.

So as the chair mentioned, it depends on the amount of coverage and permeable area that you have. There is no technical minimum size. 30 by 50 or smaller than that you have to get 100 50 by 100 that's a small lot it's smaller than the ones in my name mine i think are 7500 small so let's just state that specific detail and the amendment so it just talks about the lot coverage okay it's just um

I hear you say you have data that helps decide if it's too small or not. Is that something that you worked into?

I mean, how many, I guess you did the study, you guys did the study, but there's not that many lots of that size, right? I mean, in the city writ large. Right, exactly. So the combination, this is the type of thing that would have to be called the planning department. Let's walk you through if you can do it or not.

So you have to satisfy both the square footage requirement and also the 60% home lot coverage in order to be approved. Okay. But you couldn't do it. And I said anything.

You're off the hook.

And then the last thing I think is just I think we have consensus unconditionally permitted now, but we're going to stay that ADUs will be conditionally permitted no matter if it's an existing structure or a new structure.

So question. As with chicken coops, other things that have sort of moved through this process, there is a conditional use administrative approval process. So that would be my preference in that um that has have been added into this through public engagement and surveys and all of this back and forth that i would propose that if someone is meeting the technical requirements of this legislation and they can apply for an administrative approval of a conditional use permit and not have to go through the um is no notice i mean administrative approval has no notification requirements that begs the question is do we want to allow like what's it's what is the point of having the hearing other than to let neighbors uh And if not, then in my mind, an administrative approval of a conditional use permit would be sufficient.

I mean, I would just argue that notification can serve different purposes. With a short-term rental, we were just saying, hey, let these people know what's going on so they see people coming and going. They cannot shut it down. On this particular issue, I don't know if I can make an analogy to that.

Well, just to clarify, I don't have any issue with the notification, but understanding that that is not currently required in how we do administrative approvals.

Right.

If we wanted to add that.

think that the question what what you can get by having the having this be a case with a conditional use permit before the planning commission is input on what those conditions can be to your earlier point you won't if somebody has an issue with the fact that it's only three feet away The zoning administrator can just approve that, and there's no public input or no additional conditions. Maybe it's, I don't know, like hours of noise. I mean, the planning commission's authority to impose conditions on a conditional use permit is pretty broad. So I would... say that I understand what you're, where you're going with this and why, you know, but I do think that there is a legitimate lever that that public input at a planning commission hearing can play in the conditions that are ultimately put on that ADU.

And I think Junior said that, you know, there's going to be something that we have. And, you know, let's, so let's keep this for the team.

And, and I will say that initiating that change from conditional use permit at a hearing to administrative, that can either be done by the planning commission. So they could say, you know, nobody's coming and we're tired of hearing these cases and they could recommend that to council to make that change. Or we could say in a couple of years, how's it going? No complaints. Let's move that zoning, zoning change forward. from ours. So either way, you know, it's a really good feedback mechanism. Okay. So I think we have our draft.

So my, my objection stands, but I understand that.

So just a reminder, we're going to update the website to have all the information and folks should email a

in the newsletter, but get that all out, and then we'll also get the public hearing date. Yeah, that makes sense.

I have a question. Did you guys decide that you wanted to keep the three-foot setback requirement for existing buildings, or did you want to eliminate the requirement altogether like the Planning Commission recommended? No, three feet.

on top of the property. Yes, that's too bad.

We're saying three feet is worth grandfathering it.

Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you. This is many, many years of work. So did you want to do

It's like you guys, we're at time right now. Yeah. I mean, I feel a little gypped because, you know, we really spent, you know, we did 20 minutes on plans in 30 minutes and we tried to stay on time and we had a couple of people yielding. We still couldn't get the work done.

No, you're gypped. And that's the way it is. I'm not. No, no, no. I'm just saying if you could condense it into something, you know, like just a few minutes.

I'm happy to say, but what is the...

I mean, I think... I mean, just condensing as briefly as possible, I mean, I think we've got a plan as far as the city to move forward with the deer management. I just kind of want to use this as a checkpoint to make sure that we are okay and we're moving forward with that.

Can you just, since this is recorded, obviously, why don't you just say what that is? You know, where are we?

Well, I mean, there's a little bit of background, okay? So... I'm going to read this and it should take five minutes and. We've had on this subject, we've gotten a lot of clarity feedback, mostly expressing the frustration about the size of our deer herd and looking for the city to do something about it. We have a draft deer management plan provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. It confirms the number of deer that we have is beyond the carrying capacity that our city can handle. We've learned deer were once extinct, but their populations have come back. 30% a year. We don't want to lose our deer, but we've concluded we have too many. That's kind of a big statement. This is outlined in the work ODNR has done and USDA has done for the city. Anybody listening, go ODNR has the authority of whatever we plan for our next steps. I mean, everything we have to do, we'd have to get a permit. It's governed by the ODNR. Our administration is working with them and our neighbors on these next steps. The consensus thus far is to have a third-party wildlife management organization called Deer that essentially killed deer, reduced the population size on public property this winter. We discussed a sterilization program, but at this time, the thought is to hold on this until the following year. We've discussed it. We've also discussed regarding culling. We would make sure that we'd be donating any of the deer meat from the deer that are killed to the local food banks. We need budget and legislation to move forward. I believe our big end of the year. So I think we've all been, we've all sort of talked through this, but I don't think we've ever had a concise statement as this. We still get questions from people. I mean, technically no decisions are made, but with the help of the administration, they are working at filling in the blanks, getting the cost numbers, and making sure we're in compliance with ODNR. And we'll likely likely it'll come through the budget.

What's this, the contract or the budget item?

When you say vote on it. I think this will be rolled up into a budget item, and then eventually if there is a vendor that the administration is comfortable working with, there would be likely legislation, because it'll be over the $50,000 threshold.

And when's that bidding process?

There's a limited number of people that can do this work. It's not

This is not final. We're still researching whether we need to bid this or not.

I don't think we need to. That's not a final decision, but I think that's the direction that we're going.

I will just say from the public feedback and my own backyard, this is a necessary step that we need to take, and I would be very supportive. of moving forward with a culling program that meets the ODNR's recommendations, which I believe is like an overage of around 200 deer. I'd be very supportive of that.

I think that the carrying capacity is really a big issue, that we have too many deer. And when you only see a small number in your backyard on a periodic basis, you don't see the impact of the data that's been collected. I did find out from Director Klingscale that there have been in the city. Did Chief Britton provide any updated data on the deer vehicle crashes?

I believe he did. I thought I sent it to everybody. I could resend it if I didn't or send it if I had forgotten.

Okay, because those Jeff Westerfeld said it perfectly succinctly. Our deer management program right now is vehicles hitting deer or deer getting stuck on a fence because the baby couldn't jump high enough or they get tangled up in whatever we have out in our backyards I mean that's not a plan and it's cruel and the cruelty of it you never forget a deer when when a deer is crying because it hurts just never forget that and there is a lot of emotional context to this but I want their deer herd to be maintainable sustainable and we're not talking about eliminating them all it's just giving them giving us a number that we can just call it maintained. And that's why we have to do so many at the beginning, because we want to make an effect, a noticeable effect.

Well, kind of shame on us because we haven't done anything. And, you know, that's not, I suppose that's not, I mean, this whole thing is an awful thing. It's a situation we really don't want to find ourselves in, but you know, here we are. I mean, another year goes by another thing. to be said. I mean, these are not like deer haters that are making the decision on what your population needs to be at. I mean, this is a situation where these are naturalists that run park systems that want the deer. And I think we do too. We're just at a point where the carrying capacity is just, we just don't have it anymore.

I think it would be good to have kind of a map of how this is going to be sustainable and, you know, from that's not the right word like what the longer term plan is you know we do this now and then sterilization or we wait every five years we do you know i mean something some kind of general roadmap not something written in blood but just a vision of how this is going to work long so it

be able to afford it and first year you very rarely wake sterilization in um the administration pushed back on that and said they want to see this in the plan when we get good information from the you know the the research that the administration is doing right now and narrowing down vendors and options because it's just not the calling it is the process saying There's a lot of people that need to kind of work through some of this, and that is going through the process right now. And I think ultimately we will get some numbers in time for our budget. Yes. And we'll probably – thousand dollar deer cost i don't think it's going to be a multi-thousand dollar issue per deer based on some of the meetings i've sat in on um i think we have some affordable options available to us um and i think there's just there's still more work that has to get people ask questions um i want to be able to make sure that in just the fair and transparent this is where we're going so speak up if you don't like it i mean and we've asked for that we've had two public hearings they've been like sold out i mean we've had a lot of people in these meetings so and and those that have been um very very concerned about doing the calling have come back they're still not okay with it but it's like if you have to do it you have to do x y and z and we're trying to honor those x y and z's right now and i think we can the other of the long-term plan within the report from jeff westerfeld he had a table for five-year plan so did we have i heard him verbally say what that is um

Do you all have that plan in your folders or have you held on to it or would you like us to resend it?

I'll just resend it just so everybody has it. But it does lay out, for example, what do you do in the second year? What do you do in the third year? And it lays out some, I don't want to say requirements, but I mean the way that we have I mean, so you're taking an animal out of its misery. I mean, that data has to be captured, and for a long time it wasn't. So we have like a half a year's data, but now it's being managed the way it needs to be managed, now that we've got functional people that know what they need to do. So...

When we do decide to act, we will end up having to cull an even larger number.

So I take these recommendations seriously and think we should move forward.

And just, I mean, gratitude to you and Council Vice President Larson for, I mean, we would be, if you hadn't done all the work leading up to this point, we'd be even further behind.

Oh, I up in the reese report i mean it's important stuff i mean everybody's yeah everybody's taking this seriously and i will tell you yeah chief britain oh yeah and director clink sale i mean people have not taken this shifts when leadership aligns and the whole team logs in sorry that's it that's it that's right

All right, anything else? So our next Committee of the Whole slash regular meeting is September 8th on a Tuesday because Monday is, the 7th is Labor Day.

So we are having a zoning code update on the 31st. We're having a zoning code workshop and update for all of us at 530. That's next, the 5th Monday. Sorry, that's when we...

But it's September.

No, August 31st. Next Monday.

And that is really.

Craig, you've got to work here.

It's a planning and development.

It's a planning and development committee meeting. It is on the calendar, Craig. Yes, it is.

And we have a training session after that.

Go ahead. We're going to be presenting a recommendation to have a tree commission on

Very good. And for the business, I'm adjourning this meeting at 8.14.