Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good morning everyone. Welcome to today's county planning commission meeting for June 12th, 2025. At this time, roll call, please. Laura Black here. Bailey Jones here. De here. Mayor Gallo here. Fields here. Mayors here. Mayor here. Simon, here we have a Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome everyone to today's meeting. Uh, first off, do we have any comments from the public? Comments from the public. I'd like to note that Mayor Burke is in attendance also. Uh, next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the April 10, 2025 meeting. Motion by Mayor Willow, second by Mayor Jones. Uh, any comments? Motion All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. That motion carries. Thank you. All right. We'll roll right into the resolution. Thank you very much. Uh the first item meeting board uh attention is resolution number 25612- sanctuary and preserve. And I will turn it over to Mega Cheney. Good afternoon everyone. Uh yes. So I'll be uh covering the uh phase 2A final plat the sanctuary preserve. Sorry. Uh so uh this is uh applications by the Lori Builders. Um requesting approval of the final for 2A of the sanctions

reserve PRD. That's planned residential development subdivision instead Township. You can see it's just south of John Road. Um, and you can see this has been a ongoing uh development that I know many of you are familiar with. You can see the western portion of it is already well under construction. Um, this uh project began in 2020 when builders submitted a master an overall master subdivision plan for uh the sanctuary preserve. It proposed the creation of 136 uh sublotss for single family uh res detached homes um to be built in five phases and uh this particular subdivision uh included two different developers. Phases one, three and four were built by PY who finished their uh last phase, phase four last year. Um and phases two and five uh being built by Valor Builders. Um Valor Builders uh submitted a modified preliminary plan for phase two um and a a modified overall plan um the entire subdivision in 2023 which was approved by the planning commission uh via resolution 230209A. There's just a simplified map that shows uh the different phases. You see phase 2 A is there highlighted in blue. There's a detailed map just showing it's a relatively small portion of the overall subdivision. Valoria builders uh submitted the application on May 15th of this year. Um phase 2A encompasses roughly five acres of land. It includes 76 acres of open space and 67 acres of storm water management features. Um roughly, 1200 lineal feet of pavement and 2,000 millennial feet of sidewalk and just over a thousand uh feet of sanitary

storm sewers. Phase 2 A will create nine residential subw. So, uh, county planning found that all requisite information was submitted as part of the application for final PL approval and that the final flat is consistent with the approved uh, preliminary plan and overall master plan of the subdivision. The conditions have been met that were uh, involved in the uh, approval of the preliminary plan and that we and we also found that the infrastructure was built according to the improvement plans and uh that they've been built according to the specifications of both public works and the township. The recommendation from county planning is to approve the final plat with uh the following conditions that the final plat be updated uh to include some minor modifications noted by public works and I believe those have all been made. Those were submitted this morning. uh the finalized soil erosion and uh and sediment control uh guarantee needs to be submitted as well as finalized sidewalk and street tree performance guarantees. Those were submitted. We have some minor uh adjustments that the developers working with the title agency to to get those finalized forms to us. Uh those should be arriving shortly. Um and lastly, submission of favorable favorable test results from a defunction test that had to be uh retested. That was actually retested yesterday and uh that passed inspection works. So once those two remaining items have been submitted to county planning, uh director Servy will sign the final plat and that'll be forwarded to county council for the acceptance of dedication of plans. Okay. Thanks, Megan. Any comments, questions from board members? We do have some of the developers team

here. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh Tony Blurry is the developer homes is here. Do you have any questions? No, not really. It the delay might seem like it was intentional, but it wasn't. We have 80 foot lots and Pome has 60. So, we had two different planned communities. So, we're just going at our pace. We're a little bit different than the National Building. Thanks, Mr. I'll make a motion to uh conditional approval. Motion for conditional approval. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mayor Burke. Any other further comments or questions? See none. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. The next uh item that needs board action is resolution number 25612-B. This is regarding Belmont Place. And I will turn it over to Eagleers. Thank you everyone. Okay. Yeah. So this is a request uh the applicant is requesting approval of the overall plan. This is preliminary plan for what they're calling Belmont Place is a planned residential subdivision um of single family detached homes. The location of this property uh is located on the southwest corner of Sharp Road uh which is Township Road and Shady Road County around just under 30 acres 295 acres and as I mentioned the zoning there is PRD so residential orient just just orient everyone it is a

parcelum used as farmland use surrounding the site. So it's just to the north you have multif family apartments. So the other green farms uh apartment complex there and then right adjacent to that is the the newly constructed dog park um right underneath some of the utility lines. To the south is single family residential homes. Um to the east is more farmland as well as single family residential and then to the west single family residential. So just some history here. Uh as I mentioned it was previously farmland. Um you notice that on the site as well it does feature an irrigation ditch to the south of the parcel otherwise known as Busby ditch. Uh the initial application for this was submitted on September 12th 2024. the withdraw due to concerns and questions from all the departments um specifically about the usable space and the overall design post regional what we're calling regional detention pond in the proposal. Um so since then Palm Mary has worked with us um to modify some of the lots uh as well as incorporate some native plantings um and really kind of activate some of the the storm water space that normally wouldn't be included in open space really working with us to activate some of that with multi-use path. Um and so with that it's a little bit more aligned with our subdivision regulations as well as other applicable engineering standards. Um so ultimately they resubmitted this 14. Uh so again, just some details of that request. So we're looking at just under 30 acres of land here, 29.85 acres. Uh proposed 64 sub lots, which will be single family uh residential units, 5.98 acres of this will be dedicated to open space. Again, that is including the storm water uh detention south regional

pond and have approximately 2770 million ft of program. Um I will because uh the subdivision regulations technically do not allow for the regional detention pond to be included in that calculation. They have formally submitted a modification letter to you all which is included in the packet. Um and so we're looking at approximately 3.42 acres of that land of that 5.98 being dedicated to uh the regional storm water there. And so obviously with past recreation so uh just to mention also the development is be constructed in two phases um with all infrastructure and utilities being completed in phase one. All site prep work of the first 29 uh sublats for phase one will be done and then 35 of those subass will be completed phase two. So we'll go through some uh some of the proposed drawings here. So this is uh as existing here um it's not oriented oddly. So looking to the north, um it's really kind of looking west, I should say. Um so this indicating two kind of wetland areas there in the hatched. Um one of those will be mitigated um and filled um through a central pond and that's kind of the more centrally located one. The one on the right is it will remain. Then you notice that the line there's an easement on the south end there to the right uh that indicates the the Busby dish. So then with the overall uh site plan layout here again the dash showcasing uh the two phases. So really kind of the part on the upper end there um in this image will be included in that first phase as well as any of the open space to the south to the right here um will

be included in that first phase. Can I ask a question? Yes. So mitigation of the wetland, are they going to buy land someplace else? What's the mitigation just basically or what? Bas basically, yeah, it's kind of more or less the centralized pond here um as well as um they've included uh open space on the outer part as well. So the perimeter kind of features all that which is included in those calculations. Enable wetland protected. It it is they did um I believe they had see variances from the township. Yes. So which ultimately were approved. Um so and I don't think and that was regarding the storm water feature in the south and the township actually and there's a discrepancy with our regulations as well as the township there. Um they do allow for wetlands I believe to count as open space also. Um but again that's kind of correct. Yeah. So um yeah so when it comes to mitigating that yeah ultimately there is a a riparian buffer that would be needed but they had they did receive a variance for that. Um the developer is here you can speak more to that process. Um so yeah so this is ultimately uh the grading and storm water plan featured uh the green kind of perimeter there featured um showcase there uh is is just to delineate more or less the native plantings basically manufactured wetlands uh to the south there again to help mate um all right and then yeah so the overall landscaping plan um does meet all the requirements in the regulations. Um, so we staff did not have any issue with that. Um, and I will note that the conservation district was pleased that they are moving forward with some sort of native planting scheme

for that um for that detention pond as as a way to educate um folks in immediate vicinities there. So with that um there's two proposals really. Um so staff's recommending approval of the modification as we feel it meets the criteria outlined in our land regulations. Uh we do not find that the proposed modification is detrimental to the public interest nor does it impair uh desirable development in neighborhood and community and the intent of the 2020 sub regulations is met in activating that open green space and providing passive recreation and connectivity around the storm water basin. Um other reasons again outlined in their letter include support from the township. So again that variance that they received uh to allow for the storm water to be included in those calculations those open space calculations um and uh them exceeding the overall minimum required open space which is 4.97. So what they have proposed here with storm basin if it's if the actual basin is included in that is 5.98. Um so with that um staff is recommending approval with uh conditions. I'm not going to list out all of them. There are quite a few. A lot will be addressed in the next phase here, the improvement of plans, the middle phase. Um, but we are recommending approval of the preliminary plan for Bmont place. With those conditions set, I'll entertain any other questions if you guys have them at this time. I'm confused by the planning commission's requirements and the town recommendation. What I'm hearing is contrary to what we would otherwise be doing with our planning. You know, what's the point of planning commission? having the jurisdiction over this township if it's not being respected or followed. Can I speak to it? I mean I I mean I can Yeah, I was going to say we I mean we're so uh a part of me coming on board is to

really kind of look into the subdivision regulations and really kind of meeting the same requirements that the township does. And so we we're really trying to work with them to to align those requirements. I'm sorry that's not answering the question because right now they're not aligned and I guess it's a legal question for me. I'm not comfortable with eradicating wetlands and you know doing something some this is place in the township that I think we've run rampid with development. I've been asking for a long time to have some kind of green space plan to overlay this protect the resources there and I don't really happening. So maybe it's more a legal question. I understand your response is you want to try to align, but it's what plan is actually going to take place. Yeah. And I know um just to speak to that too, we've had many conversations with the township um about the order of in which things are happening. Yeah. because what's happening is they're getting approval at the local level with variances that sometimes do go in direct that can contradict the subdivision regulations which were uphold we need to uphold and so I think part of this conversations is trying to have that conversation early because again if developers and I have a whole team here you're getting approval at the local level we the county planning commission always seems like the bad guy because we're saying no because they're going against these regulations so it's part of this legal issue of are we are required to uphold the subdivision regulations which are under review and are being revised to really be more specific and more clear but it's not uncommon to have these wetlands filled for some of these projects not just in the township but unless they're under a nationwide permit and they're specific type of wetland. Um the other thing that we're working with the township is we um did not award them one of the planning grants this year because they wanted to do a master plan

and we felt it was more important to help them with a land use plan to plan what gets developed going forward interested in doing that which I hope this all aligns that we need to meet the subdivision regulations not contradict they're not so sure part of the processibility. Yeah. So, it it really kind of puts us in a difficult position when the township is in charge of their own zoning. Kind of like Mary was saying, right? So, because they've received variances for this, I mean, it it is it is uh we're trying to like work with them and kind of mold this to what we want to see that is better with our regulations. Um, We do there is a modification process in there um in our current um existing regulations. It's not a formal variance process like you would think like with a BCA or anything like that. Um so and I and I do think that's part of the reason why it's not like that um in this case because we I mean as as part of as part of our role we do really try to like work with the town the township's all on board with this right. So they've gone through all of their regulatory approvals and so again we're just trying to work with folks based on that and in the process we're recognizing where certain conflicts are taking place and need to change. So that's definitely on our radar. Um we have some flexibility here that's yeah subdivision regulations are what has to hold. those don't have but what I it's not a variance with subdivision regulations but if in your packet and there's about two and a half pages of conditions so this is only preliminary and we are trying to do more of those conversations and review plans with the developers and the township in advance so that now we're at preliminary and here are these I don't know it goes up from a to

it's and so before we get to the improvement plans all of these conditions have to be met before we get to the next step so I think there's still have these conversations and we can definitely get a better answer. But I do know there's another development that's coming up that's got more filling wetlands and it's happened before. It's just they're only protected if they have a certain category to some extent and we can and I guess if I can it's like what's the point of us being here if the township is just doing what the township wants to do with granting variances conflicting with us. You know, I question our role. You know, I really and maybe the township needs to be something other than the town so they can control their destiny. But right now we are the jurisdictional entity that should be doing this. So it's a conflict with them to create some flexibility. We shouldn't be here then. If they're doing what they want, that's why we're here. I don't know why we're here. They're doing their ownific, right? I think to the point, Mayor Kurt, it's really it's like they can approve it locally with variances, but that does it cannot go forward until there is an approval by this body and all the conditions are met. We have to enterain. Yeah. I mean, that's why we place conditions on it. We have performance bonds and all those things that go into it. Yeah. Right. It's not really to provide flex flexibility, but it's to hold to uphold

the subdivision regulations and work with the developer to figure out ways that we can, you know, do what's best for the township, do what's best for the environment, do what's best for everybody involved. Um, And I know that that's why we try to have these conversations early in the process. So they're not coming with a final plan and we're like no way. So it's very step by step and there's a lot of conditions that have got to be met. Public work sides, roadway guys, sanitary department. I mean a lot of things have to be met before we can go on with the improvement plans. So it's kind of I mean it's not holding but it's a bit of a holding pattern until we get through the conditions. Okay. To meet these. So, but it's it's a great I've had many conversations with the trustees like we've got to find a better way to get these things done because it's just it's not fair to the developers because if they get approved locally they assume they keep going sailing and it's we've got this keeps happening. So, should the trustees be coming this body trustees? We had we had we're thinking we're thinking of flipping scripts. Ultimately they would have to come to us do that preliminary review first, right? And then ultimately how it's set up now is I will once I receive those applications, I will send them out to all of our agencies and partners. They'll comment on it. We're thinking if we're the first ones to see those plans, including the um the township as another department, so to speak, right? get their comment from a zoning perspective, see where it doesn't meet that, and then kind of go from there. Be more actively involved in the township zoning. So something something that I want to start doing is really attending really attending those meetings ultimately um in person just to see what's happening this first

certain parameters achieve one way or the other. Yeah. I mean, and the idea the the idea of is that I I want to make it as least subjective as possible when it comes to this. So, with regards to what is set in our current subdivision regulations, those those are the hard regulations, right? It's just that flexibility of the modification piece is where it gets kind of sticky. So, I really think we're fine-tuning that process in a way ultimately with everything else that we're updating with it, realigning, looking into conservation districts, right, from a zoning perspective for the township, all all these other things are going to kind of culminate together. So, ultimately, yeah, I I want the regulations to be hard hard and hard and fast, honestly. Um, no questions asked about it, right? That way, once it gets to the township, it's like, okay, we're all on board. We know what's happening. We understand your regulations as they relate to ours. That's that's kind of the ideal situation with it. I don't know if that answers your question, but Yes. Right. Right. Sure. And that's and I think with this one again we were we understand the the commission's stance on wetlands and and the mitigation that comes with that. And so with this I think just the fact that they've done their due diligence and working with us at least opening that conversation to create wetlands elsewhere on site and really activating that as passive recreation. I really think that they I mean, they they've been they've been good partners with us on that and I I think that should that should definitely factor even though the hard regulations have not been met. Um, that's just again

my take on it just working with these guys. So, sure. Any other further comments, questions? Okay. I'll make a motion to uh conditional approval of the overall master plan for bases one and two based on the conditions. motion made and seconded. Any other further comments, questions? Good afternoon. My name is Keith Mitchell representing Belmont Place Development. Um just regards to the wetlands, um wetland permits, there are two wetlands on the site. One's jurisdictional, one's not. Um we did pay a mitigation fee for the isolated wetland with the Ohio EPA through Ohio Wetlands Foundation. Um the other one we're not touching the other wetlands. So that's the only wetlands we have on the site. Um and as far as storm water goes, the reason for the basin on the south side of the creek that has to do exactly with the township's overall drainage plan, they came up with storm water for areas they could retain more storm water that is there um to retain storm water. It doesn't do our site, our community, my homes any good because I I can't get across the creek to put my water in it. But it will take overflow from the creek should the creek overflow. In additional we put additional storm water around shady and sharp with enhanced landscaping and did some mounting to and lower some areas to get additional storm water. All our storm water is contained in that central basin. Actually we have more than we need in the central. So everything else we're doing is above and beyond and that south basin is basically there because of the township and trying to work with them on their overall storm water plan. Thank you. cards. You're saying the surrounding properties will be better on this the region should be because

we're actually increasing the volume storage volume that helps everybody. Thank you. Um, I just want to make sure I'm I'm following difference in the wetland area for code versus what's being proposed. What's the differential or am I looking at this the wrong way as as in the what they've eliminated or what they're replacing? Is that are you asking is there a storm water require um requ in the subdivision regulations what's the difference between what we require and what they're doing proposing they do you know you put in AI and you gave both they would tell you what the difference is right that's just an example right sure I do not know that off the top of my head as far as what they require versus what we would um I can definitely do some digging on as far as usually I mean usually those are pretty standard requirements So I I would just ask next time for a trustee to come here because they're not here and this is their township and they might have been able to answer the question that would be helpful when we have something like this with all these conditions and contradictions. Mayor again. Okay. On the motion, all those in favor say I. I. I'm going to be. We have one day.

Thank you guys. Next item on the agenda proposed amendments. Thank you. We are back again. Discussion number four. Hopefully this is the last discussion. It's been great going through this and Wesley Gretch from law department has been tremendously helpful with this. Um, as we went through and really fine tooth combed it after the last meeting, we wanted to make sure we actually got everything we wanted to get done in it. Um, so that we don't have to come back and change uh things again hopefully for a long time. Um, but it has been a very good exercise I think. Um, so a couple you have like a bleeding document with all the red line comments, but this is truly a combined all edits since we started this process document and I did put together um a memo to explain that which I hope is more helpful because I think there was some confusion last time with different versions. Um, so hopefully that's more helpful. But just since you saw it the last time, um, we talked about the change in meeting location that was in the bylaws and since we changed the location at that month, then I thought it thought it was a good time to um refine that and based on feedback I think from chair de and vice chair Simon talking about like the need to it's just now it's been cleaned up to really if we do it we have to give seven days notice in advance for public to be able to attend. So that's pretty much cleaned up. Um and we looked through version controls and found that in article six uh somehow we deleted the removal of officers and vacancies of officers which was not intended to be removed. So that was that red line was rejected. Um so based on um you know the the document you have in front of you these are all the combined edits and changes since we started uh the process and so as our bylaws state we have to discuss it at a meeting and then it will be voted on at the next meeting. So that is where we

are at at this point. We're at the discussion we're at the discussion phase again. Wesley I don't know if you had any comments. I just have two additional comments and I apologize if this is repetitive as I may have said this at previous meeting, but the red line edits are meant to do two things in my opinion. One is to align them with the county code 206.12 and the Ohio code 713.22. The reason for that is because in the event there's a change to one or both pieces of legislation, then we don't have to come here and do the exercise of changing bylaws. The second uh is really um frankly changing some of the terminology being specific to county planning board uh versus the executive director Mary Serby. So outlining those distinctions between the board's powers and then director Serby's powers. Um, but other than that, I think you we've discussed that we just want to basically simplify the bylaws, reflect what the law already requires and and have these behind as you just made those points. I'm thinking too we have appendices now with all the documents and I'm do we need those if we're this is where we'll have to date probably the appendices as because all the um references to all the different codes and charter ordinances are are hot linked in the documents you can go right out to it so that would be the best way for the most um upto-date information but I do think it's important to have all those pieces attached to this document because there are a lot that are referenced throughout the bylaws Right. Any other comments, questions from the board? I appreciate all the work on this. The next time we have a discussion on this, it will be for action to pass correctly. So, it'll be cleaned up and everything

will be page numbered correctly and ready to go. Outstanding stuff. All right. We'll move on to the next item. Next item is the fiscal update. Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer Karafa. I'm County Planning's business services manager and I'm here today to give you a a brief update on county planning finances. I know the last time I was here was December. Um so I put together a short agenda and I'll start with some highlights. essentially year two of 2025 is year two of our current bienial budget that was actually built and adopted in late 2023. Now our budget is supported in full by the county general fund and that funds both our county planning agency operating budget as well as like a special program budget for different uh programs that we administer. So combined, our combined budget was appropriated at just over $3.1 million. And of that, 950,000 was authorized by county council in our budget for another round of funding in 2025 for the healthy urban tree canopy program. And really, the majority of the funding authorized our agency's operating costs. So that in total um our operating budget was closer to $2.2 million.

Um this budget is intended to fund 21 full-time positions which are all still occupied and that includes a year-round intern. I would say in general we are on track with our spending and we continue to bring in outside revenues through contract dollars and fee for services with client communities. Okay. So our 2025 operating budget was approved and adopted by county council at just over $2.21 million. It included two adjustments to county planning's overall personnel accounts. Okay. It initially included an additional appropriation for all occupied positions in 2024 when the the banana budget is revisited. And it also included a county executive appropriation to pick up some equity adjustments that were put in place for a handful of our um planners and senior planners. They received an equity adjustment. It was countywide. So when combined our personnel costs, which is both salaries and benefits, they are our largest expense. They account for roughly 98% of our total budget at one $2.18 million. Now, our original appropriation in 2025 for within our non labor accounts, however, did not receive any adjustments. This was funded identical to the 2024 budget. We have less than $1,000 in our contracts account and roughly $12,000 in both of our employee services and our operations account

for basically a total non- labor budget of just over $40,000 to pick up all of these combined operational costs. Well, when you compare our actual expenses in 2024. You can see that our non- labor costs have outpaced that $40,000 appropriation within those uh non- labor budget categories. Last year, we spent closer to $56,000 in our total non- labor accounts. Uh within those, we had significantly higher expenses within operations which totaled 22,000. And that's primarily software cost, license fee, software costs for professional planning, design software, but we also incurred um exponentially more within contracts at roughly $9,000 last year, even though again we were funded at less than $1,000. So knowing that we would exceed again our original budget in many of these non- labor categories, county planning did seek the creative solution of repurposing some of our revenue that we received earlier this year to help fund some of these projected shortfalls. So, in April, county planning requested and we were able to successfully repurpose about $37,500 that we received in outside revenue earlier this year to help fill those gaps. Um, we used 2024 as a guide and we repurposed revenues within those three main accounts that we were definitely going to have a shortfall. We added 5,000 to contracts, uh, 20,000 to our employee services, and

about 12,000 to operations. So, this increased our total non labor accounts from that original 40,000 to now $77,000 for operations with 6,800 now in contracts and then the remaining 70,500 in those operating and expenditures accounts. That brings our total aligned current operating budget closer to $2.257 million. So, we put it all together. Just wanted you to see each of these budgets side by side and against year-to- date actuals. We have the original county council budget shown in dark blue, our current aligned budget in green, and those year-to- date actuals in gold. Um, I pulled this data from last week, so it's pretty Although every day we're constantly processing payroll or uh accounts payable things. So uh snapshot in time I can tell you that salaries continue to be our largest expense and we were 50% spent through early June right $88,000 $18,000 already in professional salaries. Then we have benefits costs which are highly correlated but lower than salaries are also halfway spent but we are on a slightly higher trajectory with benefits because we've already incurred 55% of those appropriations in early June and that is at $287,000 within our operating and other expenditures accounts because we are anticipating those higher expenses here and We moved in that 37,000 in revenues. Year to date, it looks like we've not spent much. We have spent $18,600 here,

but we have yet to process a whole slew of expenses. We're covering professional membership dues, which are ever on the uptick. We had authorized certain conference attendance and expenses this year so that folks could maintain AICP professional certifications and such and there are things under Mary's direction we tried to defer or delay but um knowing we're able to repurpose some revenue we're using it to help build staff right that's primarily how we prioritize some of those funds and put them in the right accounts Um, but we also have high software expenses. So, um, last year alone it was like $15,000 and earlier this week I'm told, oh, we're going to add another 10% increase on this. So, like you can all appreciate costs are not going down, they're just going up. So, so um, within contracts, we've spent about $3,800 of that, which is, you know, halfway so far. But there are things that we are deferring. So, we anticipated perhaps upgrading our countywide website. We will defer that for another year and perhaps some other operational contracts that we're just going to have to put off because times are leaning. Um, but I will be reporting back to you later this year, so you'll get a snapshot, you know, of of where we are. But for right now, I think we're on track. So outside of our operating budget, county planning has managed this program budget for the healthy urban tree canopy program. This was a five-year commitment where we acted as the fiscal agent on behalf of the Department of Sustainability. And we have been administering nearly a million dollars in reimbursement grants annually since

2019. We had a one-year hiatus and that was because of COVID in 2020. So, as part of this two-year bienial budget, 950,000 was again appropriated in county planning's program budget for another round of tree canopy grants. However, soil and water, I think we've suggested they expressed an interest in taking over the program and kind of reinventing it. And because county planning had basically fulfilled our five-year award obligation, uh we recently us to transfer out of this rounds of funding to soil and waters budget so that they can manage both this and future rounds of the Hudsy program. So we'll still be involved but we are no longer acting on new rounds of funding as the fiscal agent. Uh and that is important because we do still have two active program rounds open. Um one of which it closes at the end of this month. So, we'll still have some work to do. We have active contracts there. And then, um, PY5 closes at the end of 2025 and there's nearly $600,000 still yet to be dispersed under that round of funding. So, we're still very active with that. I would say when I looked into this to date, we've issued over $3.7 million in total Hudsy reimbursements and we expect to issue because we have those two active years open. And knowing our track record, we've traditionally dispersed at least 90% of each year's award that I'm estimating that we'll have issued a grand total of more than $4.4 million dollar over the life of this

program, which is great. I mean, they don't typically get a million. There's been a million in cost for the agencies that administer it. Um, but that's 93% of all dollars received for the program to be dispersed. Here's a look at county planning's outside revenue collections over the last five years. So, while it does include lower collections back in 2020 again due to COVID, um I think this is a really telling chart because you it demonstrates our significant contribution back to the county general fund. So, over the last five years from the revenues we brought in, we've helped to fund at least over $1.1 million to the general fund. So by us repurposing revenues, I feel like that's fair for what for what we contribute, right? We don't do that very often. We're trying to find creative solutions. Uh year to date we have only received so far 47,580 which we did repurpose the 37,000 but I think again we're projecting to bring in closer to $200,000 this year uh from recurring contracts and new client contracts that we do have. In terms of next steps we are going to be starting the next bianual budget process earlier. We already have a meeting scheduled for July. Um we plan to work with OBM and their staff to build a fair budget, but we're aware that there's a projected deficit. Uh not just in the county general fund, but in the health and human services levy fund. But the guidance we've received from the county budget office is that both salaries and benefits are going to be based on pay payroll 13, which is the

one we're currently in. And we are fully staffed. Um salaries will be built with a 2% increase in both 26 and 207 trying to accommodate for cost of living adjustment. But they are projecting healthcare costs to be slightly higher. So each of those budget years they're looking at a a 5% increase to agency costs there. But overall we are expecting it to be another lean bannual budget. And then here's just a quick look at the timeline for what we're looking at because I can't believe it's nearly the end of June. So this is going to come up very fast. third quarter is going to mark the distribution of base budgets that were developed with some feedback from our agency, you know, but OBM builds a base budget. Um, then in early October, the county executive presents a recommended budget to council. Come this November, uh, we start budget hearings and county council entertains from each department and agency um, what that recommended budget looks like compared to reality. And then in December, we're expecting after three meetings like four, county council will pass the next bal. So, a lot going on, but otherwise in in good shape and I would entertain any questions. Thanks, Jen. Any questions from board members? Okay, next item on the agenda is uh 2025 development trends.

You see, we have Luke. is our senior intern. Uh there's another coming okay so we have uh published this document and we thought it'd be a good thing to just showcase some of the work that's been done around transor development that we've been talking about for a while and so um present with do you want to get started sure just because I know we're tight on time um so the purpose of the transit rights and development trends document um was to look at add a building value of new development throughout county between 2019 and 2024 along public transport frequent public transportation routes. Um and then just looking to see which neighborhoods and communities have seen the most. Um so as a reminder, this is the corridor map we use to transit routes. 22 total corridors um that 26 different communities. So new for the um 2D development document this year we usually reviewed every single development that came up throughout our analysis. So we use this criteria to determine if it is classified as transit oriented development or not. In the past, everything that was within the buffers that you just saw was COD, no matter what kind of development it was. So, this year, we used this uh these guidelines close to the street, multiple stories. Um, is the parking located to the side of the rear of the building? Is the building is a mixed use or is that friendly use? And is there a front facing building entrance? So, we use these criteria to see if there is if it is actually contributing to design.

Um, so for example, the building on the left here is a good example of TOD. It's multiple stories, close to the street. The parking is located in the back. In this example, um, there's retail on the bottom with office space on top. And then the building on the right has some of those features, but not all of them. So, this building has multiple stories, but it's kind of set back in the street. There's parking in the front. So, this would not qualify as Uh hi Liam Lida. Sorry came in late. Um just giving a brief overview of the data that goes behind this. So comes from a data set that is unofficially called delta track. Um this is from the fiscal office in the tracks. Um several different methods of uh construction. So for this instance we're using a reason code 30. um which is just anything that is new construction. Um once that data was pulled in, we ultimately filtered it down uh to anything that was $8 million or more in terms of uh new construction uh over that one-year period of time. In this instance, it won't necessarily include any attackers that were or abaded and overall it just uh does not factor changes to the land value. Um in terms of the mapping process, um once all those million dollar plus investments were tracked down, uh we then compared them to a half mile uh buffer for frequent rail service, which in this case be considered all uh rail stations. Next would be a quarter mile buffer for frequent bus service. Uh frequent in

this case is 30 minutes or more or less. And then we also compare it to boundaries. So we use the statistical planning areas or SPAS more commonly known as just the Cleveland neighborhoods um as well as municipal boundaries. Once all this is classified. We use GIS to spatially track each of these points on the map and classify it by its building value, which is that new construction number, the buffer, whether it's within the half mile rail buffer, quarter mile uh bus buffer, and in some cases it can be both. And then also classifying it by the neighborhood. In this case, the most important was either being in downtown Cleveland or outside downtown Cleveland. as well as the municipality. Um, and then the output of that map uh of that data looks like this. On this map, this shows kind of in a varying scale by both color and by size of dots of different $1 million plus investments between 2019 and 2024. those somewhat shaded uh buffers. Those are the corridors for both the rail and bus buffers. The green is anything located within a to buffer. And then the darker green that meets to criteria that Luke and Patrick went through in terms of classif It's over a year.

Um, so as a result of going through all this data, we found 686 total developments of at least $1 million value between 2019 and 2024. The mapping we can see that 275 of these were in the buffers. And then going through the criteria that I shared earlier, 161 of them that criteria. Um, of those that met the criteria, 161, just five of them were located outside the city of Cleveland. And then overall to investment accounted for just over onethird of all total added billing value. This map shows just um added billing value of what qualified for to in county. So as you can see during CO we had a low point and ever since then kind of going back up and then 2024 last year we saw most value at 298 million. This chart um shows kind of what we saw in the map. So we have developments that are outside the TD walkshed I think in the green are the developments that are in the washed that don't meet criteria and then the black box what does meet the criteria so as you can see development over this past years for just about oneird each year total building value also you can see there's a significant amount of development county that criteria. So um going through all these developments we can see how much added building value they've contributed over the lifespan of the project. So these numbers might expand over multiple years but these projects all had significant development in 2024. So the largest was the art university circle at 54.5 million value second was headquarters

followed by the ascent which is significant as it's the only suburban high being a suburban development market. Um so as Liam talked about we classified by community and by neighborhood. So, as I mentioned too, there was not a lot of suburban development. So, as you can see here, Cleveland is the overwhelming majority of TV development since 2019 at over1 billion dollars followed by Lakewood, Shaker Heights, and Cleveland Heights. In the chart on the bottom, we kind of group them by inner ring, uttering. So, you can tell that in the outer both east and west, there has been As for neighbor as for neighborhood um downtown had the most just over 400 million university circle has again for this one we kind of group them east west side university circle downtown so had the most west side was just behind that followed by east Um so thank you. This is one piece of all the work we have been doing. So we just held our TV summit yesterday connecting developers and so just one piece of ever going ever ongoing thing we've been doing changing zoning stuff like that. Luke's done a lot of crunching numbers and uh Luke started as our intern for a summer then became a Cleveland Foundation fellow and now he's our senior intern and recently graduated from Cleveland State. So appreciate all the thank you Liam. I know all the mapping in the world is happening the this

mindset here. So thank you both. Thank you. Do you want to give any updates on what happened yesterday? Yeah, sure. So it's a good segue. So yesterday we held a tood summit in partnership with um GCRTA. Uh we had over 120 folks attend yesterday. We tried to do it. It was invitation only because we really wanted to get a good mix of communities, funders, and developers. Um and it was really well attended. I want to you know big shout out to Patrick Huitt who's been leading this to work and the team. um really great panelists and conversations and we were able to announce um we've been working with department of development because when we did the developers trend survey developer survey looking at to this has been going on for a couple years now at least um over two years for sure we heard back that how can we help get more to heard about the county needs to help with financing and finding ways to close those gaps. Um and so we have been working very closely with sustainability um development, Debbie, am I missing? Housing, Sarah Park, Jackson, everybody to come up with a TOD loan program and we were able to announce that yesterday um which is huge. And so it's still it's still gap um gap financing. So everyone's they've got to have their capital stack already ready and this will be an additional one. Um so it's just another tool in the toolbox of the law the loan portfolios that the Department of Development offers. Um, and so it's going to get extra points if you're meeting these TOD requirements. And so a lot of their loan programs uh have the job creation requirement and so there is a job um requirement or an affordable housing component. So we're trying to make those balance each other out because we know with a lot of these on corridors, the goal is to make that dense walkable neighborhood so it has more housing. Um so what they've announc we just handed out the one pager with them yesterday um

when we're finalizing all the details of the actual program itself but they're looking to have um some pre-applications uh this summer they'll open up that portal and then do some analysis with us. We're going to be involved in that process to figure out where it meets and then if we need toify scoring criteria and other points that are given um based on what we're seeing come in. So I think it's a huge huge step forward. that's what we wanted to do to get to that point. Um because we can only do so much with the zoning and the planning and you know all of the other things that are happening. Um and so now getting to this point in development and others stepping in and really kind of helping advance this I think is going to be really really important. And Mayor Willow and South Duke, they just approved their to zoning overlay and I know we've got others uh in the mix here and other things uh moving forward. So um it's really exciting to get to this point after all this work. So, thank you, Patrick. Thank you, Luke, Laura, everybody who's been involved. And um yesterday was Alex. Everything was really great yesterday. Thanks, Mary. All right. Why don't you just roll away? Yeah, I know we're getting short on time and we've got to hold on to you for policy committee. So, um I will try and go quickly. There is one part of my report that's um important that we want I want to talk about. So, um the one piece I had here was the work plan update. If you remember back earlier this year, I did share that with everybody just to identify the work that we are planning on doing. Um and then some general updates and I'll let um Bianca leave because she's been here waiting for this. But I wanted to welcome our new summer intern uh Bianca Kamarano and she comes to us from New York. She just graduated from Cornell with her undergrad degree and so she's already jumping in with projects and getting all involved. And so, um, she moved here, has never really been here, doesn't know anybody here, and so brave, brave Bianca. And she is, uh, found a place to live and has taken the helpline every day to work. So, it's awesome. So,

welcome and so happy to have you join us. Um, okay. So, the one piece that I wanted to put on here, if you remember back in October, um the board authorized me to enter into contract with um US DOT uh for the Safe Streets and Roads for All program. Um so, we were we applied last May 2024. We were um told that we were awarded back in um I'll skip the work plan for now. Um Oopsie. Okay. Sorry. Um We were awarded announce we were told we were awarded back in September. Then we got the contract from US DOT maybe Decemberish and then I signed the contract after getting it vetted with law department in January and um after that happened we had new administration and so things got significantly delayed in getting a returned executed contract back. Um we got a contract back earlier in May that has uh very much revised terms and conditions associated with it and so I was not comfortable moving forward with the signature uh without bringing it back to you at least for discussion. U we have brought this back to the law department and just gotten some more information. Jim Deo is here and I know Wesley's been part of this as well just to try to better understand what the liability is for me as the executive director and our agency. Um some of the executive orders, you know, really talk about complying with immigration and ICE and um stopping illegal um DEI programs and efforts. And so I just personally am concerned about, you know, we've got equitable community planning in our mission statement. Um our application included equity components because the original contract included equity as performance measures. All that has been

taken out. Um, and so I just really wanted if I and please don't feel that you have to make a comment because I know this is a public meeting, but if you wanted to, um, you know, ask me any questions or make any comments on it. Um, some of the things, you know, as I mentioned, those were the real big things and they've removed all the equity pieces on it. And I think the other piece is we got, you know, the letter from the Secretary of Transportation echoing that um, executive orders in those safe streets and roads for all contracts that is now different. Um, so I just think um it was different enough that I wanted to at least bring it to you and let you know status. So we have not yet signed it. Um, and really can't tell me what to do. It's just advising me on kind of pros, cons, and u other communities are obviously in the same position that have unsigned contracts um for federal funding. And so I guess the one point I would make these um terms and conditions don't only apply to the work that we're going to do as part of streets and roads for all applies to all the work that we do as an agency. Mary, you sign and execute document. When do you expect to start program? Right. So, um, we're obviously delayed, very delayed at this point. Um, we would have to put an RFP out once we get a signed contract. We have to put an RFP out to solicit a consultant to do the work. Um, identify a consultant and then start the process. So, I would think probably third quarter probably at this point. Uh it is $600,000 and one of the feed some of the feedback I got is if someone wanted to have a civil lawsuit against me or the agency, they can have damages up to three times the amount that award put us over.

Any comments from Jim? Do you want to ask a follow? So the damages would not be exclusive to this any other um across the board. The planning commission's work could open up to liability director. Is that what I'm hear? So it's it's a little more limited than that. The conditions do state that um the main one in issue has to do with DEI programs and there's a condition that states that uh we're certifying that the planning commission does not operate a DEI program that promotes diversity that is unlawful that is uh violates any anti- discrimination statute and they state that that is a material term for the contract for purposes of the false claims act. False claims act allows travel damages if the government provides funds um under a false statement. So the damages that would be available if it was found to be liable for a claim under the false claims act would be triple the amount of the funds that were actually dispersed to the planning commission not the entire budget and I do know we've you know determined that there are injunctions filed against a lot of these you know executive orders um not part of those and the city of Columbus joined city of San Francisco and a whole host of other entities and it really looked at not just DOT but HUD

and FTA and others all kind of the same contract language now contracts anybody else have any other comments I would add one extra thing and that is it is a reimburseable grant so we wouldn't be awarded the funds up We would have to go through the effort of finding and securing a third party vendor, get them under contract for them to incur costs for us to be reimbursed by the feds. So, we are at some liability of in that interim, if we are found to be not following those federal parameters and we've already dispersed funds, we may not get those funds back. I think you know obviously this is was a you know countywide safety action plan and so all the communities in Kyog County were going to be part of this and it would be effort for us to have a plan. So then it would allow municipalities to apply for implementation dollars which I know those are coming again and people are applying because it's the old stuff is still stacked back. Um but you know if we don't if we don't accept the the funds for this and don't move forward you know the can't be done. we're gonna have to find alternative sources of funding to do that same work. So, um you know, part of me is saying, well, we are so delayed and now have four new projects coming on plus our other work. So, it's like, is it time we do this work? Obviously, we want to do the work. Um but given the delays, it's really kind of offsetting where we have capacity and not have capacity. So, there is an opportunity to say we just we can't move forward given the delays without addressing some of the issues that we're concerned about. Um, in the end, I just have to make a decision. So, we support I support you. Whatever. Thank you. I know we have one community that's waiting for us to decide because

then they're going to proceed the same way. So, um I know there's been communities and states or cities that have signed it and then also said, "I don't agree with any of these." So, that's not going to go very far probably. So, if you want to, you know, reach out to me separately, I welcome that after this meeting. Um, but I think we've gotten the information we need from law and thank you Jim and thank you Wesley for, you know, kind of combing through all this. We're not the only agency obviously in the county that's um going through this and we are separate from the county, not a department. So, we do have um just that piece of it too, but with county, that's one thing. So, fun to Thank you. question. Did I hear that for the false claims is it broad enough to pick up not only the executive director but also board members that under the false claims act there could be a inaction against the planning commission whoever is alleged to have made a false claim. board would not be somebody that's false. It would be whoever signs off agreement. Yeah. And I think just um just kind of point of clarification too since I I have been authorized to sign the agreement. If I choose not to sign the agreement, I don't think that's something that has to come back to the board. It's just it gave me the opportunity to sign it um based on information we knew. So I don't think it's an board item that needs to take place. I Correct. Okay. Yeah, please reach out if you want to follow through separately. Um, thank

you, Jim. So, we'll skip this today. Just um, we're moving right along. Everything's great. U,, we provided a draft uh, strategic imperatives and initiatives plan for the team, which is an internal document that, you know, complements this. And so we are moving forward feeling good about where we are at this point, but I will provide um update when we've got a little bit more time. And then uh we are going to likely we will I'm not going to say likely we're going to need to have a July meeting. U we've got a lot of the new projects coming forward and we've got some additional township projects that we need in front of you. Um and so um sorry about that. It's after the holiday, so hopefully everyone can enjoy the holiday week. Um, and then Jennifer already mentioned the June 10th council fiscal agenda to move those dollars from our our budget to soil and waters budget. Solid water. Correct. Um, and then we've also been talking a lot about zoning and how we can have more of a positive effect um, and rather than just going community by community by community and trying to look at opportunities for doing something more broadly. Um, so we have been talking to some of the philanthropical philanthropic entities to really figure out if there's some benefit to doing something like that that would benefit many communities at one time um versus one at a time. It's going to take us a long time, but having really good conversations. Um, data book was published also. Um, it is online. It is amazing document. Kevin, Liam, Dan, everyone else that worked on it. Um, you can have an electronic copy for free. It's on our website. You can also, if you need a copy, a hard copy, please let me know and we can get one to you. It's a lot of pages, so we didn't print a ton, but um, if you need any data on your community, please, it's a great resource. It compares you with all the other communities. Um, and really great, um, in here. So, if you haven't taken a look at it, I'll follow up with a link to it when I send out these slides after the meeting.

Okay. Do we have any old business? None. Any uh anything else for the good of the order? New business. Okay. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second by Kurts. All those in favor say I. I. That motion carries. Thank you. Don't go anywhere. Solid waste policy committee is next. I mean, you can go to the restroom.

Okay. All right. I'm going to call to order the uh solid waste meeting policy committee meeting. With that being said and that can you uh do a roll call, please here Here we Mr. Weber here. Okay. Thank you. Um, can I add a motion for the approval of the minutes of the May 10th, 2025 policy committee meeting? Motion by Mayor Burke, second by Mayor Gallow. Any questions or comments on that or any corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. That motion carries. I'll go next to the district updates. Thank you. Um I will make this quick. I wanted to just bring everybody along our journey here with our ratification activities. We are in where that yellow bar is in the middle. We are now currently in our journey in the 90-day ratification period which is from May 10th through August 10th. And as many of you have heard because we've been visiting your communities, um statutoily we have those 90 days to obtain pieces of legislation from your communities hopefully supporting the solid waste plan. And um and then at that conclusion, we tally up

those votes. Once again, the votes need to equal 60% of the population of the solid lease district, inclusive of the city of Cleveland and inclusive of county council. And um hopefully we will be back in front of you in October to show you the mathematics and to um have you then certify the ratification where we take all of those pieces of legislation along with the plan. put it in a packet, send it back to the Ohio EPA for their final review, and then hopefully in early 2026, we'll be back in front of you letting you know that we have findings and orders from the Ohio EPA, which will let us then implement what we said we were going to do in the plan. And um so this is hopefully you have all received this. Um again, this is the the ratification period. We did to um all of the mayors and service directors and clerks of council a packet. It came in a lovely envelope that looked like this and in it was our um executive summary of the plan. This is um a very boiled down version of our 329 page document which in the spirit of um not killing trees and reducing waste is available on our website. Um we do have on the inside of there uh a QR code that you can scan which will take you directly to the full 329 pages if you would like to look at it. And the way that document is set up is the chapters are um easily consumable. They're an easy read. It's the appendices in the back where we get into the heavy data. So, and this is

just kind of a summation of everything. In that same envelope, there was just a one-page refresher speaking to ratification and the process. We had also included for you a sample resolution. Um you just you can massage it for your own community's um actual format, but we did mail that out. And um I did I guess most importantly today wanted to share with you our progress in our journey. So as of this afternoon at about noon um we have received um positive support from 26 of our 59 communities and that with a population totaling of about 40% 40.8% % specifically um county council is moving their piece of legislation through their process. The city of Cleveland um had it introduced at their June meeting. They will hopefully they have told us pass it in full at the July meeting because their August meeting is after our deadline. So, um they are aware of those constraints and um we have been very busy getting out and about to your communities visiting at either public works uh committee meetings or council as a whole or sometimes council. So, um if you would like us to do that, please don't hesitate to email us. Um we're glad to report we've been double book time. So, um, we appreciate that that face-toface communication and that I know is really difficult to see, but that is um where we were as of noon today. You can see who has passed and how we have to calculate that percentage for the EPA. This actually is

table U that we have to include in our plan along with copies of all of your pieces of legislation when we put a final version of the plan together and then ship that back to the Ohio EPA for review. And just some district updates real quickly. Um, of course we are busy with ratification. June also brings a couple of other deadlines. One is a statuto deadline. Every June 1st, we have to submit to the Ohio EPA our annual district report. That is a statutory requirement for all solid waste districts. And this is the draft numbers. And the reason they are draft is the Ohio EPA actually does a mass balance um or reconciliation of all of the disposal facilities within the state. They typically don't complete that function until Septemberish. So draft meaning at least based on our records these are the percentages of reduction we have met either in the residential commercial sector at 26% industrial at 81% or the sum of all of our activities within the district is 43%. You can see below what the goals are. 25 for residential, commercial, and 66 for industrial. Um, and we're just waiting to make sure that we don't have any surprises from the state that says, "Oh, well, you have to add another 25,000 tons to your disposal column because something from a transfer station wasn't reported properly." So, um, that's a draft and we have our final numbers in the fall. I will bring that back and share that with you again, but that is deadline that we have to hit every year. And you as communities are very helpful in us gathering that data because we are expected as a solid waste district to

survey all three of those sectors and as communities you do respond to our recycling um survey every year and that's very helpful provides us a huge chunk of data. So thank you. And then the other thing that we're working on is our internal annual report and um residential recycling report. We combine those together. You can see those are examples of the last couple of years. We try to try to theme them over the years. Um starting with, you know, we had 21 with coming out of the pandemic up to now and we um this one will be moving forward in spirit of of our planning process. So that will be coming to you shortly. We're finishing to work that through with our printer and we will be mailing those out to our very long interested list and then all of the other three that you have see on this um screen here are posted on our website under publications. If you would like to look at those, you can download those as a PDF and as soon as we have the new one, we will share that with you not only in a hard copy, but we'll post that on the website. And um the last is that we are just out and about in the communities. It is um you know activity season with lots of festivities going down, lots of events and we are out there. Um I just wanted to remind folks we do have our second Saturdays. So if you do have, you know, campaign signs or things of that nature, you can bring those to us and then second Saturday our lobby is open. We staff that. And um as you can see it, we have some fix it clinics going on and then just some other um activities. Want to give a shout out for July which is plastic free July. So do mark that on your calendar and make sure to refuse anything plastic for the month of July. Maybe adopt some

habits. And with that I would be happy to answer any questions. I know we're at at the mark here. So any questions from board members? Okay. Anything else on our agenda? Is there business? See none. Does anyone have any comments? I'm not sure. Did I ask about public comments or any There is nothing. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you everyone.