City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to Green City Council. Today is Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Would you please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll of council members?

Mr. Brandenburg.

Here.

Mr. DeVitas.

Here.

Mr. Noble. Here. Mr. Spate.

Here.

Mr. Niengebauer.

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey.

Here.

And Mr. Maker.

Here. Okay, next on our agenda is council study sessions. We have TMP 5357, approval of the May 12, 2026 council meeting minutes. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Mr. Neugebauer.

Yes.

Mr. Mager.

Yes.

Mr. Brandenburg.

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas.

Yes.

Mr. Noble. Yes. Mr. Spate.

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey.

Yes.

Okay, motion carries.

Okay, next on our agenda is the public report. We did have three residents signed in to speak this evening. However, they were all signed in, I believe, to speak about the public hearing, which is coming up next. Is there anybody who would like to address counsel on a subject that does not include the proposed rezoning of the Greensburg Road and Winning Way? Okay. Well, let's move on to the public hearing, and I will turn the floor over to Mr. Noble.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to call this public hearing to order for 2026-08, an ordinance changing the zoning classification of approximately 31 acres of land located at the northeast corner of Greensburg Road in Winning Way from R1, single-family residential, to PD, planned development. accepting the amended conceptual site plan of the proposed Greensburg Meadow plan development. Okay, so little ground rules for everybody. We're going to start out with the presenter here today, the developer, to give us a presentation on on their proposed rezoning and site development plan, and then we'll give the administration opportunity to chime in as well on a variety of topics that come up. After that presentation, then we're going to open it up to the public comment. I do have a number of people signed up here, so I'll call the people that have signed up first. When it's your turn to come up, could you please come up to the microphone? You'll have to state your name and your address. And then we'll limit everybody to three minutes, three minutes for your comments. We'll have a timer go off when you hear the timer buzz. We won't cut you off immediately. We'll let you finish up, but just get everybody, just be cognizant of the time. So with that, I'll open it up.

Summers Development Group, 10585 Summerset Drive, Chardon, Ohio, 44024. Council President, Mayor Yergin, and members of council, we thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight about Greensburg Meadow. We appreciate the time that the city staff, planning and zoning and council, have invested into reviewing this project. Last year rather than push forward on a plan that saw open concerns. We made the decision to step back and withdraw the original legislation We believe that this was the responsible course It gave us the time to listen rework the plan and come back with something materially stronger Than what was originally in front of you? I also want to point out that we took the time to hold a community meeting and you know we it was a priority to listen the community and the residents about their concerns so we did hold a community meeting i believe that was my father was at that meeting i believe it was in december january january i think it was And I just wanted to reaffirm our commitment to the residents regarding the fencing, the buffering, the deed restrictions on the emergency access. You know, anything that we promised the residents, I want to say on record this evening that, you know, we want to affirm that commitment and we'll, you know, we do what we say we're going to do. So, you know, I'm putting that on record. The promises we made to the residents, we will follow through with that. So what is before you now is not the same plan. I have the updated concept plan here. The revised concept adds a true boulevard-style entrance from Greensburg Road. Can I use this as well? This is okay. It relocates the park and open space area so that there are no longer lots directly behind the Byron Drive residence. That was a major priority in one of the items that we discussed with residents. Just about the buffer and maintaining as much privacy as we could and utilizing open space as functionally as possible. So that was one of the meaningful changes that we did. We also were able to purchase a property that was for sale on Byron Drive. And I don't know if it's shown on this page.

Thank you. Yes, sorry about that.

No, no problem. It's just showing on the diagram here, but we were able to purchase a property based upon administration feedback, feedback from planning council to achieve a true emergency secondary means of ingress and egress. Again, something I want to affirm and tell the neighbors again, there was concerns about that being a through street. That'll never happen. One of our commitments when planning gave us positive recommendation was deed restricting that so there would never be through traffic. And that will be done. And we confirmed that there would be a condition if this were to be approved. So we do have an emergency access connection from Byron Drive. which improves the internal, excuse me, the changes improve the internal open space and stormwater layout. We strengthened the buffering along I-77, as you can see along here, and I'm gonna go through the presentation after I make my presentation to you. And also, it better aligns future street connectivity based upon feedback from the administration. And the city's follow-up letter after the April planning and zoning review specifically acknowledged that those amendments and recommended the concept to be positively recommended to council with the condition that, like I mentioned about the emergency access road to be deed restricted for emergency use. We believe that the plan development is the right zoning tool here. The request is not about seeking flexibility for its own sake. It's about using the PD process to secure a better designed neighborhood, better access, better buffering, better open space placement, better emergency response, and better long-term connectivity. I also just want to go into some facts that we feel are essential to the vision of the project. There's a strong housing... We know that there's strong housing demand. Green's a city with 75.1% owner-occupied housing rate, a median household income of about 95,000, more than 24% of its population age 65 or older. It tells us this is the market that values ownership and also a market and a community that needs high-quality housing options for both move-up buyers and downsizers who want to stay in green but move into newer, more manageable housing product. For sale neighborhood in the $450,000 to $600,000 range expands housing choice in the city and brings a level of taxable value well above the city's current median owner-occupied home value. The broader market conditions also support this project. Regional for sale housing inventory remains tight. The Akron Cleveland Realtors March 2026 data implied inventory below two months even after a modest increase with prices continuing to rise. In other words, this is not a project chasing oversupply. It's a project entering a market where ownership supply remains constrained. For this part of green, and we feel this is a major priority for the project too, and we've spoken about this to the planning department, planning commission, and we've discussed this with council as well. This is an opportunity to bring meaningful growth and investment to our corridor that has not realized enough of it. I know there's been other PDs in other parts of the community. But this part of town, we haven't seen a whole lot of investment in new communities. So we feel like that's important to the overall vision of the project too. New investment, new growth in that part of town. The sites remain underutilized. There's some houses there that You know, they're not the greatest aesthetically. We think that a brand new community would make a big impact there from Greensburg or even along the freeway there. I mean, you have old buildings that are not in the best condition, and we think it would be a great improvement to have new residents and a brand new housing community there, especially with everything that's going into the planning of the community, the open space, the aesthetics. So we think it would be a significant improvement from what is there. The revised plan converts it into a well-buffered, owner-occupied neighborhood with parks, trails, internal open space, improved access, and substantial new private capital investment. I know that you are all very aware of TIFs, and I know that it's a practice that's utilized in green, but just an overview from a fiscal perspective. The value is substantial at 101 homes averaging $450,000 to $600,000. The completed value of the neighborhood is roughly $45 million to $61 million. current effect of property tax rates for green and green um city school district that equates to roughly 853 to 1.14 million per year in gross property tax equivalent value at full build out with a midpoint of around a million annually if council elects to to properly uh excuse me, if council elects to properly utilize ATIF, the future increment can be redirected into public improvements that serve the development and the city. For all those reasons, we respectfully ask for your support. The revised plan reflects serious work, direct responses to the city concerns, stronger public safety design, better buffering for neighbors, and a real opportunity to bring new home ownership, new taxable value, and new investment into this corridor. And we appreciate your consideration and look forward to continuing to work with the city through the approval process. I appreciate your time and we are open to any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Summers. I don't know if anybody, does anybody from the administration want to give any more background on this? at this point?

I think Mr. Summers covered it. The history of it, the proposal, they did respond to both Planning, Planning Commission comments. We did have a neighborhood meeting, wasn't the nicest night, but there were people that did come out, appreciate that. But no, I think he covered it pretty well.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Wheathey. All right, I think before we get into questions and whatever from counsel, I'm going to go ahead and open up to the public and give the public an opportunity to chime in on this for starters. So we do have three people signed up, so we'll start with the three people we have signed up, the first of which is David Johnson.

Okay, I'm David Johnson. I live at 2855 Byron Drive. I've lived there for over 50 years. Okay, if you go back 30, 35 years ago, they proposed another housing development on Greensburg Road close to the airport there. At the time, the city council knocked it down, didn't want residential property that close to the airport. This is even closer to the airport runway than the other proposal they had 30, 35 years ago. This is also closer to the runway. I've seen two crashes at that runway since I've been here. One of them fatal. One of them was a commercial airliner that went off the runway. end of the runway. To have it this close for that many residents, I don't think it's a safe proposal for green. Now, we all know that in Akron, in the last two weeks, we've had a plane crash from Akron Fulton Airport. The plane missed that, hit a house, killed the pilot and student pilot. and destroyed the house. Fortunately, the number of people in the house managed to get out of the house, and they all survived. With this this close to the airport and that runway, I think it's a dangerous proposition for us to do for the same reason that we docked it down 30, 35 years ago. And I don't have the exact dates. But it was right on Greensburg Road there that they were going to do a housing project there. And at that time, like I say, the city council rejected it, being too close to the airport and being on the dangerous side. So my opinion is this is not the best place in green to build a housing development and put a hundred houses there so close to the airport where if there is an accident, you know it's going to be a major one. That's about all I have to say, but I really think it's not the safe place for a housing development.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Anybody have any other questions for me? Okay.

Okay, next we have. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Sam Porter.

Hi, Sam Porter, 2782 Byron Drive. I just, noise-wise, you can put any kind of barrier one along 77, but the noise is just, that's like a raceway going through there. Anybody on a Harley or motorcycles, hot rods, you hear it all. And I'd be farther away than what all these new houses are gonna be. It's just, they need to do a sound study there and see what it sounds like. That's all.

Thank you, sir. Okay, next we have Rick Summers. All right, so those were the people we have signed up. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to come forward and speak on this topic?

My name is Terry Miller, 2802 Byron Drive, and my question is concerning the emergency access road. In the last meeting we had here, there was a resolution brought up to make it permanent. And it was voted in at that point. How permanent can a future council do away with that and say, no, we're going to change it and make that an open road into Byron Drive, which is no good?

Okay. All right. So he spoke to the emergency access thing earlier that it would be in the deed restrictions to make it permanently, call it permanently temporary is not the right word, right? It's emergency access though. And we've heard that commitment. I don't believe that there's an opportunity in the future to open that up. We have other locations where we've taken the strategy and in no case have we ever. So that's I don't know the exact answer to the question as it relates to legally, but if it's in the deed restrictions, I think it's in the deed restrictions, right? So I think you're pretty protected.

Okay, thank you.

Jeff, just the way, yeah, if it's in the de-restriction, it can never be changed back.

It goes forever, runs with the land forever. My name is Rick Benningham. I live at 2865 Byron Drive. I've lived there for 21 years. The main reason that I moved to Byron Drive is because it was the dead-end street at the end of the county. Again, some of the points that the other people have made about it, the safety so close to the airport, having 100 houses right there. The other concern would be traffic. Whenever there's an accident on the interstate, traffic reroutes, and it's very heavy in that area. And at this point, there are always cars that come and turn around in our neighborhood. What is the traffic going to be like with 100 new residents there and all of that traffic, and all of the children and teenagers and everybody else that will be driving and all that kind of stuff. There's a two-lane Mayfair Road and a two-lane Greensboro Road. Where is all the traffic going to go? Those are some of the concerns that I have, other than the fact that you add 100 homes to that particular area right there, it's no longer going to be a quiet area that most of the residents that live on Byron Drive live there for. So again, those are some of my concerns. I just wanted to voice them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lynne Ann Sklak. I live at 5178 Mayfair Road. And the reason that I'm here tonight is because I don't know if any of you live close to where Mayfair's at, close to the interstate, but at 2 to 3 o'clock in the morning, constantly, we have those motorcycles where they're doing tricks and stuff up the interstate. It wakes me up at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. Now, these people that are going to be living there, it's going to be like they're in their backyard. That and the planes. I'm not quite sure what they do in the middle of the night, but sometimes they rev their engines for like a half an hour. Keeps me up. I got things to do the next day. I can't imagine what 110 families... Not only that, but the gentleman just said, traffic in our area is already bad. Are you going to then take my corner of Mayfair and Greensburg and put another roundabout? Because we don't have traffic? Because we're going to have more traffic? I mean, I just don't understand how we can keep packing more and more people into this city. It's very frustrating to see. Everywhere I go, we've got more construction, we've got more housing, Arlington and 619, and it's like... Why? Why do we have to keep adding another 110 houses to green? I've been here 31 years. I think my husband's been here 41. I lived at that exact same house on the corner of Mayfair and Greensburg, and I love my home. But I'll tell you what, between the motorcycles, I can't even open my windows anymore. It's so loud. It's just, it's not a home anymore sometimes. It doesn't feel like that. Keep everything boarded up so I don't have to hear the noise and the traffic and it's just ridiculous. And how many cars is that gonna bring to our area? You know, when it's busy at five o'clock in the afternoon, I can look out my kitchen window and the traffic is backed up coming up Greensburg towards Mayfair to the interstate. And like that gentleman said, when there's an accident, I can't get home. I have to turn around and go another direction because it's so bad. That's where they come off. They come off the green exit and they go through green to get out of whatever's in action on the interstate. So please consider the fact that we that live over here, it's already noisy enough. I just can't imagine what those people would have to live with. It's unbelievable. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Josh Petit. I live at 2832 Byron Drive. So I just have a couple questions. My first question is, is my understanding adding these amount of homes is going to increase the amount of children going to the school systems that are already taxed with attendance if Correct me if I'm wrong. So what does that do to our school systems when you add 100-some homes with the residents and children that are going to be going to our school system in green? So that's my first question. And then my second question is pending this goes through, which me and other residents on Byron Drive would prefer that this doesn't go through. But if it does happen to go through, I know there's restrictions on fences to being six foot based on Green's ordinances. I did talk with the developer and said that we would want eight foot fences for privacy reasons. Right now, I have a backyard that is very private. You put 100 homes back there, and that takes our privacy away. A six-foot fence, let's be honest, is not very high. I would push that we could get eight-foot fences. The developer already agreed to that if this goes through. Again, we would prefer that it doesn't because it is a country feel, and that is going to be gone. And that is what brought me to green 16 years ago. So... So do you guys have an answer for my first question?

I think Mr. Wheathey probably can.

Schools are pretty much trending around 4,000 total enrollment, 3,900 one year, 4,000 the next, but that's actually down. I think peak was probably about I'm gonna say maybe 15 years ago at about 4,400. They're now pushing around 3,900 to 4,000. They built two new schools, renovated another one. The state school facilities requires them to have the ability to grow, but quite honestly, they were actually more populated 15 to 20 years ago.

So, Mr. Withee, let me also just comment. So we have heard in the past, we have heard the school district numbers question. It's come up as various developments have come in front of councils previously to me being here, but over time. And so to Mr. Withee's points, when Jacobs Ridge was being developed, I went and pulled all the attendance numbers for the City of Green schools. and looked at the trends as Mr. Wheathey was doing. And people say that the attendance in green, that schools is increasing. But what Mr. Wheathe said is in fact true. So the attendance is down. And even with the new developments that have come in, the apartments that come in, our numbers in each class are still very much sort of hovering around the 300 student per class. They're not climbing like what people think they are. So what is happening is We have a housing stock, okay? And that housing stock, people move into the city, and they live here, and they live here longer than their kids are in school. So you have some kids, right? You buy a new house in Green. Your kids are in school for 12 years, but you don't move out. And so suddenly, the bustling neighborhood of Meadowood, which used to be full of... of kids is no longer full of kids anymore because those kids are all in college and those people still live there. And so then we have a whole new group of people that come in and they come into a new housing stock and that new housing stock has younger students in it or whatever before those other developments sort of overturn and those people retire and move to different homes and sort of, you know, They'll roll over eventually. So we haven't seen the growth in students, even with all the growth that has happened in this community over the last year. The trends are just not there because of the reasons I explained. So, and if anybody on council wants those numbers, by the way, I have those numbers. I did a spreadsheet of it about two years ago. You can, it's all readily available information.

I'm glad to give it to you. But like I said, it's been, I don't want to use the word flat, but it'll fluctuate every given year. 23, 24 was 39.55 total to 41, 14 the next year to 40, 49. So you could probably say they're averaging right around 4,000. But the truth, again, is that that's down from a number of years ago that we were pushing 4,400 to 4,500 kids. So, you know, I'm not, again, I'm not, I'm not, the schools were planning for growth in this new construction. And I think Ms. Noble hit it. A lot of, not empty nesters, but less household, the average household, Number is like 2.5. Okay. Actually, it's like 2.8. Okay. So how do you get that? Of course, it's just math. But the other side of that is families aren't, I'm not saying every family, but families aren't having four or five kids. They're having one or two. And that's what's going into the school systems now. Basically, for the last 10 years, they've been sitting around 39 to a little over 4,100 number.

Thank you. Mr. Noble?

Are you able to answer my second question then?

Sorry, can I circle back to the schools real quick while we're on this subject? And I'm glad you brought it up because I think to me that is an important part. So Green was very fortunate to go to the taxpayers and pass a bond issued to build two new schools, as you know. And they had the foresight to plan accordingly for growth. And based on the state of Ohio and the funding process, they are only allowed to build so big for projected growth. Their figures back when they made that agreement with the state of Ohio was back in 2022. So four years have passed since they had a census data to project growth. Since then, we've seen a number of developments come online, and a lot of those developments have yet to be built out. A lot of more homes are going to be built in the community, and if you add an additional 100 homes, it is going to have an impact. So whether or not the attendance data and everything shows what it is, you can't tell me that 100 homes coming into green is not going to have an impact, not just on our numbers in the schools, but also our busing routes. Everything is going to be impacted by it in some capacity or another. Additionally, even if we have the physical capacity in the classrooms to take additional kids, what does it do to the teaching staff? Just because 100 new kids or 200 kids comes into the school system, they're not going to go hire new teachers. Trust me, they're not going to. It just is going to impact our classroom size, which I hate to say, Green does a fantastic job, but the more kids in the classroom tends to degrade the quality of education you receive. Green does a fantastic job of running a school system, but when you introduce more students into a classroom without receiving additional funds to employ new teachers, even if they have the physical capacity, it will have an impact on our school.

There is no doubt.

Thank you, Justin.

Thank you, Mr. Spade. I don't know that we can answer the fence thing. I mean, we have a six-foot requirement with a fence. There's a variance process that anybody can go through to increase the height of a fence from six to eight feet. Okay. that could happen based on a process through the Board of Zoning Appeals that you or the developer or whatever could go through. I don't think that, I would just say that there's a process. Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I do have a question for the developer on this issue. Do you have numbers or studies, I'm sure you've done developments like this in the past and have an idea of the age demographic of the people that you'll naturally market your community to.

That was going to be one of my points is that not every home in here We'll have children. And what we're seeing is that we're going to have ranch houses in here also. And we're going to appeal to the people that have a large house in green that somebody talked about that want to stay in green and want to be near their friends and families that will buy. And we're seeing in every community more ranches, single floor living with basements, but single floor living. And that's what we'll see here. Nobody can predict what that exact percentage will be, but historically it's been running around 35%. So, again, not every home in here will have children.

Okay. Thank you.

And is the public done? I would like to address a few of these questions.

Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and let you go ahead. Does anybody else from the public? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Neutropak. Appreciate that.

right behind the guy standing in front of you.

My name's Tabitha Nestor. I live at 2852 Byron Drive. I've lived there for five years, and I just wanted to say I really appreciate you pointing out something that wasn't like what you said is the truth. It didn't feel like it was just one-sided to that the schools are going to be fine, nobody cares, whatever. I graduated in 2010 from Green. My graduating class was 490 kids. There are probably people that I still don't know that I knew then. And I know a lot of things and kids get dispersed to the career center and stuff when kids get older. But I'm living proof that the school is already I feel like pushing it when it comes to teachers and assistance with kids. My nine-year-old has ADHD, and we were this school year specifically told by the teacher and the school psychologist and the occupational therapist because I do have a good rapport with them. It's probably something they shouldn't say, but they told me that my son Colson would probably be doing a lot better if we went to a school district like Northwest or somewhere that was smaller because they could give him more attention because the classrooms just keep getting flooded. And they told me that sitting in an office to my face about why they think he's struggling. So that doesn't make me happy, especially for other kids who might have more severe ADHD or parents who don't have help to get them extra tutoring, money to pay for extra tutoring and stuff like that. When I buy stuff for a class, every box is 25. There is not a single time I've ever had to buy one box of Valentine cards. They're not in there with 25 kids. They're in there with more, and then they get moved, and then a kid's not working out in a classroom, so they bump them over to a teacher who can handle them. It's just... I know that everything seems like, okay, bigger is better, more is better. I know that we evolve and grow, and they want to make money. But when the screen came up the first time, before you guys started, it showed the little slogan, a pride heritage, a bright future. It doesn't really feel very... keeping it with our pride and proud heritage to continue to take away every little bit of greenery we have to make a tiny corner of a green space inside of an allotment. Everybody lives here. It used to be a little Hallmark movie, the IGA across the street, not... You go four feet and you can go to Seven Brew, Starbucks, Dunkin', McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, Cane's. What's going to be next? If all of us wanted to not live in a proud heritage, we would have all just moved downtown Akron or downtown Cannon. Just doesn't feel like anybody wants to keep the heritage. But if we're not keeping the heritage on a different note, if we end up doing this, I asked before if we were allowed to tap into city sewer and water, how many people on Byron Drive have to say, because I don't know who it was, it might have been you, said so many people have to agree to the city sewer and water for Byron to be tied into it. How many people... do we have to sway yes or no? Because I'm sure we're not just gonna get sewer and city water if I say, hey, I want city water. Does anybody know the answer to that?

So, depends on where you're at, but...

I'm right next to the cute, beautiful, new emergency exit.

It might be easier coming through that emergency point with water from Aqua Ohio, which is a private company that serves green, And secondly would be sanitary sewer. If there's a stub that's available, Summit County manages our sanitary sewer. Where you said you're located is probably the easiest, but it does, for them to do the whole street, they do look at how many people really want to connect to it. So probably closer to Mayfair Road, there's probably not a chance. I'm thinking Mayfair, wherever it drops to the east, right? So it's probably going to be pretty hard for that side of it to get in that sanitary sewer, but water is a lot easier. And they may actually look at running a loop or something and decide to do it if enough people say we want public water.

Okay. Last thing I wanted to touch on was, ironically, The whole airport thing I never thought was an issue. I grew up at 5212 Masson Road. I had the windows shaking the whole time. I liked watching the planes land. I thought it was cool. I still think it's kind of cool when the little tiny planes fly over our house now. All my nieces and nephews, you know, plane, plane. But I actually know the girl whose house was hit by the plane. I work... with her it's now that I'm thinking we were thinking about it I was like holy cow you know it's one of those things you're like oh that'll never happen like I'll never know anyone that that happens to but I actually do know someone and now I'm like oh gosh next time I see one of those tiny planes I might kind of go like that because now it's like man they are really low the windows do shake a ton and you know when you say I never thought it would happen to anyone I know in a million years it just happened to someone I know unfortunately so that's all

Thank you. Anybody else? If you guys want to come back up and then I do want to make some notes here before you get started. Just kind of run through some That's just big picture stuff for what is being asked of this council in front of us. So the property in question is zoned R1 already. So this property is zoned for a residential development. And somebody could come in and outside of this city council could build a housing development of single family houses without a rezoning. They could do that. The reason they're in front of us today is because they want to change it to a more dense housing solution. And so as everybody, as we sort of try to absorb what is going on here, without a rezoning, this lot, this piece of property is zoned R1, okay? And so just to give some statistics for R1 for the greater people, in R1, we have sort of three categories of how we can develop R1 properties. And in general terms, one is we create lots that are relatively like a half of an acre in size. So 21,700 square foot is like your general size lot. Frontage minimums of like 85 feet, setbacks of 40 feet with 10 yard side setbacks. So we're in this, just call it half acre lot type type development, which is what you would see in like Meadowood or things of that. So that's what the property is zoned for today. And so without a rezoning, they could do that. Now, secondarily, we have other categories of R1 zoning that we have. And so within R1, you can, there's like, I'm gonna call it trade-off zoning. So in exchange for allowing the developer to go to a smaller lot size, then they have to have more open space, right? So we create open space developments. And so there's two different things. We have a category called open space one, and then we have a category called open space conditional. And with each one of those things within R1, the lot size shrinks a little bit. So it goes from 21,780 square foot to 17,000 square foot. all the way down to 13,000 square foot. And so with each one of those, you could get to a somewhat smaller lot, 13,800, I think you think, probably like right around a quarter of an acre. And with that, you get to some smaller setbacks, smaller lot sizes, but more open space. And so in general terms, when the zoning code was written, the reason they create that flexibility is because back then, Back in the day, when we were just doing developments, there was no open space within the developments. We had ponds that we needed to manage, and you were just dealing with this. Well, they created open space to give the developer an opportunity to preserve tree areas or other things within the development, make the lot smaller, and create less infrastructure. Okay, so you build less infrastructure by putting the houses closer together and salvaging treat areas and whatnot. And so there was trade-offs that were there. So in general terms, these are just round numbers, by the way, and they're not under a normal R1 zoning in this zoning district. We could have expected basically about 40, just call it 45 lots, right? So no rezoning, the developer could come in, get planning and zoning approval, and build 45 lots. That's what the numbers will tell you once you take right away out and once you build stormwater management. If they were to go into and go into one of these other R1 development sort of conditions where we have open space and a little bit smaller lots, that number could get up to right around, I'm going to say, 55 lots. right? So we could get, you know, you would get smaller lots, more open space, you're doing some trade-offs there. They could build 55 homes here without seeking approval by this body at all, right? So those are just round terms. I want to give everybody some guidance as to what it means in green to be an R1. They have the right to develop the property in R1 in accordance with our zoning thing. So they've They're coming before us and asking to go to the next step. And I think some of the questions that we have here today are going to, at least from me and I suspect from others, are going to be why are we making the transition to even smaller lots and a denser thing? So I'm going to be curious. You didn't talk about... side yard setbacks, front yard setbacks. So I'd like you for, as you get into it, if you could talk about the setback requirements and how they differ from R1 for us so that everybody can understand what that is. And the lot sizes, just so everybody knows, that are being proposed are, we've gone down to lot sizes in the zone of sort of, I think, 6,000 to 9,000 square feet. is what is being proposed in front of us with a density of about 3.3 units per acre. So the 6,000 to the 9,000 square foot lots, so for reference for everybody, what that looks like or what that means, it's the difference between houses in Meadowood or even just, let's just say Shriver and everything on the other side over there, sort of that sort of time, that sort of sizes to, I'm gonna say New Seasons, the new development on Massillon Road here is sort of in that zone and in Arlington, where there's just a few houses built, are sort of in that same thing. Now, Jacobs Ridge is just a hair bigger than what's being proposed here. So I think if you start looking at the lot sizes in Jacobs Ridge, you'll see that those ones are more like 7,000 to 10,000 square feet, or we're talking 6,000 to 9,000 square feet here. So as just a matter of perspective for what these lot sizes mean, That's where they're falling. Okay, so I am going to stop there with my comments, and I'm going to just call it set up. And I'm going to open it back up to the development team to say some more, and then we're going to go ahead and just open it up to counsel generally to ask more questions of you. And I think you've heard some of the concerns of the... of the residents, noise is on the list, setbacks are on the list, we've heard schools, we've heard fencing, we've heard traffic, so any of these types of things that you want to address, I'm sure people on council will also be interested in hearing about a variety of these things.

Absolutely. I prepared some notes. Is this on? If you keep talking.

Just make sure it's on.

I prepared some notes regarding the conventional R1 versus PD, and I'd like to just go through a few of those. We technically could develop it under under the R1, but it often can produce a less coordinated, less open space, less control. On a site like this, for example, we're required to have 4.6 out of the 30 acres for open space. We're at over seven, 7.19. which is, I think it's very important functionally on the site, especially with buffering along the freeway, which I'll segue into the noise. We actually talked to our urban planning firm, Vocon. They develop communities all across America. And we've developed communities along highways, railroad tracks. I mean, there's a huge percentage of housing all across every major city in America that's built all along freeways. I mean, I'm sure we've all been to Chicago, even through Cleveland. I mean, people live along freeways, railroad tracks. I mean, I grew up in Mentor and Lake County right by the railroad tracks. You know, when you live there, you want to live in a community. You know, is there noise in the background? You know, is there highways? You know, you want to live close to amenities. Do some people want to live way out in the country where there's no noise? Not by the highway, not by railroad tracks. And that's why they make that decision. But some people want to live in green, close to amenities. And we do everything we can on the development end to mitigate that. And, you know, we've never had complaints, and we've developed for, you know, over 30 years and in many communities along highways and areas of noise pollution. I mean, I think people see the bigger picture and want to be in the community. They know what they're signing up for, and we do our best to mitigate that. So, you know, that's the one aspect of noise. You know, this is not an isolated situation. uh development scenario where it's along the through i mean there's there are developments even even if you drive up and down the highway you see them everywhere they are there's housing all along the freeways in every community in america so it's not an isolated incident at all but and back back on the pd and it's not just about density um I think it's fair to point out, when you have a traditionally zoned subdivision, it's a grid of all lots. There's a lot of traditional zoning districts where there's no open space whatsoever. You just have lots and that's it. People can do whatever they want. There's no restriction whatsoever. It hinders our ability to be flexible design and functional open space. I think that's probably the most important, especially for this scenario. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, Rick?

Just addressing a few of the neighbors' comments. First of all, I met one neighbor by phone, and I met the other neighbor in person next to the access ways. And this question about the fences, we've offered, even though it's going to be a 12-foot emergency access only that's gated and locked, we offered to put a fence next to each one of their houses because they are next to that lot. The neighbor to the... It would be Josh that spoke, would like an eight foot fence along his side yard. Now in checking since that conversation this afternoon, we can do an eight foot fence in the rear yard.

So the property line from here to here can have an eight foot fence.

We would need a variance to put an eight foot fence, is my understanding, next to their homes. Even though there's not gonna be traffic, both have expressed an interest in having some buffering. And we're willing to do that. We're trying to work with the neighbors. A couple other comments. The noise on 77 was mentioned. Again, Greg mentioned it, that people make their own decision. But we all are going to mound and we're going to fence and we're going to use evergreens for that noise control. And as Greg said, people will buy and the freeways don't bother them. The airport issue, this has been scrutinized before at some other meetings, maybe planning commission at the community meeting. This is not in a flight path, and it's not in any restricted area as far as height or any FAA restrictions. Unfortunately there was an accident in Akron. I guess it could happen anywhere. Traffic study. Our traffic study was completed years ago and submitted to the city engineer. It was reviewed and he concurred with the conclusions that the traffic study came up with. We feel that most of the traffic from this development will go to the west to access either the airport area or 77. Coming home at night, as soon as they clear the freeway bridge, they turn in. I don't think it'll contribute to the evening rush, which there is currently at Mayfair Road. But they'll be coming into there. Another thing that's happened is a lot of people are working at home now, and there's not... great rush to get out first thing in the morning or get in at night. People come home at different times. I do not think that that's going to greatly contribute to the traffic issues that are at Mayfair today. Those are the people going east or apparently north on Mayfair. We talked about the school district that not all the kids, not everybody will have kids here and that there will be, we think at least 30 to 40% empty nesters that will not contribute to the school population at all, but we'll be paying taxes with no load on the school district. And for my notes, that's what we have.

I have a few more comments, just, you know, back on the R1 and the PD that I'd like to just flip through. I know council has a copy of this, but I'd like to just flip through to show the residents in attendance. You know, back on the PD, you know, as I go through our development layout here, You know, I just want to point out, we put a lot of thought in working with our land planning and urban planning team to some of the examples that does translate into the flexible PD zoning. I mean, the open space areas here, it's going to be a beautiful development, even the way the street flow is, versus just a grid pattern and a traditional subdivision. And we have the curvature in the roads We have beautiful open space areas that are going to function. You have interconnected pedestrian access with a future. We hope to be able to connect to the park in the future. Again, I just want to go through this. I know you have seen this before, but there's a lot of tasteful elements that we're able to implement when we do have the flexibility to design under the PD. It's not just about density. I mean, that seven acres is not just, that's not space that's not functional. I mean, as we look through here, I mean, we're creating community spaces here, you know, functional open space, connectivity. You know, those are things that come with the PD. So it's not, again, it's not just density. There's true assets that translate into the flexibility and design on a PD versus, or an open space PD, what it's referred to in green, but... As I flip through here, you can see what that translates to. We're trying to create community amenities, more design control. There's a bigger picture to providing the flexibility when we're planning a subdivision than just the amount of lots. The community assets I think are a big part of that in the open space. Again, just flipping through so everybody can see this. We amenitize this with the open space probably more than as much as any development we've ever done in the past several decades in Northeast Ohio. Quality was a major priority here and we based this all on the feedback over the past couple years in working with the city and the administration on this. Again, just wanted to flip through this one more time so everybody could see the quality that does come out of the flexibility with being able to utilize designing in the PD versus in R1. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm just going to open it up to council. We can start with planning, zoning, and economic development first and see who has any questions or further comments.

Okay. I'm not on the committee, but I'll wait.

Well, nobody else is stepping in, so go ahead. All right. Thank you, Mr. Noble.

Thanks for coming back, and I appreciate everyone coming back. I did call for hopefully a lot of people came out and gave their opinion on this project. I'm going to go back to the traffic discussion. This is my ward. I do catch that traffic coming home, going down Mayford to the north to where I live off of Heckman. It does get busy. And I did ask the question about infrastructure improvements. I don't know, from the administration's perspective, if this were to go through, is there going to be a turn lane put on Greensburg for this developer? Because I could see that backing up past the almost lobby road if there's no dedicated turn lane left in on Greensburg Road. Is that a condition, like we did at...

It was not a condition. I think, as Mr. Summers mentioned, that traffic study indicates that majority of the traffic would be...

I'm talking about turning into that neighborhood, going eastbound on Greensburg, because if you can't turn left there, which is possible during rush hour, it does back up traffic. Not even to mention the intersection of Mayfair and Greensburg in itself.

That's... Well, I don't want to answer, but of course, that intersection has always been one of the other ones that's been earmarked for improvements, like most of our intersections. Paul, if I'm putting something in your mouth, tell me. However, again, traffic study, I think, originally was the majority of traffic coming and going from the west, if you will.

Wait, just a quick follow-up question. I mean, the reason I'm asking about the turn, I know we did for Corwood Crossings there on Madison Road, and it seems like, how many houses is in that development? Sorry to put you on the spot. But that is something we conditioned, required the developer to do, and they just finished that project this past year. I would like to see that as part of the conditional approval process here is to require the installation of a turn lane if this were to pass. Then the second question I had is regarding the possibility of using TIFs or RIDs to improve the infrastructure. I don't want all this to come back on the city, but if we could find a way to capture Our city's a big fan of TIFs and other things that come along with that. We could recapture the improvement value of the real estate, not have the money go to the county, but back to us to reimburse the developer or even the city to do the infrastructure projects. I asked that question at the last meeting, and I think, Wayne, you said that this isn't going to be part of any kind of TIF or RID.

we can look at a residential TIF. We'd have to go back to the schools. That could provide for some infrastructure improvement monies in this area. For clarity, you were talking about a left turn at Mayfair-Greensburg or into their development.

Well, just to get into development, I'm going to get to the Mayfair one, too. But just if you're heading east on Greensburg, which I think a lot of people, like they said, a lot of people are going to be leaving the neighborhood and going west.

We'd be willing to put that traffic lane wide in the road and put in a turn lane going eastbound.

Eastbound to turn into the neighborhood. Because even though a lot of people will be going westbound on Greensburg, leaving the neighborhood, they're going to come home from the highway, which means they're going to be heading eastbound, at least the neighborhood. To me, I think that necessitates a turn lane. It doesn't have to be long for stacking. probably similar to what we did on Masson Road for courtyards. I'm just saying I want that to be part of... We would be willing to do that.

And I'd like to speak, if I can, to a RID. I'm not an expert and I'm not an attorney, but the Ohio legislature has clear legislation that allows for a RID, which stands for Residential Incentive District. Okay. The city council has to pass that resolution and basically what you do is capture some of the money that would normally go to the county. It does not take a nickel from the school board.

Well, not necessarily. There's a little bit of reduction in school kids, but they get a majority of what they otherwise would have gotten otherwise. They do take a little bit of a reduction.

Let me clarify. We have an agreement with the schools, okay, in our current agreements with tax increment financing, and this would be a residential TIF. A RID and a residential TIF are the same things. I'm not sure. We can't find anything different between a RID a residential tiff okay so basically we have an agreement with the schools we go back to them because this would be a new residential tiff uh we'd have to develop that tiff the tiff documents we would have to bring it to city council to approve the residential tiff district and what that would do would provide money to do infrastructure improvement projects in and around this particular area, anywhere that's impacted. So we can do that, I mean, provided city council would be supportive of that. So, I mean, but a RID and a TIF, unless someone tells me differently, is basically the same exact thing with

A RID is a type of TIF. When you say residential TIF, there's got to be a commercial component to it. But if you say RID, it's a type of TIF you can use just for residential.

Okay, that's the difference.

We've done three RIDs. We did one in the city of Chardon, one in the city of Willoughby, and one in the city of Amherst. None of those... RIDS took a nickel from the schools. It basically redirects some money that goes to the county and if there's a library levy, I'm not totally familiar with levies that people pay in green. I wasn't prepared to talk about it tonight. And the other beauty of it is it does not have to be It wouldn't be for a reimbursement for our turn lane. You can use it anywhere in the city. So it could be used for Mayfair improvements.

We do have an agreement, and Gerard will know the answer to it. What would they otherwise get under our agreement, the school district? Every city has their own with their school district, their own agreement.

Well, ours is 85% of the TIF. that they otherwise would have received.

The question is, it's still getting 85% of improved land versus unimproved land where they don't get a cent of it. So there's an argument that says TIFs are actually beneficial because you're improving land and they're getting 85% of what they otherwise would have received. But if you don't do the project, then they're going to get zero in unimproved land anyways.

Yeah, so it comes out to about 30, they're getting about 37% of taxes collected right now. Is that roughly right, Mr. Wheathey? If I do $60 million, you ranged on your... You said between $45 and $61 million of real estate investment. If we say an average of property tax, about 1.3%, which for residential, Mr. Wheatley, do you want to go up or down a little bit? Just in broad numbers, if it's 1.3% of value, that would generate just shy of $800,000 a year. If after a school compensation of 37%, you're talking about you know, on build out, you know, three to 400,000 a year available for improvements. And so, you know, that's why I think Mr. Mager's talking about this as being able to improve other infrastructure, certainly get through the design, get these things set up for construction. Sometimes you can get grant money, but otherwise it would provide plenty of revenue streams to do the improvements that would be needed there.

I appreciate the commitment for the turn lane. That frees up the money if we were to do a RID or a TIF to do other ancillary areas improvements.

We'd do that at our expense. It'd be part of the improvement plans for the subdivision.

I think the neighborhood would appreciate it too because it would be backing up pretty seriously. I would love the administration, if we can get this part of a TIF or a RID, to look at improving the corridor of Mayfair and Greensburg. It's not too bad. Even at rush hour, it is difficult for me, personally, taking a left on Mayfair. I think a lot of people who are getting off the highway there are going north on Mayfair like I do, heading towards Raintree, stuff like that. I think if this development were to come to fruition, I could see it being a traffic nightmare in that corner. Thank you. Oh, and last question. You talked about that, the emergency exit, entry, egress, ingress. Is there still going to be a boulevard street at the entrance right now? Absolutely. Okay, so that gives two lanes.

Two in, two out. So if one lane was blocked there, there's enough room. It's a 22-foot-wide pavement, I believe, so you can get two cars past either way.

Okay. I'm glad to see that remain, because even though the emergency thing, I think it does help to have that.

We're not going backwards here. No. Thank you.

Mr. Spade. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you, gentlemen, for coming in. I can definitely see the changes you've made from the last time you presented to now. I appreciate you listening to the residents and their concerns and putting those changes on paper and trying to make it happen. And I appreciate the residents, especially in the Byron road area and everybody around coming in to speak against this or in favor of it, however you may stand. I look at this though, no offense to you guys who are here in that area, but this is a bigger picture of green. You know, yes, it has a direct impact on your area now, but it also has a direct impact on our city as a whole. We've seen a lot of this development happen recently in our community. and I feel like it is having a direct impact on our housing market here. I feel like we've already checked the box of this type of planned development housing market in our city. We have a number of homes that have yet to be developed that are still planned to be developed over the next couple of years that already fall under that planned development. In fact, there's at least 88 lots right now available for planned development building that have yet to be built out. So we add that 88, we add the 101 that you're proposing, And that is going to have a negative impact on our school. And like I said, I feel like we've already met this market demand for where we're at in our city. And R1 is a great thing. We have an awesome zoning code in the city of Green under R1. And I can respect your green space argument, but I feel like people would rather have that green space in their yards, not in a... park and or a retention pond which counts as your green space as well so I feel like you know the shifting from our one to plan development going doubling the number of houses that you would put there to add a little bit of green space is not it doesn't appeal to me and I don't think it appeals to the residents in this community I spent a lot of time looking at this and listening to people in the community and I typed up a huge page of notes on on why people are not in favor of this type of development in green anymore. And one of the things that really resonates with me is I feel like it is killing the culture of our community. This was a farming community, and we've made a lot of changes in housing and development here. And it's not that people are against development. People are opposed to overdevelopment. And when I look at 101 homes on 31 acres of land, To me, that is the definition of overdevelopment. Like I said, I can appreciate you gentlemen making the changes you have, working with the residents, trying to do this. But at this time and, you know, when our next meeting, when we make a motion on it, I'm having a real hard time looking at this as not being overdevelopment. So I appreciate it, though. I really do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Gieterbauer?

I have nothing at this time.

Mr. DeVitas?

Mr. Noble?

Mr. Humphreys?

Yeah, I guess I would just say a couple things, and I'm glad that we can't vote on this tonight. We have to wait until our next meeting, and it will give us time to consider, maybe get some more questions answered, try to understand all of the issues, and I appreciate the way everybody presented their thoughts and concerns tonight. It's our job as city council to represent the entire city And so we have to take in the pieces parts for an individual development happens in a particular place, and we have to listen to the residents who live there to see how it's going to affect them. But we also have to take into account. how it's going to affect the entire city. So I guess I'm saying the same thing as Mr. Spate, but I'm looking at it from a little bit different perspective because when I look at the job that we are tasked to do as city council, You know, we have to think about the schools, but the school has a school board that has to represent the schools, and if there's development that takes place in our city that causes capacity issues in the school, then the schools naturally are going to be responsible for coming up with solutions to that problem. But I think that we also need to take into account the fact anybody who studies demographics understands the birth rate is not going up, it's going down. It's what Mr. Wheathey said. Our schools are not going to be more populated in the future. They're going to be less populated. Go home and Google how many universities over the next 10 years in the United States are going to go belly up because there's not going to be a population there to support them. So although I think it's easy to get concerned about something that could happen, you have to look at the facts to see if it's likely that they will happen. And I don't think that we're going to overrun the schools, but I don't think also that that's really our primary responsibility. We have to look at THE WHOLE CITY OF GREEN. I THINK IT'S A MISTAKE FOR US TO SAY AS A COUNCILPERSON, I DON'T WANT TO SAY THIS, I don't think there's a market for this development. I mean, if we have somebody coming into the city and are willing to risk $40, $50 million of their own money on a development, it's because they believe that that development has an opportunity of success. That's what the free market is. That's how the free market operates. Developers who get that wrong pay the price, and developers who get it right get rewarded for that, and they have to always be accountable to the market. The market is the one that always speaks and tells the developer if you're right or wrong. You open a business and the public's gonna tell you whether you're right or wrong. They either want your product or they don't. And if you build a terrific product that people want, they're gonna buy it. And if you build a product that people don't want, they're not gonna buy it, and that's how the free market works. And I think it's a mistake for us who have no money at stake in a project like this to be able to say whether or not there's a market for it. The other thing is I think that we need a broad range of housing in this community. We do have a lot of people that, as Mr. Noble pointed out, that are living in homes that are probably way too big for them. They don't need all the space anymore. The kids have gone off to college. They've graduated. And so there's opportunities for them. They want to live in a nice place, but they don't need as much space as before. And developments like this are getting sold out, and the reason they are is because people are moving out of the single family home to a more planned community like this, and there is a market for it. My son lives in Austin, Texas, and he lives in a development that has everything from $5 million homes down to rent subsidized housing and everything in between. and it's a community that works together, and it provides for a broad range of economic activity, people who can afford little, people who can afford a lot, and everything in between, and I think we need to provide housing options for everybody in our city across the spectrum for that. So it's a tough decision when you have something like this, and I appreciate the time that we'll have to be able to consider it. Thank you, Mr. Noble.

Thank you, Mr. Humphreys. Humphrey. Okay, I'm going to say a couple more things here. I was taking some additional notes on the topic. So some bullet points of things that I wrote down here is long-range plan, right? Affordable housing. These are just things that we as a community have heard over time, right? I wrote down recent development trends. And then I also wrote down expectation of adjacency, right? So that's just a couple notes here. And so this will build on some of the things that... Mr. Spate said, some of the things that others have said as well. So, you know, we have a long-range plan that we developed that helps guide what we do here within the city, right? And so for this area, it's always been the expectation is that we would have single-family homes, right? So So what is being proposed is, in fact, single-family homes, but as a resident who lives in the area, when you have adjacent properties, you have an expectation of what can happen in that adjacency, and that expectation is a combination of things. It's not only what is built there, but the density plays into that as well. So nobody should assume because they have... nothing in their backyard today, that that is going to happen all the way into the future if something was zoned R1. But what their expectation should be is that whatever is developed there is developed within the guidelines that were set in the city zoning code when they purchased their home here. So we're sitting here. with something that meets the expectation of single family, but doesn't meet the expectation of density, okay? And so we're into, I could have expected 50 homes on half acre lots, now I'm getting, right? So is there a difference there, right? Is that an undue impact on the livelihood of those people that have lived there for 20 years. That'll be part of the thought process as we go forward with it. Now, from a housing trend standpoint, for the last, I don't know, six to 10 years or whatever it is that we, this council and previously councils have approved, it's like... there's been fewer and fewer people coming in front of us with just R1s, right? Everybody wants to go PD, right? That's what they want to do. And in some ways we've been told, well, there's no market. There's not a financial market for the developers for the R1 model as we have it set forth today. So we've been told that, but I don't believe it to be true, by the way, because Stony Creek is being developed under R1 right now. A new phase of it is being developed, and there's 25 houses that are adding on to it under a standard R1, half-acre lots. whatever, that is being developed, that is happening, and it is feasible for that developer, they're moving forward. And, you know, my brother lives adjacent in Lake Township, and Lake Township is still building over there, they're still building I'm going to call it, let's call it the green R1 homes, right? And they're flourishing. Go over to Mogador Road over there and see all the brand new housing, the hundreds and hundreds of new houses that they're building under an R1 model, which is, which again has, you know, it's a combination of things. It's not, it still has open space probably because it has ponds and things like that, but you still have half acre lots. So the model does, it is feasible, it works, right? And so the question is, as Mr. Spate said, it's like we have been trending towards the Jacobs Ridge, which was kind of like a hybrid between, right? It wasn't some of the very, very small lots that we have with new seasons or with the new de-hoffs. It's sort of in between. Now we've shrunk even farther. It's like... We keep pressing people closer and closer and closer together, right? We just keep doing that. And in this section of the city, the long-range plan, I don't think that's what the expectation is. I don't think the expectation is 100 houses on 30 acres. I think it's 50 houses. It's bigger lots. It's whatever. That's what I think the expectation is for this area. You know, we've... We're trying to serve a bunch of different needs here. The need that we actually haven't served in the last XX years is the people that want the half acre. The people that have kids and they want a little bit of property or whatever. And so as I'm looking at your development, and I think these guys all know that this is my thing. I love looking at these and critiquing what you're doing and everything. And I'm looking, I'm like... Man, along the one curve, you've got no backyards right up against the highway. You've got no backyards. There's no place for a deck. There's no place for you to walk your dog. There's whatever. Then you've got internal lots that go to a triangle with your showing fences. And they just don't provide anybody to even sit out on their deck and do anything. So there's a lot of idiosyncrasies to the density that you've created that... Cheers. It's bad design, quite frankly. It's up against the freeway and whatever. But you don't have a place for a person to sit out back. You don't have the right person. The person needs to let their dog out. There's not enough space there. It's very, very tight. Everything is very, very tight. And a lot of it could be solved if it was 65 houses or 70 houses. And you went to, instead of 7,000 square feet, You went to 12,000 square feet, right? And so I will say that our zoning code is, as much as the R1 is very good, our PD code has some flaws in it related to the comparison between R1 and PD. So for this council, When you look at open space requirements and everything else, in R1, as you get smaller, they require more and more open space, but they exclude rights of ways and other things. And when you go into the PD, you actually lose some of that. They're actually allowing less open space for higher densities, and I don't think that's what the intention was for these types of development. What we should be trying to accomplish is, is a higher percentage of open space. And you said what the numbers are, but if you were to go into the conditional use R1, you would be at well over 30%. And that 30% is 30% exclusive of rights-of-way. It's not 30% of gross. It's like you've got to throw out the right-of-way, and then you need 30%. So we've allowed a lot smaller numbers in what the PD code is showing, but that's not what we really should be doing for these types of development. I don't believe that. So anyway, I'm struggling with the density of this development. I don't think the expectation of this area should be for a density of this high. I could probably wrap my head around something that was maybe a little bit denser than what is being shown under R1, but 3.3 is not a number that I'm feeling very positive about at this point. Okay, that's what I have. Does anybody else on council have anything they want to say? Okay, so for the public and everybody else, we're still in a public hearing, and we cannot vote on this tonight by our council rules. So we... We'll take it up for a vote at our next council meeting. That's when the vote will occur on it. We can't vote on it tonight. And so there'll be an opportunity for council to have questions behind the scenes with the administration for any other concerns or anything that... that they might have questions and comments on. And then we'll also have an opportunity to talk about this just in general discussion two weeks from now. We have a council meeting in two weeks, right? We're not on, I think, two weeks from now in more detail. I do, I guess I can give you guys, if you guys want to take another three or four minutes to address anything that's been said, I'll give that to you before I close, just so you can, if you have anything else you want to say, otherwise I'm going to close.

I think we've covered a lot of ground here tonight. I'd like the opportunity to, and we appreciate all your feedback, I'd like to kind of huddle up on our side and re-engage with Wayne to pass information back to you guys to consider between now and then, if that's okay.

Okay. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay. Okay, with that, I'm going to close this public hearing. All right, thank you, Mr. Noble. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate the public, appreciate the developer.

All right, moving on with our agenda, the next item is the reading of correspondence.

Okay, we have the April 8, 2026 Civil Service Commission meeting minutes and an email from Marilia Flora regarding her opposition to the Greensburg Meadow rezoning and that is all.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. And next we have the reading of new legislation.

Okay, we have 2026-R25, a resolution approving the final plat and performance bond for Stony Creek Estates Phase 5 and declaring emergency.

That would be referred to the Planning and Economic Development Committee.

2026-R26, a resolution authorizing the City of Green to enter into a policing contract fiscal years 2026 to 2028 with the Summit County Sheriff to include flock safety cameras to enhance services within the City of Green and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the Public Safety Committee.

2026-R27, a resolution modifying appropriations within certain funds in order to provide sufficient funding and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the Finance Committee.

2026-R28, a resolution supporting Senate Bill 4505 that would assign a single unified zip code for certain communities, including the City of Green, and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the Intergovernmental and Utilities Committee.

Mr. President.

Mr. Brandenburg.

The administration has requested first reading passage on 2026-R28, so we'd like to discuss it now. So Mayor Yergin provided some details this evening on the legislation, and there's also some additional details in the body of the legislation. So the unified zip code would be a great benefit to residents in a number of ways, primarily eliminating confusion, and clearly identifying properties in the City of Green. So in terms of next steps, the House of Representatives adopted last year two bills to provide a unified zip code, and one of those was included the City of Green. So now we're in the Senate, where this vote, it's in committee in the Senate, and it would come to the floor for a vote before adoption. So following enactment, Postal Service will have a year to create a zip code for green, during which time the administration will educate residents on how the change will impact them and help residents to make that change. So committee concurred on first reading passage. So at this time, I'll make a motion to bypass additional committee deliberations on 2026-R28.

Second. We have a motion and a second to bypass committee deliberations on 2026-R28. Is there any discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr. Brandenburg.

Yes.

Mr. Noble.

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas. Yes. Mr. Spate.

Yes.

Mr. Neugebauer. Yes. Mr. Humphrey.

Yes.

Mr. Mager.

Yes.

All right, motion carries.

And I'll make a motion to bypass the three reading rule on 2026-R28.

Second. We have a motion and a second to bypass the three reading rule on 2026-R28. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Mr. Brandenburg.

Yes.

Mr. Noble.

Yes.

Mr. Advitas. Yes. Mr. Spate.

Yes.

Mr. Neugebauer. Yes. Mr. Humphrey. Yes. And Mr. Maker. Yes. All right. Motion carries.

And last, I'll make a motion to adopt 2026-R28.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adopt 2026 R28. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr. Brandenburg.

Yes.

Mr. Noble.

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas.

Yes.

Mr. Spate.

Yes.

Mr. Nijbauer. Yes. Mr. Humphrey.

Yes.

And Mr. Maker.

Yes.

Okay, 2026-R28 is adopted 7-0. Okay, we have 2026-10 adopted. An ordinance to amend Section 157.1345C, Design and Layout of Chapter 157, Planning and Development Code of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Green.

That will be referred to the Planning and Economic Development Committee.

Okay, we have 2026-11, an ordinance authorizing the issuance of bonds in a maximum aggregate principal amount of $1,500,000 for the purpose of retiring notes issued to pay the costs of Phase 1 of the Southwood Drive Extension project and declaring an emergency.

That will be referred to the Finance Committee.

2026-12, an ordinance authorizing the issuance of bonds in a maximum aggregate principal amount of $3,900,000 for the purpose of paying or reimbursing the city for costs of various street improvements and declaring emergency.

That will be referred to the Finance Committee.

2026-13, an ordinance authorizing the issuance of bonds in a maximum aggregate principal amount of $1,400,000 for the purpose of paying or reimbursing the city for costs of Phase 2 of the Southwood Drive Extension Project and declaring emergency.

That one's also going to the Finance Committee.

And 2026-14, an ordinance authorizing the issuance of bonds in a maximum aggregate principal amount of $12,865,000 for the purpose of refunding all or a portion of the outstanding maturities of the city's general obligation bonds issued in 2016 and 2020 and declaring emergency.

All right. And that's going to the Finance Committee.

And that is all.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, and now it's time for the report of council committees. First committee to report this evening is the finance chair by Mr. Humphrey.

Thank you, Mr. Spate. Finance did meet this evening and all members were present. We had one item of legislative business, a third reading of 2026 R23, a resolution authorizing the funds to enable the mayor to grant salary adjustments to the city of Green non-bargaining employees. Our collective bargaining commission agreement employees already received an increase. This would increase the compensation for non-collective bargaining employees approximately 3.25%. This amount was previously budgeted during the last budget cycle. The total amount that would be going to these increases is $113,100.00. This is the third reading, and I would make a motion to adopt 2026 R23.

I will second that motion. We have a motion and a second to adopt 2026 R23. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Mr. Humphrey.

Yes.

Mr. Neubauer.

Yes.

Mr. Brandenburg.

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas. Yes. Mr. Noble.

Yes.

Mr. Spate. Yes. Mr. Mager.

Yes.

Okay, 2026-R23 is adopted 7-0.

We had no items of older new business, and we adjourned at 5-0-4.

Mr. Humphrey, our next committee to report is Environment and Parks, chaired by Mr. Neugebauer.

Thank you, Mr. President. All members were present this evening. That includes me as chair, Justin Spada as vice chair, and Clark DeVitas. We had note items of legislation. We had a brief discussion about the city's Memorial Day celebration yesterday. We made note that it was a well done event thanks to Ms. Carr and her staff and service and the mayor and his administration putting together a really nice ceremony at noon. And I just wanted to note more succinctly this time that our guest speaker was Keith Bucklew who was a Lieutenant Colonel with the Marines. He is the current Executive Director of MAPS and he really had a really a great message yesterday, and it really touched me a lot what he had to say about kind of looking up at that blue sky and how it's better in a free country than anywhere else he's been. So I really appreciated that. We had no older new business come before the Firemen and Parks Committee, and we adjourned at 5.06 p.m.

Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer. Our next committee to report is Public Safety, chaired by Mr. DeVitas. Thank you, Mr. President. Myself, Mr. Humphrey, and Mr. Neugebauer were present for Public Safety.

However, we had no items of business and did not meet.

Thank you, Mr. DeVitas. Next committee to report is Planning, Community, and Economic Development, chaired by Mr. Noble. Thank you, Mr. President. All members of the committee were present.

We did have a number of items of legislation, so we did meet. first of which is on third reading it's item 2026-08 an ordinance changing the zoning classification of approximately 31 acres of land located at the northeast corner of greensburg road and winning way from r1 single family residential to pd plan development and accepting the amended conceptual site plan of the proposed greensburg meadow plan development we just held a public hearing on this item of legislation and can't vote on it this evening so we will we will take this to the next meeting so i'm going to ask for time on 2026-08 time is granted The next item of legislation is on second reading. It's item 2026-09, an ordinance declaring a portion of improvements to a certain partial of real property owned by SLW Development LLC doing business as Dunkin' Donuts to be a public purpose, exempting 100% value of the value of the improvements from real property taxation for 30 years. This piece of legislation is for a TIF for the currently under construction dunkin donuts on arlington road um and the value of that improvement will be about a 1.5 million dollars and with approval this will get folded into the tiff that we have on arlington road um since this is on second reading amount of request time on 20 26-09 time is granted that uh those are the items of legislation that we had we didn't have any older new business and we re uh We recessed our meeting at 5.09.

Thank you, Mr. Noble. Next committee is Rules and Personnel, which I chair. Myself, Mr. Mager, and Mr. Brandenburg were here. We did not have any legislation or business to discuss. Therefore, we did not meet. Moving on to Transportation, Connectivity, and Stormwater, chaired by Mr. Mager.

Thank you, Mr. President. All members of the committee were present. However, there are no items of legislation before us and no new or old business, so we did not meet.

Thank you, Mr. Mager. And final committee to report this evening is Intergovernmental and Utilities, chaired by Mr. Brandenburg.

Thank you, Mr. President. All members were present. We met to discuss two items of legislation, including 2026-R28 that was voted on in the reading of new legislation. We have one other item on third reading this evening. That item is 2026-R22. a resolution authorizing the mayor to accept the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council 2026 early access new member grant funds and declaring an emergency. This legislation will allow the mayor to accept a grant of $20,000 from NOPEC's grant program that NOPEC offered to new entrants to the electricity aggregation program. The grants can be used for projects involving government facilities, residents or businesses, such as installing energy efficient lighting, HVAC upgrades or renewable energy. We're very familiar with these grants. We've received several through the natural gas aggregation program that we joined in 2021, I believe it was. And so this is our first grant on the electricity program. At our last meeting, our service director indicated past grants have been used to purchase electric vehicles, construct EV charging stations, and various other things. This grant may be used for the renewal of the EV charging station contracts. This item is on third reading, but this time I'm going to make a motion to adopt 2026-R22.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adopt 2026-R22. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr. Brandenburg?

Yes.

Mr. Noble?

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas?

Yes.

Mr. Spate?

Yes.

Mr. Neugebauer?

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey?

Yes.

And Mr. Maker? Yes. Okay, 2026-R22 is adopted 7-0.

We have no other items of legislation this evening, no old or new business, so we adjourn at 522.

Thank you. Mr. Brandenburg. Next on our agenda is the Mayor's Report. Mr. Mayor.

Mr. President, with regard to the Arlington Road Improvement Project, we will be hosting a public information open house on June 4 at Reagan Chiropractic on Arlington Road for those in the immediate construction area. The presentation will be by our engineering team. We'll be presenting available information and opening the room up for questions. A week ago, we had an... um that i believe is six o'clock thank you let me double check that because it is not on my report but i believe it to be sick we had a um About a week ago, we had a meeting at Spring Hill that was very positive along those same lines. We'll be having additional meetings at Parkview, Briar Creek, and St. Edwards in the coming weeks. I also want to remind residents, importantly, that to get updates on construction, to really get the most recent stuff, we'd like you to register for text emergency alerts at cityofgreen.org slash alerts. It's important that you do that because things can change quickly in a construction site, and that is the best way to get the up-to-date updates. By way of events, my mayor's morning meetup is May 29th at the Willowdale Trail. We'll be meeting at the Frida Height Hunter Bates Pavilion on the hill at 9 a.m., and then hike the Willowdale Trail about 9.30. Also, this Saturday, this is the week for the Green High School Junior ROTC Raider Run. It's at Bettler and Southgate Parks. This is the first of the 2026 Grade 8 Race Series. Council President Spate told me this is going to be the muddiest year ever. So wear your old shoes and maybe think about bringing a change of clothes. Other summer kickoff events, Free Yoga in the Park begins on June 3rd on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 9 a.m. at Central Park. The Free Children's Summer Entertainment Series begins June 4th with Davy Harmony, the magician, at 10 a.m. at the Central Park Amphitheater. Our first Movie in the Park event is June 6th at 7 p.m. between Wicked for Good. It's fun to talk about summer events. Friday, June 12th is our first summer celebration concert presented by Sarah Auto Park. It features opening act Chris Caslanova at 5.30, Mr. Noble, and the headliner at 7. Food trucks will be serving food at 5 p.m. On Saturday, June 27th is Green's annual Freedom Fest at Butler Park. Mr. Noble will want to know that the event begins at 12 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m.

And Mr. President, that concludes my report. Awesome. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Is there any unfinished business to come before council? And under new business, I would just like to congratulate all of the local high school students for graduating the class of 2026. May you guys have a prosperous future. And that is it for new business. And can I please get a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr. Neugebauer?

Yes.

Mr. Noble? Yes. Mr. Brandenburg?

Yes.

Mr. DeVitas? Yes. Mr. Spate?

Yes.

Mr. Humphrey?

Yes.

Mr. Maker?

Yes.

All right, motion carries.

Very adjourned.