Planning and Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. I'd like to call the meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission to order today on August 19th. Let's stand for the pledge. 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.

Roll call, please. Anderson. Here. Mr. Birch.

Here.

Mr. Bishman.

Here.

Ms. Chadsey. Here. Mr. Daniels. Here. Ms. Thrasher. Here. Also present are student representative Rylan Davis and our council liaison Jeff Noble.

Okay. We'll jump right into our business items here this evening. Item 26-33, the Redwood Rezoning Project. Is there a representative from the project in attendance that can come up and speak about it? Please. When you come up, if you can just say your name and your address for the record, that'd be great. Thank you.

Yes. Name is Rad Schneider, and the address is 7007 East Pleasant Valley Road, Independence, Ohio. Let's see. This might be better. Okay. Good volume?

Yep. You're great.

Okay. Is that the spot that you can zoom in on? That works. I'll zoom. Okay. okay well good evening and thank you for giving me an opportunity to do a quick presentation i'll try to keep it as quick as i can as i said i'm rad schneider i'm the vp of acquisitions with redwood usa as a part of redwood apartment neighborhoods i manage the northeast ohio market and also columbus and before that i was doing the charlotte north carolina market for redwood so we have an existing neighborhood in green as you may already know over on south arlington We're looking at another opportunity. We've always been trying to find some different opportunities in green. The existing project has been great for us. It's gone over very well. And we'd love to be able to do another one. So I will quickly just kind of go over Redwood as a company and who we are and what we do. So with Redwood, we pretty much just do one thing and one thing only. We build single-story apartment rental neighborhoods, mostly two-bedroom, two-bath with an attached two-car garage. We've got over 200 neighborhoods across nine states. That equates to over 20,000 units under management. Another unique thing about us is a lot of developers will build, they'll lease up, and then they'll sell. We've never sold a property, and we don't have an intention to. It's our business model to build these out for the long run. We've got over 600 employees and counting about two thirds of those or so are going to be in the field. So that's your service technicians, your neighborhood managers, your onsite individuals, and then the remaining one third such as myself are in our corporate headquarters, which is an independence. Here's a map of our market presence. So as I mentioned, nine states. The majority of our neighborhoods, or I should say the state with the highest number of neighborhoods is Ohio, because that's where we got our start, followed by Michigan, Indiana. We're growing throughout the Chicago suburbs, Des Moines, Iowa, and we are as far west as Omaha, Nebraska. We've got some properties in northern Kentucky, given the proximity to Cincinnati. And then as I mentioned, I was in the Carolinas, so we do Charlotte and Greenville for North and South Carolina respectively for a little bit of sunbelt exposure as well. So given the type of product that we build being single story predominantly with the attached garage, the private entrance, no steps, the median age of one of our residences is about 50. So we attract a lot of empty nesters, people we call rent by choice, individuals that are looking to downsize. And as a result, we're a lower impact multifamily product typically. So we average about one and a half cars and one and a half people per apartment home. People tend to stay with us for at least three years and we have about 20% of all of our residents stay actually more than five. So we do also have a little bit of a lower turnover compared to the traditional multifamily as well. So in terms of our growth, we've grown quite a bit since we were last in green. I believe that site was finished around 2017 or so with the phase two. We hit 10,000 apartment homes in March of 2018. And within seven years, we more than doubled that to just under 22,000. And currently we have a growth goal of 30,000 by 2030, which we call our 30-30. And that's about 1,500 or so new apartment homes every year until that time. Some examples kind of of the exterior of our units. So as I mentioned, mostly single story with attached two car garage, personal patios on all the deck. We don't do amenities like basketball courts and swimming pools and things of that nature. The focus is on the living space as much as we can. And we do have our own internal landscaping standards. Obviously there's the minimum from the city that we would have to meet, but our internal standards are typically above the local municipalities. Living spaces average around 1,300 net rentable square feet. We have some that are smaller, that are larger, that I'll show here in a second. They're all open floor plan design. Granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, LTV flooring throughout, vaulted ceiling design, which really helps with the natural lighting within the units. The units have walk-in closet, walk-in kitchen pantry as well, washer and dryer hookups. We do offer a rental service as well. Most of our residents tend to have their own, but if they don't, we do have a service where they can rent those on a monthly basis as well. So the first example there is the forest wood. That's kind of the standard. It's about 1,300 net rentable. That's the majority of the units in the existing green development are forest woods between both phases. It's your standard two-bedroom, two-bath with the attached two-car garage. We've created a variation of that as well, which is called the Capewood. That's an end-unit forest wood where we have a sunroom on the side yard. So that's larger at 1,620 square feet, so that's more of a premium unit. The second most common units are the meadow woods because that's a traditional end unit forest wood. So it's about the same square footage. The willow wood is a more premium unit as well. It's 1381 square feet. It's a little bit more still a rectangle technically, but it's more of a square shaped that helps with kind of more of the open floor plan and the natural lighting over the over the forest with the metal wood. I have some shots of that later here. And in terms of some new product that we're bringing out. So over the years, we've obviously gotten questions from residents about one bedrooms, one car garage, different variations, three bedrooms. And so over the past year or so, we have started to roll out ones and threes, which are contemplated on the site plan that we have for this evening. And those units are for the one bed, one bath. There's two variations. The dogwood, they're both about 900 square feet. The dogwood is a one car garage, and the mahogany is a one bed, one bath, but a two car garage. We got four different variations of three bedrooms. There's the Acacia, which is a full three bed, full three bath. It's about 1,600 square feet. So it's a little bit, I would say it's a little bit superior to a normal townhome. Townhomes are typically three bedroom, two and a half bath. So we have a full three bath and it's a two car garage. And then we also have the Frasier, which is, it's a modified forest wood. It's the same square footage. We rearranged the den, added some walls, changed the rear large glass patios to a traditional door. And that's a three bedroom, two bed with an attached two car garage. And then a couple other three bedrooms that we're rolling out. So the Cypress is the three bedroom version of the Capewood that I showed a couple slides ago, which has the sunroom. And then the Walnut is a three bedroom variation of the Willowood. It's 1510 square feet. That's an inside shot of the interior of a Willowood. You can see all the finishes. That is the walk-in pantry there on the left next to the refrigerator. And then here is a shot of a metal wood. It's an end unit there, as you can see outside the window. This would be the bathroom, the primary bathroom that's connected to the primary bedroom. It's got the dual sink faucets with the walk-in shower. And then here is the primary bedroom. You can see the entrance to the bathroom on the left there. And then lastly, there's some shots of the walk-in kitchen pantry and the inside of it, along with the two-car garage and the large walk-in closet in the primary bedroom. Just wanted to kind of show some of those interior shots and those floor plans first. So as I mentioned, our existing site, which is over here on South Arlington Road, it was, like I said, two phases completed in around 2017, I believe. It's 153 total apartment homes combined between both phases, and the current average rent is about $2,162 per month. And so what we're looking at this evening is across 77 over here in the triangle for the new location. And so with the new location, I think it's technically Stein Road because Stein connects into the roundabout there in Massillon. We like this location because of its close proximity to 77. It's convenient. There's some restaurants across the street. There is the existing apartment complex to the north, the VC Station Apartments as well. Currently, it is zoned industrial, so it does have some industrial around it as well. OUR PROPERTY OWNER THAT WE'RE WORKING WITH IS RJS, WHICH IS AN INDUSTRIAL USE, EXCUSE ME. IN TERMS OF RESIDENTIAL USE, I WOULD SAY IT'S DEFINITELY BETTER TO HAVE RENTALS HERE. TYPICALLY FROM ZONING WHEN WE GO INTO CITIES, MULTI-FAMILY IS GOING TO BE CLOSER TO THE EXCHANGES AND THE And then as you get a little bit further out, you get into the lower density single family for sale products. So overall, the demographics throughout green match well for our product. We look at five mile trade circles, which pulls population and household data. And from that five mile circle, we have a population of about 76,000 and about 32,581 households. And in those, you've got about 43% residents are age 50 plus. 74% of the households do not have children, and 68 of those are one to two people. So going back to what the profile of a normal Redwood renter looks like, that's exactly the demographic that likes to downsize and live with us. So for the site plan, as I mentioned, it's currently zoned industrial. We're currently seeking R2. That's what we did on our previous site, so that's why we went that route. Currently has a unit count of 115 apartment homes. Comes to a density of 4.1 units an acre. Max rentable units per building is capped at six. That was a request. When we built phase one, we used to build, many years ago, very large buildings, like 10 units of building. We don't like to do that ourselves now, but that was feedback when we came in for phase two was to make those shorter, they're more aesthetically pleasing. So that was something that we did in phase two of the other site, and we would carry that over to here. The same with the improved front materials on phase two. There were some additional stone that was put on the garage, and we would be also offering that here as well to be consistent with what was previously approved. We would have two access drives to the site the roads inside the development We typically always do like to do private roads, and that's what we're proposing here So Redwood would not only construct those roads, but we would maintain them for the long run as well There would be a public road that would be required to be built for connectivity that was that came out of the pre-application meeting that we had with staff and so you know, we would look to connect. We would be responsible for the cost of that. And we would then dedicate that to the city. It would be built to traditional public specs. In terms of the bedroom count, we currently have 68 two-bedroom units, 33 three-bedroom units, and 14 one-bedroom units would be contemplated as part of the mix. And in terms, because we are closer to the interstate there, you know, we can certainly look into, you know, for those units that are facing the interstate, something like a berm, some type of natural barrier that would be helpful, not just for sound buffering, but also, you know, better visual appeal for those back units there. And to kind of just go over some of the concerns that were in the staff report, one of the concerns was the proximity to the highway. Certainly understand that. Obviously the closer you are to it, the more noise and things like that will increase. We do have numerous redwoods along highways. It's not all that uncommon for us, so I just wanted to provide some examples of that. These are Northeast Ohio examples, with the exception of Maumee, which is by Toledo. On the top there is Redwood Avon, which is Right along I-90. Below that is Redwood North Ridgeville, Bagley Road, which has the turnpike there along with an active rail line behind it. And then to the left of that is Redwood Amherst, which is just further down 90 from Avon. Phase one has been built and leased and we're currently building phase two. The top one there, that is Redwood Norton. It's behind Orion Homes development. Phase one's leased, currently building phase two. Below that is Redwood Macedonia off of 271. I lived in that one actually for a year, 2015 to 2016. And then to the left is Redwood Brimfield along with a garden style apartment that's next to it along 76. And then the last two examples, Redwood Maumee there on the top by Toledo, it's right off of the Turnpike. And then the one below that is Redwood Olmstead Township, which is right off of 480. I lived in that one after I moved out of Macedonia for about eight years. So, you know, we have a lot of these by close proximity. We don't have issues with leasing or long-term leaseability with them. The Olmsted Township one has been there since 2006, and it's one of our, it's recognized as one of our better neighborhoods because it is older, but people still think it looks brand new. So, you know, we don't have issues with keeping, you know, people within the units, despite having sometimes close proximity to the interstate. In terms of, so obviously the other concern was going from industrial to residential, and also if I was interpreting the letter correctly, there was a comment about how because this is a straight R2 zoning, If this were to get approved and we weren't going to move forward, was there a concern, Wayne, am I interpreting that correctly, that something else could get built that would be less desirable than a Redwood product?

If it goes to R2 and you guys back out, then it's zoned R2, unless we initiate back to industrial.

So... So I was looking at it as potentially like another residential use that we would not prefer. So I was thinking if there's a better zoning district like a PUD or some type of conditional approval that would specifically tie the site plan to the approval so that if the project doesn't move forward, only that could be built. Or, it's a lawyer question, is if a development agreement or something could be done with the city that would have certain vested rights, and then if the project doesn't move forward and the vested rights expire, it could revert back to industrial. I don't know if that would be a possibility. Zoning's typically viewed as strictly a legislative action, so I don't know if that means you could do something like that, but it was a question worth asking and I thought worth exploring if everybody else kind of felt the same way. So that was my answer to that, and in terms of You know, going from industrial to residential, I certainly understand the concern about, you know, sometime in the future if there's another, you know, company that has an interest of moving in, that's obviously more beneficial to the city, you know, in terms of a tax base compared to another residential development. So I certainly, you know, understand that concern. So I looked into the area before we even went under contract with Tad, who's here this evening. I noticed the DC station apartments to the north, so I kind of looked into that. And to my understanding, that had a split zoning when it got approved, and part of the zoning was industrial. So when I saw that, I thought, oh, they've already done an industrial to a residential in the nearby area. So I thought, OK, maybe that would be something everybody would be open to. Also, the site's been, it's obviously vacant. It's always been vacant, and with my discussions with Tad, that was one of the questions I had for him was, have you ever marketed the property? Have you ever had any, have you ever been under contract with anybody before? Has the city ever, have you tried to do something and got denied? That's always just good general history to know before you go under contract, and his response was that I was the only person who's ever contacted them for any type of a development opportunity. So from the seller's perspective, you know, the market's telling him that our use is the better use for it right now. So that's kind of my perspective on going from, you know, industrial to the residential. So with that, I think those are, I wanted to get through the pictures as quick as I could. And then I don't know if I need to stay up here for questions or if I can just sit down.

We'll get to that in just a second. Okay. Okay. Staff report, please.

Jail is on.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Schneider. It was a very good presentation. And as always, this housing product is amazing, is great, is needed. But our problem with this development is not the nature of it, that is rental or it's low quality or whatever. The problem is the location. So this piece of land is, as you know, it's located in I-1, or like general industrial, and it's close to I-77, which is a very strategic location for starting an employment-based business. or an employment-related business. So considering that and being around and surrounded by other industrial uses that are probably going to have truck traffic, noise, LIGHTING AND THEY HAVE THEIR OPERATIONAL HOURS IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT FROM NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS. THAT IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE DISTURBING FOR THE RESIDENTS OF R2. AND REMOVING THIS 28 ACRES from industrial to housing or residential and removing it permanently from industrial is a little bit of challenge because we can't really get it back or it's hard to get it back to industrial. And we don't have much of industrial land here in Green. So we would rather to protect whatever we have. Again, to emphasize on that, in our long-term comprehensive plan, we have that piece of land as reserved for future industrial development, so we want to be consistent with our comprehensive land use plan. So that's just where we are. Mr. Wiese, do you have anything to add?

No. I think you brought up the issue about a lot of units along the highways, and we recognize that. It seemed like there was an emphasis on your presentation about that, but ours is more about our comprehensive plan, the need for our economic development, and actually even the comment about unsolicited with RJS. We market properties industrially through the state of Ohio, through our Zoom prospector system. And if they would have wanted to market it, I mean, I'm not taking anything away from you, we would have gladly helped market it for them. So, The issue you bring up about VC Station, VC Station was I'm gonna use, it was a troubled industrial site, okay? And it was zoned residential, business, and industrial. And it was troubled, and there was a lot of funds spent by the developer to remove the troubled issues, okay?

Environmental stuff?

Kinda, sorta, soil-wise, yeah. So that's kinda where that went. We think BC Station came out very well and we have no qualms with apartments. We have some good quality apartments, including yours in the community. Just simply that this particular area, we would like to see additional industrial uses be there. And I think that's why you see where this body will be making a recommendation tonight. I don't know whether they'll agree with staff or a favorable recommendation to city council, but city council will be the final decision maker, as you know.

I want to add something else. I was looking at the locations of the redwood that you mentioned that they are by interstate. One other issue that I want to bring up is that they are not close to a lot of industrial land. Yes, they are located by interstate highways, but they are not approximate to a industrial land. So I want to bring that out to you. Yeah.

Thank you. All right. Do we have questions from the commission?

Yeah, I'll start. You talked about how, how many locations you have now with three bedrooms?

Because we just started rolling them out.

Use the microphone for me, thank you.

Norton phase two will be all ones and threes, and that one's under construction. I think they're building them at Amherst as well. Amherst phase one had a couple of one bedrooms. I think that's where they piloted them. But now we're pretty much incorporating them with every plan.

So how does that affect your average age? I mean, obviously you go in three bedrooms, you're going to get a little younger. You would imagine with three bedrooms, you're going to get a little younger. Is that right?

Possibly. I mean, it's honestly a question I just, I can't honestly answer because, like, you know, we don't have enough of them leased yet. But it's a great question. You know, I think that could happen. You could get more people who want a more home-like experience, but maybe they can't afford a down payment on a new priced home, because homes are so expensive. So they'll live with us for a few years and figure out what they want to do. So maybe a little bit more young professional. So that's a possibility, yes.

I was looking at it from the perspective that, say like, I'm trying to bring my parents home from Myrtle Beach, and we looked at Redwood and it'd be a great place for them. But do they want to be in a place when they have kids running around, when they're at the point where they're like, yeah, we're kind of, not a concern, just kind of curious on where you guys thought about having the three bedrooms with the twos and the ones.

Yeah. I think the other side to that is the lack of amenities, because we don't build playgrounds. We don't build the things. So we don't age restrict, per se, like actually formally age restrict. But because of the way that the product's designed, it typically doesn't attract a lot of families. Or if you do get a family, they're there for a short time, because they're looking for a house. So it's more of a shorter term thing for them.

In regards to 77, would you be in favor of having this very heavily wooded lot, right? Would you be in favor of having a buffer zone keeping, say, 150 feet of trees as a buffer zone About 277. I don't know how that affects your plan. I'm sure it does in some way.

Not much. And that was actually discussions I had with Matt. Matt's my engineer over at Davey. Minimum was 130 feet, right? So the closest building to 77 is 130 feet. And that was my idea to him was, how many of those trees can we keep? Because trees aren't going to be as good as like a berm or something, but they're better than nothing. I wanted to preserve as much as I could, but then we also are willing to look into a berm even beyond that as well.

Listen, I've been to your places. I have a lot of friends that have lived in your places, got some of them there now, and they love it. And so I think your lease rate that you offer kind of separates, you know, this riff-raff. I mean, people who are riff-raff aren't coming to you guys to rent. So love your facilities, and I'm in favor of this. Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to comment. My husband and I actually lived in the Redwood Apartments off of Arlington Road for almost four years. We had a very good experience. They're very nice. We were there until we purchased our first home. But it was set back off of Arlington Road and we happened to be on an end unit where we had the line of trees and kind of an empty field next to us. and a pond behind, which was very nice. I think for the price of the rent, I would maybe struggle to pay that for highway and industrial surrounding. So I don't know how the rent compares. I'm sure it's higher than when we were there a few years ago, but I have concerns about the surrounding area, but not the neighborhood itself. Okay, thank you.

Wayne, I've got a question for you. The long range land use plan, how many hours go into developing that?

about hours, but I can tell you a month. Yes.

It's not taken lightly what we have in this plan and what it dictates for the rest of the city, basically. And knowing that and going off of the staff report, I just have some grave concerns over the protection of that industrial corridor, to be totally honest with you. It is something, like the staff said, is... not a lot of yes it's it's 64 parcels but there's also 500 resident r1 single family um parcels across the city um and i'm i'm just i'm very concerned about protecting this this corridor so other questions go ahead no go ahead no go ahead

Well, I guess it's very rare that I disagree with our staff. In fact, you can count it on two fingers. And I've done this for a long time.

That's one hand.

The very first meeting I was ever at, the very first citizens meeting that we had when we became a city, the discussion about Miller Park came up. because we had somebody that wanted to expand in a non-conforming area and a non-zoned right area, and he owned a piece of property in Miller Park. I guess my point of all this rambling is the industrial is not growing the way we would hope it might grow and the way that we would hope there might be employers in there. It's just basically sitting idle. And I know we have a few businesses up there. I drove up through there, but I just don't see that. And I think the land use plan that we came up is really not a dictate. I didn't like that word, Jeanne Ann. I think it's a suggestion of what you might do there. The other comment I wrote down is I have never, and I've been in green now 40 years, I've never heard one person say, I want to move to green for that industrial section. I want to move my industry to green. I've heard them say their schools, the city. I've heard them say everything else, but nobody's coming here for industry. That doesn't mean we shouldn't protect it, but that's the struggle I'm having with this plan. How much protection do we continue to let it sit idle and do nothing? Or do we consider that a plan like this, every comment that these folks have made about Redwood, I agree with. I've seen them, I have not lived in them, but you are the premier of rental units in our city.

They look absolutely beautiful.

And I respect the heck out of that. So if we could get more of that, It's a no-brainer if it's in the right zoning. But for me, I think I'm leaning with my friend, Mr. Bishman, that I think this is a good program, a good plan, and we should kick it up to council and let them make some decisions. Right, Mr. Noble?

It will go there either way. It'll go there either way, yes or no.

Yeah, I think. I'm leaning in agreement with that, because in our current comprehensive plan, it is zoned industrial. It was zoned industrial in the previous comprehensive plan from 2014, and I'm guessing it was still industrial before that, right? So it's been industrial for a really long time, and nothing's happened with it. And I guess my question is, if someone comes to Green looking for industrial, are they looking at Massillon Road, or are they looking down near the airport? I'm gonna guess the airport, but I'm not obviously a developer.

The problem with the airport is it's not, you cannot own it. It's a lease arrangement. So we do lose potentials when they come to the airport and they find out they have to lease the land. So I think that's part of our concern here was if, again, we were not aware it was even for sale, and if RJS separated it from, it's actually three parcels, but if they wanted to market it industrially, that's never occurred. That's all we're saying. It's never occurred.

Yeah, no, that's great information to have. And I think, I don't know, I think something to consider is, like, while the VC apartments solved an environmental issue or something, they are there, right? They're kind of on the north end of the Massillon Road corridor, I would say, and the... the main chunk of Maslin Road is already developed. And so if we want to continue expanding more commercially, then pulling in additional residents to help support that commercial, I think makes sense. And I think there's also a conundrum that the public investments that we've made along Maslin Road with the roundabouts and the shared use path don't scream industrial. They scream the opposite of that, in fact, right? They scream, like, roundabouts are great for trucks. You know, the trucks that take those Massillon roundabouts now, they use both lanes and they clog everything up. And that shared use path is great. It'd be great for residents to be able to get to all the commercial along Massillon. So I think that... I know this is zoned industrial, but I don't know if that... Makes sense. I guess I'm just kind of questioning if it should stay industrial.

I want to say, gosh, it had to be like 10 years ago. I sold the Delco building and they got in like four deliveries a week. The buildings, the industrial buildings on that path and that street aren't huge industrial buildings. They don't get 15 semi trucks a day. So it's very limited on what they get there. So I think we should also consider that.

Yeah, I would agree. My office stares right across at this and there's little traffic coming from those sites currently.

Wayne, I had a question. Do you know how many of the other industrial vacant sites have up to 20 acres are a lot of them smaller acreage or or do we have others that are not large.

It's it's a mixed bag there some that if you go back into the uh... can develop an accurate and corporate park you might maximum you might get is twelve to fifteen yet then if you go down south on masson road you might be able to get a fifty so it's it's a mixed bag our problem is and if you are so good down the very southeast corner, which topography-wise, the pickings are a little bit less desirable, but you can get a few larger tracts of land. So it's a good question. It's just, you know, again, you don't necessarily see very large plants going up today, but, you know. YOU NORMALLY SEE THE SWEETHEART SPOT IS 30,000. THEY SURE DON'T NEED 28 ACRES.

THANK YOU. AND MAYBE IT'S MORE NOT NECESSARILY INDUSTRIAL, BUT BUSINESS IS KIND OF MY THOUGHT FOR THAT AREA JUST BASED ON WHAT'S SURROUNDING IT. It's just, and I think the properties are beautiful. I have nothing against the Redwood properties or anything like that. In just my opinion, looking at what is surrounding it and the staff's recommendation as well, they don't often give us the report that they've given us this evening. And that's kind of where my head's at with this project. Any other commission? Oh, sorry, go ahead.

I'd be interested to hear if somebody's chasing property owners.

If the commission's good, we will move on to the public comment and question portion of our meeting. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on this project or ask a question, comment or question about this? Come on up, state your name and address for the record. Yes.

Yeah, my name is Rod Glassner. I live at 215 Samoa Drive in Greene. Concerns that property runs parallel with 619. My wife's family business is Classic Pools, which all that property is right behind their property. Their biggest concerns are once all them trees are down, you have people coming in and out, in and out, in and out. They've had enough, they've had a lot of theft at their place the last few years with their converters getting stolen out of their trucks. People will actually park along the other property that's on right across from Pickle Road, that 11 acres there. They park back in there and then they walk and they steal stuff. Now, our thought would be, if this goes through, we'd like to see some kind of a barrier, a fence. Don't have to be a chain link. Whoever's gonna back up to that, I'm sure this property owner that wants to build these condos would probably consider that. That way they're not gonna look at everybody's industrial stuff right through there. That's Classic Pools concerned, is if it's not barricaded somehow, people just come down into their property and do what they want. In the evenings, they're not there. That's our concern.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Additional comments? Questions?

Good evening, I'm Tad Schwarz, I'm a minority shareholder and Chief Operating Officer of RJS Corporation. I appreciate the comments that have been made by everybody this evening. I just want to clarify one point, Director. When Redwood approached RJS about this potential project, before we even seriously considered the contract that they put in front of us, we reached out to your office through council and gave the city upwards of three and a half months to either list it or bring us a developer or somehow offer an alternative industrial use for this property that's been vacant for as long as we've been there since 1966. We also had subsequent communication with the, what is her title? City Economic Development Administrator. and the city was unable to bring forth any potential suitor for the property we also through council went out to several commercial developers and industrial developers and were unable to bring someone to the table so i just want to clarify that for the commissioners because i think it's important that you understand we we did come to the city conversations were also had with the city multiple years ago surrounding the massillon road project and the potential redevelopment of those 28 acres also went nowhere at that time so We've been in green or at our location on Massillon Road since 1966. We've been an employer in the city of Akron since 1948. We're very proud of our legacy. We plan to stay in green for many years, but we would like to see this land be put to use rather than sit vacant. And that's really all I have to say this evening. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

For the commission, I will. We did talk to their legal counsel, and they brought up the point about it. We asked them about marketing. And again, it's not necessarily the fact that if we had a bird in hand, we would have put it there. But as you know, there is land. I'll go with Mr. Birch. Yes, nothing has happened. I mean, sometimes it's hard to just make something happen quickly. That's all.

Additional comments?

So I'm Eric Froman with Ariel Corporation. We have two buildings that butt up against.

Can you state your address, please?

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. 3360 Miller Park Road. We have two properties that butt up against the proposed area. The concerns that Ariel has is we're a 24-7 operation. So the noise that we make, disturbing the residents. And then also, it looks like they're going to cut through Miller Park Road. and add another road there's a lot of truck traffic that we have through there already so that's a big concern with residents coming through but that's the only concerns we have at this point

For the commission, that's a preference for the planning department to make the connection between Miller Park and Stein Road or just pure connectivity options, you name it. Hopefully the residents would use Stein Road more and the trucks would continue to use Miller Park. Can't control that, but we do believe.

They're not going to be restricted from using Stein Road.

They would not be restricted. No, they would not.

So in theory, they can get to the highway faster than they do today.

Yeah, and actually it's not a bad thing.

Any additional public comments or questions? Anything else from the commission?

I guess a question for the developer about the fencing or some sort of barrier. AGAINST THE ADJACENT PROPERTIES. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU GUYS ALREADY HAVE SOMETHING PLANNED OR I KNOW THERE'S OBVIOUSLY AN OFFSET FROM THE BUILDINGS, BUT... CAN YOU USE THE MICROPHONE, PLEASE?

ALONG THE NORTH EDGE OF THE PROPERTY.

THE NORTH EDGE, SO UP HERE. No barrier, but here's the setback. We can look at to, as you can see back here, there's some wetlands. So this is going to stay all wooded from here. And we can look at, you know, keeping trees with a natural barrier as well. Typically we try to do natural barriers as opposed to fences. People like the look of it more than a fence to create, you know, not only.

Are you opposed to putting the fence up?

Not opposed. We wouldn't want to do a chain link fence, but are you asking for the full northern border?

No, to protect that side of the property where the pool company was.

Across the entirety of the northern border or just like this section over here?

I'm trying to understand where the... Well, I mean, I think they would probably want to go the entire length there to protect the businesses on that side. Okay.

and those are things that we can also if this gets the favorable and city council approves they come back and that's where those specifics it's like the final development yes correct that's where that i just want to make sure that that's that's you know an issue right now we have to get over yeah that's something we can certainly look into like i said we just got some wetlands back here i think they're out of the setback you know so we just want to make sure we're not you know impacting any of those if possible right okay

right there aren't any more questions or comments i ask for a motion um motion to approve the rezoning of the 27.8 acres along stein road from i1 to r2 we need to rephrase that because it's a recommendation for

to make a favorable recommendation.

Okay, motion to make a favorable recommendation to City Council for the rezoning of the 27.8 acres along Stein Road.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Ms. Thrasher. No. Mr. Bishman.

Yes.

Mr. Birch.

Yes.

Ms. Anderson. Yes. Ms. Chadsey.

No. Okay. Thank you very much. We will go on.

Just for everybody, this recommendation will go on to City Council. The contiguous property owners will get notified again. Council will hold a public hearing as well. So, yes, sir. It'll go on. Introduction will be September 8th, I believe. That's the second Tuesday in September. You probably won't get your public hearing until probably the first meeting in October because it has to be 30 days out from introduction. So public hearing will be somewhere in October. October, yeah. Okay, give my month straight.

Okay, thank you. All right, let's move on to 26-34, the Land Development Code text amendment. We'll jump straight into a staff report on that, please.

That would be me again. So the proposed amendment... retains the 24 feet as the base maximum, but creates two additional standards. A driveway serving a two-car garage could be up to 30 feet wide, and a driveway serving a three-car garage could be up to 36 feet wide. you might ask what is the reason for changing the code because we frequently would receive a lot of variances for the driveway width and the numbers, the 30 and 36 came from going back for about one or two years of looking at the variances and see were, what was the frequently asked number. So that's how we came up with that. And to just open up some horizons for you guys. So this is based on, this is going to be based on the number of the garage bays or the amount of cars that they can go side by side. Not that somebody has five cars and they need space for those. So with all of that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right, questions from the Commission?

Just a comment. I love the fact that we look at these things and we make recommendations periodically. This is the way it should happen. I think it's a great idea.

I agree. It helps on cutting down on those requests, like it says.

I have a few questions. So this is just for single family or duplexes? Correct. So I guess are the rules different for like triplexes and above? Or are they still restricted to the 24?

Those could possibly be up to 40 because they're considered commercial. Okay. So we have a 40-foot commercial. Okay, so they have their own separate, okay.

And this is, so the variance request that we're getting is because they want a wider driveway within 10 feet of the right-of-way line.

So we see a lot of people that simply just want to pull straight out, okay? And we used to require, our old code was 24, so you had this flare, okay? And we saw people not even getting permits and putting in higher driveways, but it was about variances and about lawsuits and a lot of this kind of thing, so... It's probably more of a problem where we have the larger, you know, the larger lot type subdivisions, simply because you see three-car garages or, I'm even going to use the word, oversized garages in some of those locations. And it just seemed like we were having a lot of these requests. So that's kind of why we're trying to flex this a little bit. It puts the Board of Zoning Appeals kind of, there have been quite a few variances. There's actually been pending lawsuits about them. So We're just trying to resolve this and give people, there's been a lot of discussion about, a lot of these are happening where there are not sidewalks because of the discussion about the length of a driveway when you have a sidewalk going through, but this will apply across the board. Two car garages, 30 feet, three car garages, up to. I mean, that's up to, that depends on if they wanna build that much driveway.

Define a lot of variance requests. Like how many on average per year are we getting for this?

I would say last year we probably had five or six, if not more. I mean, you might say that's not a lot, but we actually had some that ended up in lawsuits, two ended up in lawsuits.

So are they not generally getting approved?

Some have, that's the funny part. And when we kind of indicated to the Board of Design Appeals that through service, through engineering, and through planning that we didn't want This is the current law. We kind of emphasize the current law at 24 feet. So they started saying no, okay? Then we started getting lawsuits, okay? So that's kind of where we're at in trying to just find a balance on these driveway widths. I mean, that's the simplest way I can put it. And we ran all this through service, we ran it through all engineering, just to try to come to the terms, and also law, to try to kind of come to the terms of how to get there.

So is this something like for new home building that will be required, or is it just they put in how many, and then the resident can come in at another time saying we want to widen it? Is that...

No, sometimes it comes in at the time of the construction. Sometimes it comes in when they want to redo their driveway and they're saying, hey, we're, you know, my kids are driving over the grass and whatever. So I'm not trying to be, but it's like, yeah, and we see these. Because what they're doing is they're, especially the three-car garages, stacking them up there. And then with 24, you literally have to do the, you have to find where you're going. You know what I mean? And it doesn't always happen.

So they're not required, but they can go up to 30 or 36? Yeah.

Yes, councilman. I guess I have some questions. So beyond the 10 feet, technically they can be as wide as they want to be, correct?

Correct.

So, I mean, I think everybody understands sort of this dilemma of the widening out, especially on one side. 36 feet seems like a lot of driveway for a residential lot and neighborhood. And it's like, as you start having conversations, I can see most houses that are bigger that have... bigger garages, if they had a three, you would think they would be sitting back off the road farther. Now we, of course, we've got a lot of different things we're doing with small lot sizes and everything, and so I get it with closer offsets, but... you can always widen, and people are widening for parking as well, right? I mean, I think, you know, like along Moore Road, you see everybody is, right, they're building their little side pods in there so they can get parking in, right? And so they have this sort of dilemma. In my house in Turkey Foot Heights, I have like less than a 16 foot wide apron and I have the exact problem that this is trying to solve for my renters. They're driving over the grass and they're doing all the types of things. But 36 feet for a residential property just seems a lot. It seems like a lot. And it's something that historically we would have been like, no, this is not what we wanna do, right? So I'm curious about more about the conversations we've had over time.

Would you be more comfortable with a simple, straightforward 30 feet, whether it's two or three?

Well, I don't, I don't, I'm just, I want to talk through it with everybody because it.

We put the 36 because basically that's what you have with three-car garage. I mean, they're, you know, the door's pretty much 10 foot, but, you know, they go out as 12-foot garages, right? So that's how we got there. But, you know, if it would be an improvement just to go to 30, okay, without having to do those variances. And that might be a way to control the amount of concrete, if you will, that's in the right of way.

24, 24 is in fact allowed, is what you're saying.

24 is the max today.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to get my mind around it. It just, 36 seems like a lot. And I could just see a situation, if we continue to build our smaller lot, solutions and we're, you know, we're like, I'm gonna call it garage heavy design now, right? It's like the lots are smaller so we don't have, people don't drive their cars behind their houses anymore and they don't have like side bay things and so you have the three cars that dominates the front of your house, the lots maybe, you know, we've approved a bunch of lots that are like, they're like 50 feet wide now, right? Right, so now, In doing that, you got a lot of apron, a lot of apron that's working along, and I would just be careful if we talk through that.

So let me ask you, would you be more comfortable, and they can amend this, that 24 for a two-car and 30 for a three-car?

I would have thought that maybe that's kind of where we might have gone. So in my mind, that's better than 36.

I'm asking how the commission feels about that.

Can I just explain a little bit about the number 36? So we looked at the variances that they've been issued in the past two years, and number 36 was very frequent among them. My concern is if we bring it up to 34 or 32, whatever that you guys decide tonight, later on residents are going to have to go through another variance for just two feet. And what I'm seeing, it's like a pattern going on with the contractors, probably, that they are comfortable with 36 somehow. But that's the number that we see. Again, I just have the concern of people have to go through variances after we change the code again.

Yeah, I understand. I agree with Mr. Noble, though, that 36 is really wide. I mean, that's three full lanes wide. That's a huge distance to cross. And while right now a lot of these variance requests might not be in locations where we do have sidewalks, we are trending towards smaller and smaller lots and planned developments and everything that does include sidewalks and sidewalks. It's just a much wider curb cut. It's a much wider distance across. Correct. They don't have to go through that. There's a lot more pavement.

They don't have to do 36. First of all, they have to have three-car garage. If they don't have that, they can't really go up to 36. And if they have the three-car garage, they can go up to 36 or they can keep whatever they have. So that automatically doesn't push people to change that, to change their driveway width. Just trying to explain.

So I got some friends that live in Plain Township, and when their kids are home, their girlfriends and boyfriends are there, I show up, cars are in the grass, and their grass is worn out on the sides. Now, I think... it's got to be 24, 26 feet wide. Now, that could be an extreme case for a lot of people, but in that particular case, 36 would be perfect for them.

Commissioners, do we need to make an amendment, or are we comfortable with the language as it sits? We need to discuss that more.

I agree, 36 is a lot, but still, that's what they're getting asked for.

If that's the request, then it's only for a three-car, correct? If I'm understanding this correctly. Correct.

Then you could go up to, as it's currently written, you could go up to 30 with a two-car. Yes. Okay.

Correct.

That's...

I guess Mr. Noble brings up a good point that because we can't differentiate on the size of the lot, we're not that... You pick a Jacobs Ridge or you pick somewhere, that 24 feet makes sense. We're not getting variance requests in places like Jacobs Ridge. The issue is on the large lots. Just face it, it's on the large lots because the garage is much bigger and it sprawls a little bit. I have no problem going with what Mr. Noble said about keeping a two-car garage at 24. And, I mean, there might be a midpoint here, like a 32 for a three-car. That gives them a little bit more room without really giving them the full width, or a 30. I'm okay with 30, but you've got to understand, they can still flare out up there to solve your problem. They can add more and more on their private property.

Go right to the property line.

But at the right-of-way line, we're trying to control that.

When you say right-of-way line, are you talking about the setback line?

You're talking about 10 to 12 feet in from the curb or from the edge of payment. So at that point, after that, as Mr. Noble mentioned, it can flare out to 60 feet if they want. You shouldn't have to cut any grass.

If we go with 30, though, Wayne, if we go with 30, and lock that down, and you still get a request for a variance higher than that, are you gonna end up in another lawsuit?

Maybe not. I mean, I guess the question here is, that lawsuit stemmed from one that was actually, it was settled, but that was more about, they literally had 56 feet, okay? They had flares on this thing that went out 56. It was unpermitted. is how they constructed it. And they used the zip code address scenario as, well, we called Clinton, Ohio, okay? And Clinton said, we don't have rules about that. So they played that game, which they know darn well they were in Green, Ohio, okay? But we did get them, we got them down to 36 feet on a settlement, okay? So we took all the flares off. I agree that Mr. Noble's point about the smaller lots at 24, that makes sense. I mean, because you're not going to have, most of those you can almost do on-site, on-street parking. Not saying you have a lot of room, but you can do it. And you can always try 30, and if you're starting to get hit with variances again, YOU TAKE ANOTHER ONE.

I WONDER IF IT IS 30, DO PEOPLE ACCEPT THAT INSTEAD OF ASKING, WHEREAS NOW IT'S 24, SO THEY JUST ADD ANOTHER 12, RIGHT? TO 36. BECAUSE 30, YOU CAN FIT THREE CARS IN 30. YOU CAN'T FIT A FOURTH IN 36. AND 30 IS STILL REALLY WIDE. VERY WIDE.

What I'm hearing is possibly an amendment to the current language. So what that means is then do you guys go back and then fix it and bring it back to us or do we make a recommendation with the change?

You can make a favorable recommendation only with the numbers of 24 for a two-car and 30 for a three-car or more. You know what I mean, because someone could have a four car, but we don't.

I can live with 24-30, but I would prefer to just make it 30 and not have to differentiate.

I'm concerned with what Mr. Noble, and 30 is a lot in a sidewalk.

Most of the HOAs, in situations where there's an HOA, they're not going to let it be there. No, they don't. They don't regulate that kind of stuff. Ours sure does.

Well, yours are in. I mean, you're built out, so, I mean, true. I'm just, I think that's a great place to start.

24 for two-car and 30 for three-car.

Correct. I've already disagreed with you once tonight. I'm not going to do it again. No, you can do it again.

Lane, so are you saying that homeowner associations, you have, can you supersede their... Are there bylaws saying driveway can be this, despite what your thing says?

Well, most of them do not have a driveway width. Okay. I can't say I've seen a lot. Okay.

Ours doesn't have a specification about the driveway, but any change to the outside property or landscaping has to be approved.

Right. So, yes, that's where they get in, that if you're in Mike's or Maria's, you know, and you say, I want to add 10 feet to my driveway, you do have to go to your HOA because they kind of have rules to regulate. But most of them are already there. I mean, they're building to our code. And then if that resident wants to change, then they have to ask their HOA and the city.

We have had people in our neighborhood extend theirs already in the townhomes.

We have to have approval to do pavers on each side. They don't like to do that.

Okay, so then I'm going to actually make a motion, if that's okay, to make a favorable recommendation to City Council for the proposed text amendment with the changes of it being 24 feet for a two-car garage and 30 feet for a three-car garage.

I'll second that.

Roll call?

Ms. Chadsey? Yes. Mr. Burch? Yes. Ms. Anderson? Yes. Mr. Bishman?

Yes.

Ms. Thrasher? Yes. Okay.

All right. She was a yes. Unfinished business? Is there any? No? No unfinished business? No. Okay. Approval of the minutes. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve the July minutes. Second. Roll call, please.

Ms. Anderson? Yes. Mr. Birch? Yes. Ms. Chatsy?

Abstain.

Mr. Bishman? Yes. Ms. Thrasher?

Yes. Okay. Director's report.

Okay. Mr. Birch, you made a comment about text amendments, so you're gonna be seeing a few more coming up at you. I think we have a couple signs in September, but you're gonna see some regulations about vape shops. You might see some stuff about additional right-of-way issues, regulations, not about driveways, about other stuff. You may even see some stuff about open space requirements in both PD and just standard R1 type subdivisions. So you're gonna get what you asked for. Good. That's all.

Okay.

September 16th.

September 16th. All right. Council liaison report, please.

Yeah, we, council did approve the drive-through text amendments at the last council meeting. So that passed 7-0. I will say that the Kellerman family showed up to both the public hearing and and the last council meeting, and it was pretty emotional. It was, you know, the parents showed up, they spoke, they had a picture of their daughter. It was, I had a hard time. I can't even, I can't even talk about it. It was emotional for me. I don't know how everybody else felt about it, but they were thankful for what this city done to support the initiative, so. So I want to relay that.

Can you explain more about what was passed on that in regards to that, what you passed?

I'll give you that. So when you do a drive-through, you are required to now have an extra lane to pull out, whether it's a two... two locations, I mean, you still have a third lane. If there's one, you have another lane that you can pull out. We did clarify that you only have to provide one bypass lane. So you see that at, you'll see it at the Dunkin' Donuts, definitely. And I hate to say it, what you don't see it at is the two Taco Bells in Green. They do not have it, okay? Chick-fil-A has, it'd be odd, there's a mobile app line at the far, but you could also get out of that because at one point we start with a roll curb, which is easier to drive over, and you could... kind of just take off into Arlington Ridge Road, which I don't know if you could ever do that with cars there, but the truth is you can escape that site without trying to get up over a six-inch curve. So that's kind of the logic behind the bypass lane. So I'll be real honest with you, the two Taco Bells in town would probably never be able to construct what they did today without adding another lane.

And again, the two incidents that are in question were Taco Bell's by the way, right? I mean, the Taco Bell in Stowe is where this incident occurred, but we also had a carjacking in Taco Bell in Green a couple of years ago, right? And this family's initiative, really is what I stated as just being good design. It's more consistent with if you just drive through the McDonald's on Arlington Road or any of them, that when you go around the building, you have a wide open space. There's always a place for you to go. And so the issue with the two-lane drive-throughs and how that works, I think the message to you and really to the city when they're reviewing this is maximize opportunity by even when you have two lanes and you have people stacked up, next to each other, you're starting to get restrictions. And so, you know, step one is, do you really need two lanes? But that's where they're going. And if you have two lanes, minimize the lengths of curbs, minimize sort of the restricted zones so that if... Something does happen, whether it's just you need to get out of line because you want to get out of line or some of the incidents that we had that those opportunities are presented. And we we what was interesting to me on council was we you know, my focus had when when this came forward was really about the issues with with. drive-thru restaurants, but I think Mr. Neugebauer brought up, he started asking questions about bank drive-thrus as well and sort of applying it to other drive-thrus and something I hadn't thought much about, but it really, the code, it applies across the board. And it's like, how do we make situations that are less restrictive for people so that if they need to get out of line, they can get out of line. And so just, you know, when you see stuff, think about that and you know, that'll be the goal.

Well, I know working with retail, what we call QSRs, which are fast food restaurants to you guys, that is becoming more and more popular now, putting in the extra lane.

Great. Anything else from council? Okay, great. May I have a motion to adjourn?

Absolutely.

All in favor? Aye.