City Council - workshop

I'm going to go ahead and get started.

That always helps.

I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is a duly noticed special workshop meeting of Hudson City Council, held in accordance with the Sunshine Laws of the State of Ohio, Section 121.22, and the City of Hudson Charter, Article 3, Section 3.02. It is Monday, August 10th, 2026. It is 7.30 p.m. Before we continue on, we will move on to item two on the agenda, since this is a joint meeting with the City of Hudson's Planning Commission. Therefore, I will turn it over to the chairperson, Mrs. Norman, to call your portion of this joint meeting to order.

Thank you, Mayor. I will call this side of the room to order for the meeting with council tonight on Monday, August 10th, 2026 at 730 PM. And just for the record, Ms. Smith is on her way here. So when we take attendance, whoever's taking minutes, make sure you note her arrival.

Thank you, Mrs. Norman. Therefore, per Ordinance 220.031, titled Workshop Meetings and Item C, I would now like to turn the meeting over to Council President Byrd. So as we continue through the remaining workshop agenda items, therefore, Council President Byrd, the floor and workshop joint meeting is yours.

Thank you very much, Mayor. Appreciate all of you attending this. I guess it's a regular meeting for you, regular night, but you're going to have to do an extra meeting to make up for this. Council, thank you for stepping up and attending an extra meeting tonight as well. I don't have to remind everybody about how important this whole Clinton crossing piece is. Lots of What has it been, 10, 11, 12 years of trying to get this across the finish line? So we really acknowledge the importance of this, the importance of us working together to move the concept plan, advancing that for approval, getting some more kind of specificities around what is Clinton Crossing going to look like. There has been some interest discussed about plan development process and how that kind of structure, that ordinance, how plan developments are defined in our code is not, needs some work. And so that will certainly, if we identify that Clinton Crossing might benefit from or even has a chance of benefiting from a planned development, then we want to make sure that that process of getting that work done to modify the PD is done as well and will be completed before we need it with regards to Clinton Crossing. So thank you in advance for the review process that the Planning Commission will be doing. And I guess I'll first, let me just describe the process that we're going to do tonight. Staff is going to work through the staff memo and the information that they've provided to us for tonight. We'll do one or two topics. We'll take a break. We'll go around the room, I'll do it clockwise so I don't forget anybody, and we'll ask for comments, questions, input. And we'll go around and around until people are satisfied that they have all their answers to the questions and they've been able to comment on everything. We'll move through it, but we also want to take as much time as is needed to make everybody comfortable about the information, make sure everyone has their questions answered. So if, I guess next I'd like to turn it over to the planning commission chair and co-chair for any comments that they would like to share at the beginning.

Just a few short comments. I mean, this is, a very exciting time and a very exciting project for Hudson and having lived here since 2000. So seeing first in Maine before it was a thing, um, and seeing the last piece of that puzzle being put together is, is it's very weighty. As you say, the import is, is significant. Mr or Dr bird. Um, the planning commission of course is also very excited to work with city council on this. We already anticipate excellent applications from the city. We have seen two in recent memory, one for the inclusive playground and the other for the public works building. both of those were stellar applications, thorough, clean, complete, detailed. I mean, we had a few questions, but honestly, just reading the packet that the city turned in was really astounding. One of the things I know that we have to work to protect is, is that sense of unity and collaboration between the two bodies. And so one of the things I feel like is important for us to maintain and especially on social media, but also in our conversations with other people, is that sense of collaboration so that when any uncivil or untoward or derogatory comments get made about the intentions of either body, that we are really covering each other's backs and not allowing those comments to stand, especially if they're false and unproven, but really going to bat for us because we want to be your resource on what the laws are. We don't write the laws. That's your job. And there are laws that we have discovered problems with, and as you alluded to, President Byrd, The plan development process is skeletal at best. That's the kindest word I can use to describe not only the process, but also the guidelines that we have to apply. They are contradictory. I've gone on at length in detailed spreadsheet about where the problems are, what the contents are. And that's really for everyone's edification, but we don't expect you to become those experts. We want to be able to inform your awareness so that we can help you get projects like this. And really, whatever work we do to make Clinton Crossing happen is work that will benefit the rest of the city for larger projects, such as down in the new District 11. So as we walk through this process together to finish our downtown, um, you know, we are aligned in mission and I would like us to, and to feel like we are aligned in cooperative spirit to give a really exceptional development product to the citizens of Hudson. Those are my comments. Let's do it.

Does he anything you want to add?

I think she covered it. Thank you.

Okay, great. How about Amanda or Patricia who are members of the subcommittee for Clinton Crossing?

I'll just say we've had a number of meetings that have been very productive and want to thank the city staff for all the work they've done to help clarify things and also RDL has given us a lot of good information.

I'll just say I know I've seen a number of you at the Shreds and other events, and I appreciate all of your involvement, and I'm excited to work with you and get to plan for Clinton Crossing that works for our community.

Okay. Greg, I'll turn it over to you.

Great. Thanks, Dr. Berg. I just have a few brief notes and orientation, then I'll turn it over to Nick and Emily. For brief orientation from a staff standpoint, just since we're all in the room, The four of us have spent a lot of the time with the day-to-day engagement side of this effort. Brian Griffith, assistant city manager connecting the administration and that link to council. Emily Fernandez, our community project planner, has been serving as a lead and the project manager for this effort for these recent months and going on here for the next year or so. And Nick, a city planner, will be leading this project through the plan review process with planning commission and at a later date with architecture review board. Just brief note on the layout. We were hoping to do a layout like some of us might remember from the comprehensive plan a couple years ago. We've had some changes to the microphones and we just didn't have enough wireless mics, so we ended up having to slide us over and piggyback on the dais. So apologies for that orientation, but we were hoping for a traditional U to start with. Just a brief note on timeline. We, from the staff, standpoint in working with council and working with the design team, we've been trying to go on a pretty steady methodical process that we set back in May and have really been pushing to hit these benchmarks. But I think it's been beneficial to keep this on the community's radar, keep the community engaged, And also the city has an $11 million investment already in the site and is already incurring expenses. So from both of those items, I think it's been beneficial that we're trying to stay to this cadence and we'll talk more about upcoming timeline targets that we're hoping to work towards. And as Dr. Bird mentioned, there'll be multiple times to kind of have some discussion as we present various pieces from the staff standpoint. From our budget, we'll try to target it So we stay around an hour and a half, but of course, based on dialogue, the group, of course, can get back as needed. I was just gonna give a brief orientation to two pieces from the staff reports, and then I'll turn it over to Nick. As noted in the beginning of the staff reports, as I think we all know, it's a consultant team led by RDL Architects that's been leading the community design work, and they've had support with OHM Advisors, which is the consultant team that led the 2024 comprehensive plan. And then from the staff standpoint, we've been guiding the public engagement side of the effort. Council has a subcommittee, as Dr. Byrd mentioned, with Dr. Byrd, Dr. Weinstein, and Dr. Goetz, who have met several times to help guide and provide feedback over these recent months of engagement. And then I was just going to touch briefly on the timeline from page two. I think, as we all know, we had three community charrette sessions in June. where we had 120 plus residents break out into 17 small groups. They came up with 17 concept plans of how to implement the comprehensive plan for this site. And then July 1st, we had a community session with over 120 residents in attendance to view those 17 plans and provide feedback. Based on that feedback, on July 22nd, RDL revised that down to three plans which shared common themes of preferred uses and ideas. We had over 200 residents attend that session, which we were really pleased with that feedback, and 234 completed surveys. That information is now being refined into a preferred plan, which would be presented to the community August 22nd. There would be another round of community feedback, And then we report that back to council on September 8 with the anticipation to get final feedback from council or at least advance it to the point where we would formally place it to Planning Commission for the concept site plan agenda. We're targeting a public hearing for the fourth Monday of October at this point and an orientation to the project at your regular September meeting. That's some brief orientation, and then I'll turn it over to Nick.

I can highlight a few other of the headers in the staff report. Going back to the first page, I wanted to highlight the comprehensive plan. So alignment with the comprehensive plan is very important in this project. It's been at the forefront of our planning process to date. So in the 2024 comprehensive plan, this was a specific focus area studied by that group. And you see the map. If you look at the image on the left, the bottom of page 1, that is the map that the comprehensive plan subcommittee group produced. The recommendation was for a mix of residential uses and semi-public uses. Our staff added the acreage, but the map is essentially taken right out of that comprehensive plan recommendation. Through the 2026 community engagement process, The boundaries were proposed to shift a bit as we further studied the site, identified the constraints, primarily the wetlands. You can see those added on the second map. And so what we did was, working through that process, we shifted those areas, but we maintained the intended acreage from the original comp plan map. Still have the same split north and south of residential and public, semi-public uses. And then just a couple other highlights from that comp plan. There were a couple other references to this site in this area. One is the plan's intent for housing to be generally compact, though should be compatible with existing residential neighborhoods and their historic character. Strong connections should be established, ensuring easy accessibility to downtown. So that was the goal of the plan. And additionally, the plan include an action item to progress development that supports existing downtown businesses by increasing foot traffic while maximizing vehicular traffic impacts, maintain the existing character and charm of a downtown. So everyone who attended a public engagement session were informed of the comprehensive plan we had. One of the handouts was in the packet in this agenda today. So we just wanted to highlight that and we'll continue to work on that alignment. The second topic I wanted to touch on was the review process, which is also very important. So there are really two options we could go with review of the plan. But regardless, the city would like to start with a conceptual site plan review. And that's a mechanism in our code. It's been established and used by some of our applicants of recent applications. And it's a voluntary application. And it would be city-led. This process would be city-led, the conceptual review. And we feel that It will strengthen this community's voice into a formalized plan, give a future developer clarity regarding the community desires, and provide a more predictable process. So the intent is to align everybody through that process, PC, council, the community. The planning commission would vote on that conceptual plan. It is a public hearing, so the public would be able to come and provide comments on that. And I did want to read the intent of the conceptual plan. from our code and the purpose of the concept plan approval procedure is one to afford the applicant an opportunity to receive guidance of the planning commission or council if it's a major development that's called up by council on the major features of the site design for the development plan prior to the submission of engineering details of the project and two, to obtain a decision on the concept plan by the planning commission or council conditioned upon review and satisfaction of the requirements for final site plan review by PC or city council. And then it does note approval of a concept plan does not constitute a final decision on the site plan application since the plan may require revisions based on a review of the submissions for final site plan approval by the planning commission or city council. So it's preliminary review, preliminary comments, and feedback from the planning commission. So that's how we want to start this process. And we'll get into some of the timelines. But then the crossroads I mentioned is the review of the application itself. So when a developer takes on the application, how could that be reviewed? What are the processes? There are two ways to go about that. One is the plan development that Dr. Bird mentioned, And the other is the conventional review. So I'm kind of working on page three and four now. The conventional review may include all of the above review processes, a three-step subdivision review, an additional major site plan review, variances if those are included, and conditional use review if those are included depending on the final mix of uses. Essentially, plan developments are a good fit for larger projects, projects with mixed uses, varying lot sizes, mixed housing types, and potential development agreements. The plan development does allow for consolidation of applications, so it would be easier for the public to track. It allows for coordination between planning commission and city council. So as staff, we do feel that the plan development review process may be the better fit for this project based on the, depending on the final site plan, concept site plan. And as Dr. Bird mentioned, it would be beneficial to perform a code amendment in the coming months to have that aligned before a developer-led application is brought before the city. And then finally, I wanted to touch on architectural design. Um, so throughout our public feedback, we've, we've heard some concern on, on architectural design, um, concern that the development could appear cookie cutter. Um, we want this to look organic. We want this to look lived in. Um, so we looked at ways of, of how we can get that effect. And we studied, um, we studied, uh, different communities and projects that were, um, you know, considered exceptional design or special design. And a common thread we've seen from some of those communities is what's called an architectural pattern book. They've employed these guides. And what they are, they're a collection of designs, templates, and instructions used to design buildings and site layout. So what you may have in an architectural pattern book is a list of architectural styles. It could be Greek Revival, Georgian Federal, whatever embodies, all those things that embody Hudson. And they may tell you, one, what those homes would look like, where they can be located on the site, how often they're repeated, how they can align on the site itself. It employs variety and a unique character. We can make it whatever we want to make it. And we have some ideas on how to do that. So that's a process that we'd like to implement for Clinton Crossing. And whenever it goes to architectural review, we would consult that guide. And that would be the guide on the architecture of the project. With that, I'll turn it back to Dr. Bird.

Okay, so why don't we start over with Chelsea. Comments, questions, concerns from what Nick just reviewed?

Yeah, so I was looking through, I did not get a chance to make it to any of the that you guys had. I did have the privilege of working on the comprehensive plan, so I have a little bit of background in that. Couple things from what you guys were presenting and showing, and I see that numbers one and three for plan to have the highest support. I have a lot of questions and concerns, but I mostly want to speak about the discussions on having apartments and what you said, fourplex. When we did the comprehensive plan, a lot of the feedback from the surveys, when we had our meetings, I'm not sure apartments were ranked as one of the higher things that people wanted. If you look at the comprehensive plan and the numbers, one of the questions was, hey, if you're going to move in the next five years, what are you going to be looking for? And the one that's where lowest is rental apartments. I think people think of Hudson as more of a residential, permanent place to live. And so I would just urge some caution when trying to push forward apartments or things like that. I understand the need for residential space there. I think that would be very helpful. Like we were saying, it would be great to support local downtown, have people be able to walk places, especially during the weekdays. In the summer, it's great to have people out and about. And then the other question I had was the co-working space that was proposed. Do you feel there's a strong need for that in Hudson? Would this be like flex space? Would this be where you rent it out? Would it be small businesses can rent a room? What exactly is that vision? I feel like a lot of people are now moving back into the office. So I just don't want to have that built and have nobody and have it just sit there vacant. So my question also back is what was the vision exactly for that?

So I'll let Emily or Nick or Greg speak to the apartments, which I don't think are remaining in the...

Right, so on page five, we were tracking some common themes from the public feedback. And at the top, we did state duplexes, quads, and apartments did not obtain appreciable support. So those were not on the higher end of requests from residents. We have been tracking that, as you noted.

Nick, I'll just add a brief note. And our next part of the presentation, we do want to at least touch on what's in the framework for the preferred plan. And that might be a better time to dialogue on some of these pieces. And I should have mentioned that up front, that the biggest thing we wanted to do was kind of get some consensus to staff on the review process. And there'll be much more to come on the actual plan. But a brief note, the apartments were included in one of those three plans because they came up in multiple of the 17 plans that came from the 120 residents. But based on the tiers of engagement, as we've narrowed it down, it has not gotten sustained support. So it is not anticipated to be part of that preferred plan. And the co-working, we're glad to talk further about that. But we have had two private entities have expressed interest in wanting to find co-working locations in town, that they would operate a co-working business. We do see that as being financially supportive and beneficial to the market hall concept. So the idea to date at least has been maybe to put it in a lofted space so it's a little bit secondary and it's not on the main floor of the public spaces. There's still a lot to be engaged on that, but that's a quick snapshot.

Okay. All right. That's helpful. Thank you.

Can I just add, just to piggyback a little bit on there, part of the idea with RDL and OHM in narrowing it down to the three was to have the components Greg mentioned somewhere on each plan, understanding that each individual plan was not a final plan. It's just a way of visualizing the pieces that are possible so that people could vote on pieces. So they wanted to make sure at least one plan did have that so people could vote on it. So that's also why you saw one plan had a dog park and one plan had a nature center and one planet. So that all of the different pieces from the 17 were somewhere on those three plans, but each of those plans was not a separate final plan. The like the next step in this process is to see what people thought of those three plans to then further bring that down into one plan. So the final plan is not necessarily one, two or three. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

So then moving clockwise, other questions related to or comments related to the pieces and parts that Nick just covered around comprehensive plan review process or architectural design? Just raise your hand if you want to. Jesse.

It sounds like to me that staff is encouraging that we go through the plan development process. When will we know if that's the direction we're going so we can start working on that?

When we have the single concept plan and we're able to essentially review it ourselves through a pre-application meeting, I think that is when we're going to start to be able to hone in on what is the best fit for the plan.

Okay. So then my next comment would be, the PC, we, we began working on some of that plan development language in a subcommittee, uh, with Mr. Thomas and Mr. Sugar, just to try to prepare for that. But we're going to, we would need your support and go ahead and a timeline in which that, that subcommittee could then, you know, narrow in on that, that legal verbiage and everything that needs to be done. So we would, I would just, it seems like we got a tight timeline. So I want to make sure we're all on the same page there that, that, that, that work still needs to be done. We've started it. But that's two brief meetings, so we still have some long to go. And we're meeting again, that subcommittee will be meeting again before our next planning commission meeting. But any direction that you have to offer for us for that subcommittee would be super helpful in that plan development language.

I think Nick and Greg had mentioned that you guys were going much faster than expected. We're trying. Yes, so good job.

Nick, we've talked about the pattern book resources before. Do we have any examples of that for everybody in the room to kind of get a feel for what those look like?

Not on hand at this time, but I can distribute that.

I think that would be super helpful. It seems like I'm yelling.

Yeah.

I think that would be super helpful. I think that's all I have right now.

I just want to add one little thing, if I may, Mr. President. First conflict in our plan development language with the rest of the code comes up in whether or not the concept plan is required or voluntary. And I will stand to be corrected if it's the case. It is voluntary for most applicants. But in the case of the planned developments, I'm looking for my section number, 1203.04 , it is mandatory. for planned developments. So in case you wanted to back out, you can't. But we'll happily entertain your concept plan at the right time.

I have a question. With the architectural pattern book, is this something that we have to put then in our plan development code or something for the architectural review board that would make it part of their mandate? Because I don't think it's there now.

We've done research on how to connect it to the architectural design standards. Our standards do reference other publications and books, and this would be something we could develop and reference within the architectural design standards.

Could you just educate me a little bit on the architectural pattern book like we would be developed and we would be we would go based off of that and then present that to potential. bidders and that's a framework they would use?

Yes, we would develop that and it would give guidelines on the design of the homes, particularly on the north side of the development, the architectural style, how often those styles can be repeated throughout the project, and we could go as far as to how they are laid on the site, where they're located on the site. Are they up at the street? If they have a detached garage, where does that sit? So you can get very specific with it. That's something we can study further, but it's essentially a guide for just the architectural design of that area. I think the example would help. I can send out the examples of that we found that were very helpful.

So other communities in this area or Ohio have done it similar?

Oh, Shaker Heights did it back in the 1930s. I believe the four architectural styles that they allowed you to build in were Tudor, Colonial, there was a, was it French?

Georgian? No, there's like a.

That's the colonial. I won't bore you with the rest. But the point is they picked four styles that were allowed and every house had to be designed by an architect. Now, theoretically, every house is designed by an architect. But when you have a subdivision, typically what happens is they pick, they make their own pattern book if you didn't know it. They don't build anything you want. They build one of four or five houses that they have preselected for this, partly because they can budget materials and expenses and work hours and those sorts of things for making that particular development. But, yeah, it's used frequently. It doesn't always get called a pattern book, though.

Okay, Nick, thank you. Um, next, I guess we'll go to I just wanted to also just a note.

Of, uh, information for you all, should you be talking with people about this and about the 3 plans and the different uses we have started to have some. discussions that if anyone is very disappointed about a use that doesn't make it in, we have talked about where some of those uses might fit better than in this space. So I just want you all to be aware of that in case you're chatting with other people.

I have one comment. I just want to say that I believe that the comprehensive plan is most representative of what the community desires. And the fact that we had some interest in apartments, I think the comprehensive plan is the place to go to best assess what the community desires because it was a full, complete, substantial participation by the community. And so I think it should weigh in heavily on what we decide we think that the community desires.

Can someone give a little bit of background and layout of what the RFQ, RFP process is going to look like? What's the structure going to look like?

That's a good question. For reference, from a staff standpoint, we have not submitted anything to council yet. So council has not had a chance to dialogue on that. When we started this active effort maybe six months ago, we felt we talked to multiple different things. It'll be a community accepted concept plan, then talk and figure out a developer to implement that plan. And then we thought, well, maybe we should overlap them because the developers is going to have insights and expertise that this could be hard for us to capture. Um, like where to put the loading docks or, you know, how to service the building. Um, so then we thought about moving that up and then we aired on the side, you know, we feel like we're getting good community engagement and good community trust. Let's not start talking to developers. Let's make sure the community is fully comfortable. So we have not anticipated starting to talk to council until September 8th, when the community has kind of come together on, on that preferred plan. And it's still, I think, to be determined with council if that would be an RFP or an RFQ. So as an RFP, who can implement this for the highest dollar? Or as an RFQ, we want to find the most qualified developer and then negotiate with them. So I think council's still got to engage on that in the month of September.

Thank you, Craig.

Just I guess question for maybe the group is that at least a high level discussion we want to have now we would have a prep. Oh, we have planning commission with us if we would have preference towards one or the other. Maybe just get a bit more of an overview from Greg on each one perhaps.

Or if I could interject, let me just throw this out for consideration, totally piggybacking off of your idea. If this goes through a conventional application process and not planned development, there may be different phases and different developers for different parts of the project. We might be putting the cart before the horse to try and decide if we want RFP or RFQ at this juncture.

Not looking to make a decision by any means more of a, What are the options and how do people feel?

Well, it doesn't hurt to chew on it, but that thought occurred to me as you mentioned it.

Yeah, like why would we choose one or the other?

I'll just give a brief orientation note, and that's great to turn it back to all of you for discussion. As noted, two general paths we could follow would be some type of request for proposals, which was something that was talked about a fair bit a year ago to make sure that the city was able to recoup our investments. to determine a plan and then find the highest bidder to implement that plan. But then there's also the desire that we want a highly qualified developer, not just who might pay the most money for the land. So on an RFQ process, there might be a first step of determining the firm that's most qualified, and then council would negotiate with that firm the terms. Um, we anticipate this project will continue to have, uh, tax incremental financing where the future property taxes help pay for the city's investment to date. Um, so that will be a big piece of it in addition to the land sale and if there's other negotiations on relocation and site prep, things of that nature. So all those things would be wrapped in as part of those, um, developer engagement and developer discussion. I think that gives kind of the brief snapshot. But I know from staff's end, too, we'd really be curious to hear initial thoughts.

So was phase one conducted in the exact same process?

The phase one or the phase two effort? CHRIS JERRAM, First in Maine.

CHRIS JERRAM, First in Maine. Sorry.

CHRIS JERRAM, From what I remember, I wasn't involved in that time, but I believe First in Maine was an RFQ-type basis where we tried to find a qualified developer and then negotiated a process. That is what was done with the Phase 2 effort eight, 10 years ago.

CHRIS JERRAM, So on Phase 1 of First in Maine, did the city recoup all of its dollars? And if they did, how long did it take us?

CHRIS JERRAM, I don't know.

We did not. So it was done with a TIF, and the TIF did not cover the full cost. But I wasn't here then. They only did, I think, a 10-year TIF. This is set up to be a 20-year TIF, which doubled the time, more return. But when I got here, we were covering. So basically what ended up happening was they did first in Maine. There was debt. They issued debt for it. Every year, we would take the TIF money and pay off the debt. The money we got from the TIF did not cover the debt payment. We had to put money towards it.

And just for some further orientation, as I hadn't had a chance to mention yet, we've also had a fair bit of internal discussions on is it one developer, is it multiple? At least the thinking at the moment is that it's probably one master developer. We anticipate the residential being a safe, predictable bet for a developer. And there's probably more uncertainty in the non-residential uses. And by putting them together, it will probably make the project more successful. They may very well partner with a specialty residential builder, but that's our thing to date. And we have Bricker Graydon Wyatt is our financial consultant that's running TIF Performas, Project Performas. We also have Panzeca Construction engaged as a contractor to help as a owner's representative in giving us some insight to the developer side of the equation.

How did you choose Panzeca?

We had a relationship with them from 18 years ago, so we reached out to them again recently.

Did you reach out to anybody else?

Not for the owner's representative.

Why not?

Because we had a good working relationship with them previously.

They won't bid on this project, so they're not going to get involved in bidding. Nobody who is potentially interested in this project is going to represent us from an owner's side. when they were interested in the project. So we knew they wouldn't be. They worked on, they actually were part of phase two the first time around, helped with that part.

Represent the city?

Yes. Yeah, they won't, they had told us they won't bid on this. So yeah, they were our, they helped us with calculations.

You didn't speak to anybody else? Just Panzeco? Yes.

Thank you. Would a qualification process include a conceptual design?

That is possible, yes.

I think it should, because it's a tricky thing. What are qualifications? There's plenty of developers that are qualified. But I would strongly encourage to get the best interest, the best selection, a conceptual design be part of that process to see how their design matches up with what we would like. Let them show us how they're going to serve the community and let them compete on balancing cost versus comprehensive plan versus what we would like to see.

That's a good point. And that is part of a common piece of our RFQs and RFPs of some sort of rating matrix would be set up. And the common ones include things like understanding of the project, you know, demonstration. of implementation, success on related projects, expertise of key personnel, so that there'd be some sort of matrix established for those.

Would this also include looking at other projects they've done in the past, satisfaction from those communities, so that you can tell by their track record how qualified they are?

Back to the TIF conversation. Are we able to get the statistics and the dollars from the first phase to know what that loss was to the city so that we can relate this project to what we should be expecting? Does that make sense? Meaning, I know it's a totally different project. COVID changed the cost of all of construction, all of those things. I get that. But If the goal is to get the money back and the investment that the city and taxpayers have made, is that attainable? And can we look at that old data and get some assessment and feedback to know if that's even possible?

We can look at the old data. That's really one of the big things they're looking at. So we know the TIF. It's a 20-year TIF. The schools have already approved it. That's one of the things. We can certainly look at old information. I just don't know how relevant it will be to this plan because what we're doing is, we'll be taking this plan and saying, here's what's in here. Is the TIF going to cover the cost? Do you have to look at other things? It's so hard to say because it's like a big bowl of soup. There's a bunch of ingredients. It's not just the TIF. It depends on who's putting in the infrastructure. There's just a lot. Right now we're at $11 million. So if we ended it and it was $11 million was the only thing we owed, then you do the TIF, but- Infrastructure alone is gonna- So is that us or is that, that's where we're at a really hard point to know who's gonna do the, is the developer gonna do the infrastructure? Are they gonna pay us money for the land and we'll put the infrastructure in? That's what I mean when we have, the TIF is one function to help get the money back. There's also potentially the land sale.

So my point is, is that before we would have some sort of conceptual plan to give back to council, that we would all know what that looks like too, right? That we're not, we're not presenting a conceptual plan that we've given a thumbs up to, and then realize that it doesn't financially meet the goals that we've all discussed or that council has in mind, right?

Yeah, we, so we should have, when we get to Emily, can I speak to this better than me, but when we get to the final plan, Bricker should be able to tell us, here's where you stand. Is this a financially, viable plan to some level of certainty. I mean, there's always, you know, variables that you have to watch out for, but that's one of the reasons we have them to tell us, does this plan make sense? Is it financially feasible?

Thank you.

I just also add with the first in Maine, the covered parking garage is a whole other expense and thing. Yes.

And if I, I mean, I don't want to jump too far. But that was one of the things that we looked at here was trying to stay away from things like that in phase two. If we could stay away from a parking deck in phase two, they're really expensive. They're really hard. So if we can just stay with street-level parking, that's a big savings. And hopefully, I think maybe in the final plan, it ends up there where we don't need a parking deck.

I'm sorry.

I was going to just piggyback again. I think that's what makes it so important to know where First and Main really landed as a reference point. I mean, especially for city council and people know, hey, this came up this short. Look at our plan that we put together. We're going to hit 90%, 100% of what that cost is, unlike first in Maine. I think it's a very important bit of information.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- OK. So my, yes, Heard understood the parking garage is an expensive maintenance animal, continuing to for the city staff. when these in these options that we have part of the comprehensive plan was requesting some you know updated traffic studies and things like that will we have any of that information before we do this development to know what that what those implications look like how much how much traffic we're going to see back there how much parking demand each one of these options is going to be we've been engaged with the traffic consultant through this process and we will have we will have information at the concept plan okay great thank you it's all dependent on the uses that Right, right.

And the size, they calculate the size of the uses, the housing. If we had those all packed numbers, we could. Tables and traffic with traffic, trip generation studies and things like that. Okay, thank you.

We also have a parking consultant that is doing projections for this project and also doing a district-wide parking study so we know if there's any deficiencies district-wide that we can address, plus to make sure this project doesn't negatively impact anything throughout the district. Great, thank you.

Could I add one piggyback comment on the financial studies? I just wanted to add, too, for a comfort level to a degree that Panzeca is currently the owner's representative looking at some of the market feasibility commentary, but there is a pretty comprehensive approach of several consultants on the finances, including Bricker Graden, as Greg mentioned, looking not only at potential return on investment or pro formas, but also at potential structures that could improve the return on investment, like the specific TIF terms or specific district-focused assessments. And then RDL, our design firm, also has a cost estimator looking at this to further enhance the feasibility of their own work. And Silverload Consultants is an economic impact firm that we've engaged previously and that we're currently reengaging to add some additional high-level insight on market feasibility of several uses. So there is a complementary approach to a number of firms working on this, although they serve different uses.

I just want to add that there was also some initial traffic studies on the three separate plans that was available at the open house. I think, is it available online? Is that information available online? Not at this time. Okay, I'm just curious. It can definitely be added.

Greg, maybe if you can find anything in the literature or publications that RFP versus RFQ and the pearls and pitfalls of either one and maybe it's out there.

Yes, we'll do that for everyone's reference.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, next up is Emily.

So let's jump back up here. So Greg had mentioned a little bit of the process overview in the beginning in terms of community engagement. But as several of you are well aware, there were three charrette sessions held to create 17 plans directly by residents. And then the design consultant team created three plans incorporating the preferred elements of each of those. And it was those three plans that were presented at the most recent engagement at the end of July. And there was a subsequent survey that stayed open for another several weeks for input on those. So I have a couple notes at a high level on what the preferences were at that point in the process. So this is the information guiding that next single plan that will be presented August 22nd. So on the north or the residential side of the plan, the preference was for plan one at that event. And that plan included single family homes, town homes, and duplexes. So to Ms. McCoy's point, some of the housing that initially came up in some of the engagements has largely fallen off through the subsequent engagements with additional input. So the focus is to keep those lesser density type homes. That plan also came up as the overall preferred use and it included a community center and a market hall on the south side. But it did seem that the overall preference for that plan was more so driven by that desire to stick with those particular housing types. Plan three was the highest ranked individually for the south or non-residential uses and it included a boutique hotel estimated at about 48 rooms as well as a 20,000 square foot market hall. And then Plan 2 included the grocery store and community center, as well as a history and nature center for non-residential. And its residential was probably the greatest mix of uses, including the level of apartments based on some of the Charette input. But again, those ended up becoming the lowest rated. So both for the grocery and combined market hall, or I'm sorry, the grocery and community center shown in Plan 2 were the lowest rated for the south side. And then the housing mix was lowest rated for the residential side. And then the engagement also sought some additional detail on desired amenities within some of these uses because there were some mixed ideas in the open-ended comments from past engagement about, well, what is a community center? What is flex space? So we sought some additional detail on that and learned that some of the top amenities desired either within a market hall or a community center or some future structure were a flexible event space for community-focused events, indoor and outdoor dining spaces, prepared food, more of the grab-and-go style type, potentially a coffee shop, and other types of community programming. And then when looking further at the community center, flex space, and market hall, which were some of the key semi-public uses, the community center had the highest number of respondents indicate that they actually did not support the use at this site, whereas the market hall was the lowest number of do not support. and the flex space was somewhere in between. Some of the top concerns expressed were about traffic, expectedly, and the potential for oversized facilities that could potentially become underused. So it was actually some of this input through the past several rounds that encouraged the city to seek some additional market feasibility study because one of the community's concerns was about feasibility. Some of the top hopes for the site were focused on adding community gathering spaces, increasing downtown foot traffic, and maintaining charm and green spaces. From a financial standpoint, we did survey people on their preference of the level of recovery desired. And the simple majority of respondents at 52% indicated that recovering the city's $11 million investment is either important or extremely important. So based on this combination of feedback, the current working draft that the design team is conceptualizing right now is expected to use the north side of plan one and the south side of plan three as the general foundation or blueprint and make adjustments from there because those had the strongest preferences as a cohesive design. So the plan, again, to further on how it will change from those foundational pieces, it's currently in the works to be reduced to include just single family homes and townhomes on the north. So it's losing the duplexes that were in that overall site use at the last engagement. And the south is expected to include a market hall with a reduced size to respond to some of those comments about charm and scale and the potential for oversized uses. So the market hall is reduced in size tentatively from 20 to 15,000 square feet. The boutique hotel is being enhanced in a couple ways to complement Hudson's character and just speak to that desire for a certain scale and level of charm. and a better incorporation or integration into the community space, the outdoor community space. Flexible space that can be used for community events and potentially private rentals is an important component of this and it's being studied for the hotel and the market hall. there might be some different level of use for that type of use in those two different buildings. So for example, within the market hall, flex space might be more community event oriented, whereas in the hotel, it might be more small conference private event rental oriented. So the consultants are still working through that public input. And then finally, the design team is also working to emphasize pedestrian and green space connections. and generally just play spaces and flexible outdoor gathering and lounge spaces for the community to gather. And then I think this was already mentioned by Dr. Weinstein, but I just wanted to also mention that, again, although some of the uses that were studied didn't come up as the top preferred for Clinton Crossing, they still had some appreciable interest, like the community theater, the nature center, history center, rec center, dog park, a lot of things that might be desired elsewhere. So staff is tracking to review and study those further for possible future budgeting.

I did have some comments on the preferred plan. Thank you for sharing that overview. I don't know if I could, Dr. Bird, if I could share them. I know you're going around. Go ahead. Okay. Well, I think you're doing that the right way. I really like how... When they've looked at this land in the past, they said, this is what we're going to build. I really appreciate and like how you're getting the community feedback, community ideas. I think that's the right way to do it from grassroots. And I think the preferred plan is matching what I'm hearing a lot in the community. And that is people want more housing in Hudson. People want wellness. I didn't understand the grocery store, why there was such a, or food. And then talking to residents, they explained to me, no, more healthy food healthy options because we don't have drive-through or you have to go to the restaurant and wait grab and go healthy food and they seem to want that in a market hall which was interesting to me i do like that the duplexes are gone in its townhouses i think in our code that matches what is in the surrounding community right townhouses are downtown Single-family homes are downtown. I think that's really the housing you chose is going to match the neighborhood. And I know hotel is a need and has been a need in Hudson for some time. And a boutique hotel sounds like a really good direction. My concerns are with the workspace. I mean, I understand because you want to support the market hall, and I think it's great. If you have some businesses that are already interested in that, I just think of all the vacant space we have in Hudson. As I'm driving, you know, I'm seeing office space after office space is vacant. That would be my only concern is to really look and study that. Also, with a hard-scaped plaza, just a lot of impervious surface, I would just... look at in your plan how you're going to incorporate green space in that and the transition between the the areas right because it's one full area but how does the market space transition to the neighborhood and so i think that is going to be key and how this all fits together but i think this is a really good start it's very exciting for the community so thank you thanks i'm going to go counterclockwise this time but

I've got some comments. I have a contrary opinion to Ms. Smith. I'm actually very disappointed because when, and this is the level of detail I go to on these things, I looked at the drawings first. I studied them to see what they were. They were all exciting. Not so excited about the apartments, but I wasn't worried about that because I heard the presentation this morning that they were sort of on the back burner, if not taken all the way out of the kitchen. But I sat down looking at District 5, and that's where this is, and it doesn't matter that this would possibly be a planned district. It must include uses that are either permitted by right or permitted as conditional uses in the district. Market Hall is not mentioned, nor is it defined. I was very curious where they're getting their ordinance authority for including a Market Hall in this.

Just a brief note on that item. It's quite possible that these final uses may require amendment to the code.

Absolutely. That's exactly the song I wanted you to sing for me, Greg, because we don't have a market hall in our zoning code. And that means you all have to be prepared to make that amendment. And then this district has to be amended, which of course staff will help you get that done. But the district has to be amended to allow it to be there. And then we also have to talk about the square footage. I'm going to run through just some examples of what really disappointed me when I started looking at the permitted uses and the conditional uses. There's nothing wrong with something being a conditional use. That's okay, it's not bad. It just means we have another layer of review. When we loop back around to talk about what this process is actually going to look like, the planned development, I am not sure how we deal with the conditional use under our planned development review. If we're looking at a conventional review, we have subdivision, which will be happening because of the residences. That is potentially a separate review. We have conditional use review. We have architectural review board review for the design. We have then the planned development, I'm sorry, on the conventional, then we've got the site plan review. So we're looking at, potentially one to three layers of review for each use. And you can think of that in a big group. So each house is not a separate use all the houses in the subdivision of the use. Um, but the market hall potentially would be its own. It could be its own review process for all of the things that it needs to be. And I just want to call these to your attention. Um, mostly to scare you. Okay. So for the market hall, because of the size, the best I could do is to put it under, uh, if it functions mostly like a restaurant, all right, we can have it as a conditional use in district five. between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet. Plan one wants a 20,000 square foot. So we'd need some sort of a variance for that. That's a BZBA review. That's in addition to whatever else we're doing. And it must be part of a plan development. So now we can't have it be a separate traditional conventional review. And it becomes a conditional use if it's within 200 feet of a residential use. That's across the street from residential uses. You are less than 200 feet. That now becomes a conditional use. Under number one, I'm just gonna stick with plan one for now. The co-working space and the flex space will both probably be conditional because of their size. Important that they would not be contiguous and be able to expand to become 20,000 feet of office space because that's not allowed in this district. Community centers are not defined in our ordinance and they're not permitted in district five. In plan one, there was the small community theater. The way we have it defined in our land development code, it's an entertainment facility. And it is a, Conditional use as long as it provides entertainment for a fee. So no free shows. Um, this, the residential is no issue in this because those are all permitted uses there. Um, so those are the, those are the things on the playground on this one would be permitted to come in as a public park as a permitted use. So, so what I looked at was that, um, not, not even beginning to talk about the density issues on the, or question, I should say, not issue, the density question on the residential. We'd need a variance for the market hall. We'd need conditional use permits for the co-working space, the flex space, and the small theater. And then the community center would just not be allowed without an amendment to the ordinance. The rest of the plans were similar. Okay. Just so you know, this was, it's not, plan one is not the worst. I agree that the residential is absolutely the best plan. I loved that. But So what's disappointing is that by the time we got to this level of detail, I thought we might have references to the code that people would have said, oh my gosh, we can't have a 20,000 square foot market hall without a variance, or we can't have a community center because it doesn't exist in our code. And that's what was disappointing to me. So we're going to get into more detail, I'm sure, later.

I guess to counter, the code should be a mechanism to give... us, our vision of the community and what we want to see. So for the residents are telling us this is something they want to see. I think we, we could be open to changing the code as Greg mentioned to, to allow something like that.

So, Oh, I'd agree with you. Absolutely. I would. But my concern is that we would fast track the amendments that we want to get this project through and the other amendments that are right now kind of languishing with no action on. I mean, we need to deal with density first council. You won't have to take issue on then take action on density before we do this and we can't fast track those amendments so that this comes through while everything else that's important for the rest of the city gets sidelined. So I agree with you, Nick.

So, Greg, the density in these, are they not consistent with what we have now?

The densities would fit within the current framework of the zoning code. For reference, currently single-family detached is allowed at 8 dwelling units per acre. Townhomes are allowed at 20 dwelling units per acre. I anticipate this project would not come close to those maximum thresholds.

So, Sarah, thank you for laying out all those inconsistencies and, you know, was it the Chinese that had the same word for challenges and opportunities? I mean, we think these are not insurmountable. Right. And I think they can... once we get aligned on them, we can move them fairly quickly. But we could go back to Angela and she could talk about how great it was. Could you just repeat that again?

It's been vacant for so long. The land has been vacant for so long, I think there is an appetite to come together and do something.

Yes, yes. All right. Moving counterclockwise. Kyle, anything?

Not much to Ms. Norman's point earlier. I believe she was referring to the density discussion that we had at a workshop, might be a month ago at this point, give or take across the city. I know I've spoken with a few of you to some degree. I think our general approach was we had There were some reservations from certain members and maybe a desire to send it back with suggestions to Planning Commission.

Information also from legal as well. I know we were getting some information on the plan development, but then there was also a reference to legal concerns about density or inconsistencies with the density.

She mentioned it being languishing, and I wanted to kind of assure that there was some sort of plan on that.

Okay, I appreciate the communication because that had not come back to me yet, so thank you for that.

I think it's, as Dr. Bird said, there was a question from legal, and I think we haven't had a meeting in two weeks, but there had been some desire to send that back with some suggestions was my understanding. But can't do that now, but some transparency for you. Yeah, otherwise, I very much enjoy just watching the process take place. And I absolutely believe that the resident input and creation of the design should then in turn inform our decisions to amend the code to be what the people want um i don't want to be confined by what the code may be today when we can change it to fit what the public wants that's all

Yeah, my comment was just going to be regarding the density. And I appreciate all the work you guys have done regarding that. I guess even when you presented that at the beginning of July, I was kind of confused. It felt like a rush of why that density was becoming so much into talk. So flip side, I do think Clinton Crossing is really important. I do think the density is also important, but I don't want to prioritize all this time spent to make sure that we're going back to the density and maybe focusing on Clinton Crossing just because it's in the forefront and we spent so much time with the city and the engagement with the community and then maybe circle back around and have it out this year of what we're going to discuss regarding the density that you brought up with us. I feel like there's a couple different things I'm trying to focus on. I just want to make sure that we're giving each enough time and, you know, really studying it because there is a lot with the density.

450 pages worth, yeah.

Yeah, I'll just piggyback on what Councillor Duramo said. So, you know, we're hearing from residents what their priorities are. And as Ms. Smith said, right, we hear from residents they want something done here, right? And they want it to be their priority. based on their feedback and what they want in this space. This is what we are hearing is a priority for our community right now, right? So this is kind of on our priority list. This is high on our priority list because that's what we're hearing is a priority for our community. In terms of the code, I agree with what Mr. Brezovic said and I you know, you know, we don't want to do the cart before the horse, right? I don't want to put a bunch of code changes before you that would don't apply right? So if it what like take the dog park, for example I don't want to put a code change it allows a dog park if it's not in the final plan and Why have 20 different code changes that are never going to happen in the plan by the time we whittled it down? So I think this is a great time to actually start talking about when we get to the final preferred plan, which we're so close, to then talk about, all right, now what are the code changes that we need to make this vision the community had a reality to make sure that it is possible in our code and fitting?

Two things. One, and maybe Brian, you know this, I've heard Katie Benke talk about that we don't have an occupancy problem, vacancy problem. Or is that when she's just talking about businesses downtown? She said it was up near 90%.

Usually she's addressing businesses downtown. I don't think that we have an overall vacancy issue, but when she talks about that, she's talking about downtown.

I can add briefly to that. We certainly have some vacant office space, but from a Class A standpoint, the newer, higher quality offices, especially those in First and Main, have been at a very high occupancy. So within that market, it's been very strong.

And then my second, what I've heard back from residents, is they're afraid we're not going to make a decision, that this has been ongoing for so long. And we've got to make a decision. And we also have to know we're going to have some people angry. But that's what leaders do. You make a decision that you think is the best for the whole community.

I just want to reiterate. the comprehensive plan does best represent what the community wants. And I don't know how we would possibly square with however you're suggesting that the community wants something different than what they just said in a comprehensive plan. I don't know how that could.

I don't think she said that Fred, just to cut in. I don't think that's what Dr. Gatz was really suggesting. because the comprehensive plan wasn't particular, and Chelsea and Jesse will have to tell me if I'm misquoting this, but I do think the comprehensive plan was looking for the concept of what's been presented here. And I do take to heart what Dr. Goetz says. I mean, I feel gun-shy here. This is iteration, I think, three that I've lived through. I might not have paid attention to the first one. So there is concern, but I hear what your point is. We can't look at a limited-size charrette or public engagement with ice cream cones or what have you and supplant what went into the comprehensive plan. And so I think just from me listening, I do think we're bridging both of those concerns. And if I'm out of line on that, say so. But I hear and respect what you're saying, and I also respect what Dr. Goetz is saying.

We want to follow what the comprehensive plan said. But in that box, there are going to be things that people are not going to understand. Right. And that as leaders, we have to go with what we think the majority of the community wants, but also sometimes what we think is best overall for the community. Everybody might want a parking garage, but that's not really the best thing for the community in terms of cost. Izzy.

I get the feeling that Council is looking, or some of the comments back to Planning Commission, is that what Ms. Norman said is saying we don't want to do this, where she's trying to tell you that the concerns for the code exist. And we can't usurp those issues without at least identifying that they exist in the first place, which was what we had brought to Council months ago about plan development. To your point, yes, the code can be changed. Are we willing to change it? Yes. We need the guidance from you and what you would like us to study and focus on on how to change that. Is that specifically planned developments for this development or is it the density discussion? What that looks like. Nobody up here is saying we don't want this space developed because we all do. We're all community members. We've all been sitting here doing it. And publicly, I was one of the loudest you know, anti-phase two developments at the time. But that was that specific development in the plan that was in play. And in fact, our staff would tell you that some of these images that they have were similar to what I presented to council over 10 years ago. A scaled down version of what was proposed then. So I don't think what Ms. Norman was saying was, we can't do this timeout, we're not doing this. She was trying to present that there are issues at hand that planning commission absolutely has to acknowledge exist. And we want guidance from you. How do you want us to address those when the time comes? Because we can't just throw them out with the bathwater. We want to see this through. We know that staff is going to put an excellent application together for us. We know that, but changes are going to have to be made. Tell us how you want us to guide that through.

That's well said. And very truly, if, you hand us a plan development and we have not made changes to the plan development chapter, I am probably going to refuse to approve it because I'm afraid that if I do, I will put the city in jeopardy because our guidelines, I don't feel like I have a comfortable leg to stand on presently. I want to approve this, but I don't want to put my city at risk of expensive litigation. So that's why our collaboration is so key. So Jesse's right. I don't tell you about all of these problems because I don't like the project. I tell you that if you send me this project right now, I'm going to be asking where the variances are. I'm going to be conditioning things on getting conditional use permits. There are going to be processes that will be engaged because of the way the law is right now. It's the red flag for you and nothing more.

So I think at the beginning, and don't misunderstand us, but the expectation is that if we go down the plan development path, it will be fixed before we go down the plan development path.

I did hear you say that. Thank you.

So yeah. And yet, I don't think any of us saw your pointing out the challenges as not supporting the project. You were pointing out the challenges that we will tackle and deal with.

I mean, thank you for that, Jesse. I think that was well said. On plan developments then, while we're here, I think there's, at least in my view, a misunderstanding. You said there's problems with plan development and you need direction. I, sitting here, feeling like okay, please bring us what's the fix for planned developments, and you're saying you need direction from us. What direction do you need from us sitting here right now to tackle the problems with planned developments?

Well, I think that that's what our subcommittee had started to get material to you. Part of what we discussed just last week was this meeting, right, and what we can do getting some feedback from legal as well as the things that need to be changed and how we do them so that that can be presented to you Very sound.

And where we left off, remind me, Nick, I think the ball is in your court, but if it's not, tell me we, I'm going to try and do this by memory.

Okay. Go for it.

We decided that what we needed to recommend to council was to limit plan developments to about five specific districts. They were five, seven, Parts of 8, we were going to ask to limit geographically. And I had it all pulled out, and I left it at home.

No, I haven't.

Hold on. Yeah, primarily 5, 7, 8.

5, 7, 7 overlay district, 8 with conditions, and district 11. Yes.

Yeah.

So that was the first part, to tell you, all right, change the land development code instead of allowing planned developments as a permitted use in all districts, limit it to these. Then the second part was to, I'm not sure where you're going. Oh, the purpose statement, that's right. The first thing we were going to do was to redraft the purpose statement to give it some more, to amplify it for our understanding. So that when we are implementing that chapter, we can point to the purpose statement, which we're required to implement across the land development code, for applications that come into us so if there's a purpose statement we have to read it and we need to you know abide by it and fulfill it and to amplify that purpose statement and then the third part was that if we can get those two things through council then we will work on developing those guidelines, and we may end up with, I think we said we might end up needing three sets of planned development guidelines, because we allow planned developments on as little as two acres, as large as five acres, that's a mid-size, and then as big as 50 acres in D11. Those are three very different project sizes. I'm gonna spare you, the reading that we did in preparation for that meeting from the American Planning Association. But we read about 100 pages of material related to plan developments and how one size doesn't fit all. That was the big takeaway. The limit on the districts, the change of the purpose, we would get to you. If you all would pass that, we would work on the guidelines. I would love to try and get that done by the end of this year, 2026. I think we could do that.

Let me say the districts one more time, because I have D2, 4, 5, 8, overlay, and 9.

So we discussed specifically for plan development District 5, District 7, 7 overlay, District 8 with conditions, and District 11.

I can jump in. So I think the subcommittee in planning commission was looking for just direction from council that they're able to look at and review that section. So it also came up in the subcommittee that council could potentially put a moratorium on plan developments now and give them It would not require that step of more amendments leading up to the big amendment. We're not anticipating any plan development reviews in the coming months. We've only done one of these. That could be an option. A moratorium is established and then the subcommittee can continue the work and the staff can bridge the two boards and give you your resources to be able to complete that work.

Right.

The discussion was at one of our planning commission meetings before we created the subcommittee was, is this what council wants us to do? We'll get started and give you the first layout. Here's our proposal. Here's what we want to do. And then getting your, okay, yes, this makes sense for what you're intending to do as planning commission, that we could continue the work.

So I'll just say that, in my opinion, I'll speak for myself, I think Clinton Crossing is not our only priority, but among our top priorities, right? So as you're thinking about kind of what we're doing, we have a timeline that the city staff has put together, which we can provide more details on the timeline if you'd like more details on the timeline so that you know when certain pieces we would like to have in place by that time period. For me personally, I'm not looking for a perfect plan development code that was already used for 1st and Main before we get to Clinton Crossing. I'm not looking for a perfect plan development code for District 11 for Clinton Crossing. So if you're thinking about how I'm prioritizing this, and when we're talking about all the different parts of the city, what I am prioritizing right now is Clinton Crossing. I want to get something the community likes. I want to be able to get it to you all to look at a concept plan. I want you all to be able to review it, to have those public hearings. I want to try and match the timeline that we've come up with so that the community can see that we're continuing to engage with them and they continue to see movement moving forward. So for me, if it was we want to debate over District 11's plan development for the next eight months before we get back to Clinton Crossing, that's not okay with me personally. This is how I'm prioritizing this right now. So kind of getting with the timeline, we have an idea of when we might potentially or when you might all potentially see a plan development for Clinton Crossing. So if we could have whatever you need to do that by then, I think that would be great. It doesn't mean we won't do the other things, but if the other things are going to stall this, I don't want to stall this, if that makes sense.

It does. I am going to say as volunteers, we might need a little bit of wiggle room on the deadlines. Not a lot, but I'm just not sure. That's why I said at the end of the year. I don't know what that would do.

I think it would help when we were thinking like when, because it'll take time for an RFQ or an RFP, whatever we go with. You can't just do it. You can't have it with it. You have to have certain time periods. So all of this, by the time you actually, so you would see a concept plan potentially before then, I think. By the time you saw beyond a concept plan and something using a plan development, I think would not be until next year, right, is what we had the ish.

I anticipated a developer might be ready to formally apply to the city next summer.

Do we have any legal issues looking at a conceptual plan and then changing plan development code that doesn't create any sort of issues? I know once the application is there, they write, it's not invested.

We don't anticipate that, but that's something that we'll look at further before that formal application.

The concept plan should not be invested. Right. Didn't we discuss that, Nick?

Correct. In the concept plan review criteria does not directly reference the plan development review, so we're separated a bit from that. Okay.

I just kind of want to finish my initial. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. No, I mean, there was a lot of good discussion. That was great. So, you know, I like the idea of on Dr. Weinstein's point there of, you know, bring us that initial limitation of district and purpose statement so we can get rolling on that. And then you can focus on. Would it be a 50-acre planned development?

This would be a smaller one.

Because we're looking at 20 acres. So that midsize planned development, focus on that one because that's the Clinton Crossing one, right? And so we can prioritize that way. And then the second piece obviously being all those points you brought up about the conditional uses and the variances. And obviously I think this council will be ready to move quickly. on any required changes to the code. You guys will have to do that work, obviously, once we have the concept plan and you know where to hone in on. But there's not really any direction we can give you on that right now. So I hope that's some amount of direction for you on plan development and we're not stalling you or holding you up in any way on that anymore.

I just want to say I think it's exciting that we're finding all these challenges here because if you find them up front, then we will have an incredible plan and an incredible place. So I do think that this is a really great working relationship going on here.

Kind of relatedly, I think on the density issue, I would just say my point would be the same. We see the housing density that we see in these proposed plans fits with the current code. So in terms of prioritizing, For me, I personally wouldn't suggest you spend a ton of time talking about density in other districts when this is a priority and the housing already fits with the current, the density and the densities you're thinking about anyway, if that makes sense, right? So I'm not saying don't do it. What I'm saying is how I'm thinking about prioritizing things.

We already did it.

That falls in your court.

We don't have anything left to do on it until you act.

Maybe just for one brief orientation on a very general level, The preferred plan is looking to target about 65 housing units across 17 acres, gross density of about four units per acre. So about half of what the max code is on single family. Now it's gotta convert to net density so that may go up in touch, but it gives us a framework.

Okay, are we back to Nick now?

Nick. So just to wrap up our discussion and our intro on page six, we look at final direction and I know we've talked on these topics, but one, it appears that we're in unison on the concept site plan review and the city advancing that effort. So that goes back to that timeline on the previous page, but we can adjust those as necessary. But we wanted to hear your collective thoughts on the initial step of advancing the concept site plan review. And then as we just talked about advancing the, the LDC amendments relevant to the plan development process, it appears council's direction was for the subcommittee to, to bring those initial, um, um, recommendations to council to get that in motion. So I think those are just, just two jumping, jumping off points that we, we can have a final direction on that. Um, leaving this meeting, then we'd be in good shape. Some head nods. OK.

I think the concept plan is a good idea, because I think, at least what I've seen, and I'm new. I've only been on planning commission a year. But I see that developers or people, when they bring concept plans, they learn a lot. And I think planning commission learns a lot. And it really helps save time and reframe direction. And I think that would be really positive. And I think the community wants this after all these meetings. So I think that would be great next step is the concept plan. I think that'd be wonderful. They can keep, you know, doing the legal work, you know. I'm not on the subcommittee, but our subcommittee can keep doing what they do. That's their expertise and keep it moving forward, right?

There's probably spots available.

What? There's spots available. Always empty seats. remember when i first moved to hudson and my husband was like what is this and he's like this is the old bus lot i'm like what are they doing he's like you need to read about in the paper so i think it is it's exciting i think it's an opportunity for all of us to come together so it'll be good their thoughts about the concept plan

The questions you want us to answer, Nick?

No, we'll continue to develop the idea of the pattern book and we'll provide more information on that. But it seemed like both sides, both boards were interested in pursuing that. And then we'll work on those timelines further in the coming months.

Go ahead. I just briefly appreciate everybody taking the time for another discussion. another night meeting is very helpful for staff to get feedback from both council and from planning commission. And this, this will help us as we're engaging in community August 22nd and working towards presentations to both, both of you in the coming months.

This is, if we're doing wrap-up comments. I think at our committee meeting, we assigned homework to Mr. Thomas. And he's probably not ready to give his report on it yet, so I don't want to put him on the spot. But in the spirit of just mentioning the complexity of the issues, The way that our system is set up, our process, is that the planning commission makes a recommendation to council, and that recommendation is not final or binding, and so no one has a right of appeal on it. Council makes a decision, which did we say was legislative or is that what we're figuring out? That's what we're figuring out because if it's a legislative decision, it can't be appealed. It's subject to referendum. However, You aren't the last place it stops. It comes back to us and we make the final decision. And I put final in quotes because the only thing we can do is see if what the applicant has said they're doing matches what we told you that you said they had to do. Okay? So that would be a final appealable administrative order from the Planning Commission that would be appealed, if they didn't like the outcome, to you, which you just sent it to us, but that's okay. The appeal would go to you, and then the appeal would go to the Court of Common Pleas if they were unhappy with your decision. This is really messy, and that's one of the things, Mr. Brezovic, that we will absolutely clean up as soon as Mr. Thomas gives us the report on what way to do it. And I happen to notice, just as I was doing my homework tonight, just to keep it even more complicated, when we enter into a development agreement, that's a legislative act, too. That was with the city. You all approved that. and that legislative act is potentially subject to referendum as opposed to being an administrative decision that goes through an appeals process. That is my clarification.

Stay tuned.

Same bad time, same bad channel for Mr. Thomas' update.

Yeah, Kyle was too young to get that reference, but... Any other comments or questions? This has been great. I really appreciate hearing the your perspective and the challenges that you all will face and the ones that we all will face. And I'm really encouraged that, like some of you, you've all said, we want to make this happen. You guys want to make this happen. We're going to get it done, come heck or high water, and we're going to work through this. And it's encouraging. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, staff.

Thank you.

We're still in order here, everybody. Are you ready for us to adjourn? All right. I will therefore adjourn this joint workshop for the Planning Commission members at their special work session, and our portion is adjourned at 9.01 p.m. on August 10th.

I would like to adjourn the city council special meeting. And we're adjourned at 21.02.