Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

to the Kyoga County Planning Commission meeting for Thursday, December 11, 2025. It's 2 p.m. Annette, can you please Mayor Bur here? Black here. Mayor Daily Jones here. Director Deber here. Mayor Gallow here. Fields. Mayor Curts. Mayor Orut here. Josephi here. Mayor Rice here. Mayor Willow here. We have a form.

Okay. Thank you. Um, is there anyone here for public comment? Nobody has signed in for public comment. We'll move to item number three, the approval of the minutes for October 9th, 2025 forward meeting. And I have a motion to approve those minutes. So move. Second. Moved by Mayor Burke, second by Mayor Orcut. Any questions or corrections on the minutes? See none. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. That motion carries. We'll go right into the resolution.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining in a busy month of December. Welcome. Mayor Curts. You haven't missed anything yet. Uh the first item that we need board action on today is resolution number 251211A. This is requesting approval of a resolution to amend resolution 211014A, which was previously adopted on October 14th, 2021 to further revise county planning's professional development policy. Um, so when I started back in 2021, we did not actually have a policy. There was a lot of things that were just the way we did things, and we didn't actually have a standalone policy in the uh policy procedure manual. So we uh brought that forth to the board in October of 2021 and that became a new section in our policy procedure manual section 521. Um since then we have had a couple different issues with fiscal requirements changing. So there's a required forms that must be submitted in advance of the event taking place to estimate what the expenses will be. There's an approval to attend and then there's also the expense report. So we had a lot of things that were coming up that were just kind of questions or like it wasn't very clear in the policy. So in order to make it crystal clear and clarify some of the language, we wanted to make sure that we updated the man the section of the manual um for this policy. The other piece was we had it in there that it was all subject to budget availability. This became very clear in this most recent year of budget availability and you know how it relates specifically to the job. job commitments you have and then measuring that across trying to make it fair to all employees so that not just one set of people couple people get to do things but really trying to be equitable with staff. So just wanted to make sure we clarify that language. Um so now we have the policy which will still be 5.21 in

our manual but it's also got an appendix now which has the actual forms that are required. They're referenced in the document in the various sections and they're attached as an appendix. to the actual policy which before they they weren't. Um so if this is approved by the board, it'll become effective immediately. We'll have all staff [clears throat] acknowledge receiping copy of this new revised policy. Thanks Mary and thanks to you and your team and Wes for assisting also on that.

Uh anybody have any questions or comments about uh the policy for us questions? Okay, I'm going to make a motion to approve the resolution before us. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mayor Jones. Um, any comments or questions? That's why I thank Jennifer for helping me because I think every time we think we're being clear it's never clear enough and was very good clean eye to take a look at it make sure we were not being redundant but okay if there's nothing else all those in favor say I

I those opposed that motion carries thank you uh this is going to be an information only presentation so the hard work is over so that was our one and only board meeting action item. Um, but we really wanted to give you an update. Petra is going to walk you through an initiative that some of you are familiar with that we've had some recent conversations with, but we thought it was appropriate at this time to talk through it with the board. Not asking for any action at this time, but more information um purposes at this point.

Thank you, Mary. Thank you, members of the board. Uh, happy to be here today to talk about a potential new initiative um called the Kyoga County Unified Zoning Code. That's a working title, so that may change. What we're going to talk about uh first is setting the stage. You all should know about many of the ongoing zoning issues that we've presented on and have talked about here previously and many of the improvements that we've been attempting to make with partner communities. Uh we want to talk a little bit about zoning initiative is underway, but also talk a bit about the issues that that uh keeps on on the plate and how we think this idea of a unified zoning code proposal could uh affect greater change in the future. And then we'll talk a little bit about how much that would cost.

There we go. Okay. So, first is the ongoing zoning issues. Uh, as you know, as we've looked at codes throughout the single family zoning propos single family zoning project as well as the transit oriented development project, we know that many of the codes, the zoning codes throughout Kyoga County are outdated. Often communities don't have the ability to update their maps, their districts, or their code languages. Uh, some communities have been able to update their code, but it hasn't been holistic. Other communities have gone through the process of making holistic updates. Um, but when we think about single family zoning, when we think about to, we recognize that individual updates would likely require multiple years and significant individual expenses by all of those communities. Um, often, uh, codes don't include modern features. They may include static maps. Many communities don't actually have the maps associated with their codes. They might have the zoning districts, but some community codes call for building setback maps or height maps that don't exist unless otherwise just printed at the community's city hall. This can be challenging for residents. It certainly can be challenging for developers. We already regardless have 59 different codes. Often those codes are at odds with existing de development. So we recognize that there are issues. We've done a number of projects that have uh further identified this. The TOD project, as we have presented here before, found that just 5.5% of land along our most frequent transit corridors was zoned in a manner that lets you build something that's close to the street, multiple stories, residential above retail. Um, we are working to address those issues, but it remains a long slot. Similarly, our First Suburbs uh analys, excuse me, for suburbs single family zoning analysis found that we have issues across the board. 41% of lots, single family lots within the single uh family districts of the first suburbs don't meet minimum lot size requirements. 48% don't meet minimum lot

width requirements. Uh Mayor Burke may be looking that Garfield Heights likely has addressed uh the changes on this map. Just wanted to know what all the blue was there. Blue was not good. Um, so congratulations on the new. [laughter] Uh, when we look at

Here we go. When we look at some of those single family homes, we wanted to illustrate this issue. We randomly picked three homes in three different communities. They happen to all look almost exactly the same, which probably speaks to some of our first suburbs having similar development patterns. Those three homes though when you look uh at the zoning and the lots show very different situations. So the uh greens are the actual lot that that home is is on. The light green is what is reserved by that community zoning codes for setbacks. The dark green is the buildable area. You can see just those three homes that look very similar. Lot widths range from 50 to 75 ft. Minimum lot size ranges from 5,000 to 12,000 square feet. very different despite looking very similar. The hatched lines is the lot size that would be required by zoning. It is almost completely different than what we actually see on the ground. We know that this is an issue. It's not the only issue. We know that parking is also an issue. Uh this graphic is from a master plan that we did a few years ago. That top right white square is a new restaurant and this is all to scale. That new restaurant is 2,500 square ft. has 90 seats and 12 employees. This is the parking that would be required by four different communities for that same restaurant. 62 units in one community, 45 in another, 34 in another, and just three in the fourth. This is all over the place. As you can imagine, developers, residents, they have challenges building when codes are so incredibly different across the board. So, what do we do with all this information? Oh man, Kevin, I'm gonna ask you to do the next, will you? Thank you. So, we do have zoning initiatives underway. Um, ones that we have been working on, communities that have been under undertaking their own.

So, South Uklid recently adopted TOD uh zoning. East Cleveland and Fairview Park, we are working with them. Fairview Park passed city council for a second reading earlier this week. North Olmstead recently passed the mall area mixeduse uh zoning as well. Lakewood and Garfield Heights are going through the process of comprehensively updating their zoning code. Next, single family zoning initiative, South Uclid, Uclid, Warrenville Heights, Brooklyn, and Maple Heights. We have worked with or they have undertaken their own zoning initiatives to address some of the issues that we're describing. What does that mean? In South Uklid and others, more than 25,000 parcels no longer need variances. We love to use South Uclid as an example. Um more than 56 new info homes after that was passed on pace to have well over a hundred new ones under construction. And what we have heard in conversations with South Uklid developers have said that that zoning makes it easy. So how do we take all of that success and expand it to the rest of the county? What we're talking about today is a unified zoning code. Um, the short way of saying is we would like to adopt a code at the county planning commission level, not a model code, but an actual zoning code that wouldn't be applied anywhere, but individual communities could then adopt as their own the county planning commission's code. This would create a faster, more universal opportunity for zoning reform, a single code that then could be used in multiple communities that choose to opt in. It would also create a single zoning map that would showcase the zoning districts of all the communities that opt in. And it would still be administered locally. While the code could be held here, it would be administered by the planning commissions, planning directors, BZAs of the communities that choose to opt in. What does that look like? This is what a normal code sections might include. Very similar to Cleveland's formbbased code. It includes applicability language and introduction legal requirements. It includes zoning districts, use

regulations, development standards, definitions, administration, and I'll come back to the last piece. Um, zoning districts uh would include a variety of districts that communities could choose from. Um, the next one, use regulations, could include optal optional add-ons like accessory dwelling units or drive-thru regulations. When we imagine the model code, all of that stuff on either end would be the same. Right now, we don't even measure height the same across different communities, let alone define things the same. We could get all of that to be standard across communities, and then provide this large section of use districts that communities could choose to apply within their community. So, if you have 40 districts in the uh Kyhoga County Unified Zoning Code, you could choose to apply, say, eight of them to your community. If for instance in the future a new um use comes in and you would like to reszone to something else, one of those districts might already be available for you to reapply to reszone to that right now you would have to adopt new zoning language and reszone. So it would prepare you for the future as well. Next we do recognize however that communities are different that there might be one thing that South Uclid and North Homestead can't quite agree on. We've included at the end what we termed the local element section. Um, and we think about this as a release val. If there's just that one thing that you're not going to be able to put up with, you'd be able to adopt a specific piece that would be different than others and have that um apply locally. This type of adoption process is not abnormal. For instance, the city of Uklid uh pointed out to us that they adopt the international property maintenance code as their own, but they make local changes as necessary. Same type of process. You would control the local administration, but the code would be held at the county level. The goal here is to maintain zoning alignment over time. We talked about a

model code that could be adopted by individual communities, but as changes happen over time, 10, 20 years from now, it would end up being different again. So, we think that this would be a way of maintaining zoning alignment. It would also create a consortium of communities that opt in. We could meet quarterly to identify zoning deficiencies. changes would be brought to this board and could be adopted and would automatically apply to those communities that opted in. Would also require, but also, we think this is a benefit, have ongoing support from the county planning commission staff to maintain an online zoning map, to develop and adopt code updates, and to respond to changes in case law. For instance, uh signage codes. We've talked about this uh when we think about this type of of approach. Sign codes were largely uh found illegal by the Supreme Court a few years ago with one of their cases. Many communities did not update their sign codes and have just kind of left them. What we could do in an instance like this is adopt sign code updates uh here and that would automatically apply to all the communities that opt in and that would help communities stay up to date. So the unified zoning code uh when we think about next steps would require identifying interested communities, seeking funding. It will not be cheap. Um enter into agreement with communities, develop an RFP or RFQ for consultants. We would ask we would uh seek to go out uh to hire a professional planning firm to do the uh code writing, though we would be heavily involved in that process to work collaboratively on adopting on developing that unified code and then assist communities with adoption. We have had some uh interest in this and I want to be clear just because your community is on here might just mean that we are interested in talking to you about this. If you see your community you've not heard about this. Those in blue are ones that have expressed some sort of interest and we're very thankful for the cities of South Uklid and Uklid for already signing letters of interest

in participating. We've also uh applied or sent in an RFP response to the city of Cleveland Heights. uh they posted an RFP for a zoning code update uh and we hope that we'll be successful in that and we've had verbal interest from the city of Maple Heights. The others on here in uh gold are ones that we have worked with in the past or that we've done zoning updates and that we think may be interested. Those in orange are communities that have recently undertaken a holistic zoning code uh rewrite so likely wouldn't want to uh undertake that again. We do think that this will be costly uh likely between $500 and $900,000 and that includes both um uh both our inind costs as well as the cost for a consultant or consultants. Uh that includes zoning firms, legal representation potentially and a firm that would be able to create an online map. County planning of course would assist with that implementation. uh funding could include foundations, economic development organizations, public contributions, and we would expect that individual communities would also contribute to this. We do, however, want to make this more affordable for communities. A single community code could take anywhere between 150 to $200,000 or more to undertake. We think that by doing it collectively, we could do it much cheaper on an individual community basis. Um though the total cost still be expensive. Um, and it likely would require an ongoing contribution and ongoing efforts from our uh office with merit's leadership to continue this over time. Next steps, we need at least five communities to begin. It doesn't really make sense for any fewer than that. Uh, we are already having conversations with consulting firms and want to meet with additional communities, but we will also need to fund raise, enter into [clears throat] contracts, and develop

that RFP. We wanted to bring that to you today to talk through That's it. Comments, questions mayor.

So, um, we're really interested in this. They know that. Um, I don't know if you all realize, but you know, Tom Byer pointed out some between 20, wait, 2030 and 2035, we will be totally built out in Ka County, which means we will have to how you going to compete. So, to compete, we be able to uh quickly quickly be able to give these um developers um answers. I don't know if you know, but Mandina is now going to have the last piece of parcel that they'll be doing for housing. That means they're already know it's just going to keep going. So, how do you become competitive? I know I'm not going to be here, but if we are not ready, we will just die on. We'll just keep recycling the same stuff people might be moving. But if we are prepared, you know, for planning, this will be easy because, you know, you don't know what site might come up. And we know that schools are changing. We know that a lot of these sites, you know, they're in different areas where within your community. Perfect example. Or like what's happening with us with, you know, um Notre Dame College. We put into place the zoning before before it went into um receiverhip. So, we were prepared, but [clears throat] you know, a lot of places you don't know what's going to happen, right? So, that was one of the reasons we were really um excited about seeing something like this. we're in for it for the long haul. Um and uh you know I wanted to tell you why you know we feel so passionate about this and why we met with them. Um it's

it's not just about the now. It's really I think it's about the future because we're going to have to compete and right now we're not competing. So you know our populations are dwindling. We just need to do something. So we thought this would be an easy way. Did you say that you've already reached out to other communities started those discussions like East Cleveland comes to mind as potentially somebody show interest in

uh that is another community that we are interested in and truthfully if you think about Uklid South Uklid East Cleveland heights we start to see a smattering of communities that are adjacent to one another more than 100,000 people live in those communities and we could see those communities all under single That is one that we've uh thought about with the new administration. We would like to reach out. We've been helping them elsewhere. Uh we think that that's an opportunity.

What I would also say, we have generally had conversations uh with the first suburbs for instance. Uh we waited a little bit to see if anybody comes in. We wanted some first uh first out of the gate folks. Um now that we have that, we think it might be a little bit easier to get further along. We are probably limited in our first set to maybe 10. I don't think this is something where we can do the entire county all at once. We think we'll start with 10. We can expand over time. Uh but we think that those first 10 would also have the greatest impact on what's in

the Thank you very much. Uh I think this is a great idea. Um I'm sure majority of our communities are are not up to date. So I think it's great that we can work together to be able to the talk about maintenance codes, uh codes for signs, things like that. I think it'd be, you know, very important for most communities to get involved with this. Um, you know, for a city like Brook Park, we're smaller. We're 7.52 square miles. We're built out. Um, but we do need to update. That's something that's very important. So, my question to you is, um, is there a two questions. How long do you think this process will take uh to to be able to build this system and how much uh would it cost initially for the five or six cities that you need immediately to start this?

So time frame the it's when will it start and then how long does it take? So when will it start? Probably when we are able to actually get both five communities at least uh who sign on as well as fundra. We'll need we'll need funding from outside entities. We have some initial uh folks that have expressed that they may be willing to contribute. Uh the cost to communities, like I said, we want it to be lower, but we don't have a price on that yet. What we are doing right now is reaching out to consulting firms and also talking internally about how much we think this will cost in total. We'll then start to winnow down um what we're able to fund raise and what we may expect communities uh to contribute. Certainly, we want to make it enticing offer to go this route rather than to have communities do it on their own.

All right. I just want to mention that I think that if there's a shortfall of communities would be interested in being involved. We would be more than happy to have a conversation and certainly can send you a draft letter of interest if you may.

I I can share it. It cost the city of Garfield Heights about 150,000 to 200,000 to rewrite our zoning and hopefully it'll be voted on here in January. What's delayed in this last month is the we didn't have anything in it about solar and you know if you think about we hadn't updated ours since the 50s and if you think about now everybody thinks that maybe they're good or you don't have language in there about solar, you would then need to update that. So, you might want to make sure that that's in this, but it's definitely uh a conversation to have.

Mayor, I think that's a great point and one of the reasons why we think that this will be successful is because we don't have to at the county planning commission, other than some of our staff with subdivision reviews, as you all know, have to do day-to-day zoning approvals, planning, development review. So it provides us the opportunity to think about some of those longer term trends that we need to prepare for and get into the code. Things like solar, things like data centers, things like accessory dwelling units, items that maybe one community may see as a potential, but then they would have to go through the research, the process, and the cost to adopt it. We would be able to use this process to make it more seamless and more time efficient to get that into the code quickly.

That's where we really wanted to to hear, you know, our we always say like friends and family pretty much that like talk through it with you. We've had some conversations again South Newton Cleveland Heights just to get some interest and um I think the big piece that we're thinking about and we're going to be very intentional about it is the education piece because the question first comes up is what about home rule? It will still be handled locally with everything done at the local level, the zoning, but you don't have to create the code. So I think it's engagement with the public. It's engagement with city council, your planning commissions, your BZAs, so that we're really the ground swell is like this is we keep saying the easy button going forward because we know developers want what's easy. Um if they look at something and can't figure out the zoning or know it's going to be four variances or three variances, it's risky. So it's time and it's money. And so I think we don't even know when people are looking at your communities and they're already leaving to go look at something else because they see that we're looking at charters to figure out some are very similar. So what are the you know the guide guidelines inside of how you're moving things, how things are done. And so there's a lot of similarities in some structures because they probably were all created around the same time. Um, but the zoning is all over the place and we really learned it with the single family zoning with the first suburbs looking at 19 different residential district codes and it's much to the example that you showed just on parking and setbacks and some of those if the house burnt down you can't even build that same house according to the zoning. Um, and so we keep hearing about with the housing prices we keep hearing about needing more housing options, rebuilding the fabric in our communities and we really think the proactive approach is getting the zoning right so that everything else comes. Um, we're not Columbus. We're not other places where we've got these vast fields of open space that we're like, okay, yes, put a thousand new homes here, but we have infrastructure. We have communities already. And how we see that infilling is really critical and the zoning is a

very big piece, you know, allowing that to happen to this may be a little in the weeds, but I'm just trying to wrap my head around um how how often would it be sort of like a version like once a year or something you you updated to version 1.3 and everybody would know that that's the version that I'm now under. Is that how it work or is it just constantly changing throughout the year? We have thought about something like quarterly meetings with coalition partners to identify issues. We would then create [snorts] potential changes, vet that with coalition partners and then bring any changes to this body to officially adopt. The way we have looked at local And the language that they would use, and Leslie is welcome to correct me, is that we could do something like uh city of Shaker Heights hereby adopts the Kyhoga County Unified Zoning Code as continuously amended. So when this body adopts a change to the code, it would automatically or within a certain time frame, like a 30-day period, would then apply within Shaker Heights. The code would live with us likely on a um a website that host the official code. So there would not be individual versions of it with the individual communities who live on a single. I

think one thing you didn't mention today, but we've talked about it in other meetings is having one zoning code map for the communities who are part of the consortium so that one someone could go and see all these different cities because they're all under the same zoning code where it is. Again, it's not trying to take away local control, but zoning is just something that is really development. So, but it's important because if someone was looking at South and we didn't have enough space for something that they wanted to to build, then they could just go and click, oh, Shaker has it or Cleveland Heights has it, you know, or Park has it. You know, these three have large enough spaces and then, you know, do their homework and we don't lose that potential to be in K County because like I you're just seeing us being closed out on so many things and you know I kind of looked at when we really sat talk about this internally I thought about our HR so I don't know about you we have all these employee manuals right well there's certain parts that are always the federal right and the feds are always changing things so it's just you insert that every year the new changes into that you know employee manual so it's always up to date what's the difference in our code. I mean, it just sits on a shelf and it's not being updated and then, oh no, here comes something and we could have had it, but it would take us a year to get that zoning. So, if you could just pull it off the shelf and pop it in there at that time needed, boom, sounds simple. I don't know if it will be not getting there, but the idea is simple.

I guess um as a council person, if I were in South still I'd want to maybe see the amended changes from the county and say here's ordinance to amend that would take care of that and they have the local element which is the last part where you can do all of that you don't have to go with just the county portion of it you can amend it

you may not think at the time you need a certain district because you don't have it now but because they exist in the code for other communities you could adopt that then to include it in yours you don't have to then create And I think we did talk about kind of a curing period where if there was a change, it would be up to the community to accept that change and accept that amendment, but we can't have the code changing locally because then you don't have code anymore. So it would be conversations ongoing as we

Yeah, I think it's helpful for sure. Thank you. I'm not saying we want to leave the west side or southside out either, but we started getting this little cluster here and it's okay. We could replicate it also in similar communities on other parts of we didn't talk about that. We we said we really hope that you know on the west side people would come forward and even maybe outer

because the reality is our outer suburbs you know are filling up and they're right behind us. So, you know, they might actually benefit this more than we would benefit from it because they could pull that code out and say, "Ah, this is great for this piece of property and we weren't even selling for this." You know, they might end up, you know, at first having u some great opportunities versus, you know, built out areas. But it also gives us the opportunity and I told them I've always wanted a techno village. Well, you know, where can I do this? Can I use existing housing? You know, these different ideas and um

look forward to updates in the future. We would kindly ask for anybody that is interested to please reach out uh and share with neighbors questions. Thank you. Okay. Uh next up, we're going to give you a financial update. Jennifer Carr will do that as we round third and heading home at the end of the year already, which is but yes. Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Jennifer Karafa, manager of business services for county planning. And I have a short agenda today, but I did want to get in front of you. I plan to share some highlights from our 2025 budget activity now that the year is winding down. Um I'll also give an update on the fiscal administration of the healthy urban tree canopy program and then close with a review of our operating budget for the next bianual. So look at the current year. Our operating budget is supported in full by the county's general fund. And in 2025, our combined budget total just over $3.1 million. And it included uh two funds. It included a 2.2 2 million for our primary operating expenses and also a program budget of about $950,000 which was initially authorized in our budget for another round of funding for the healthy urban tree canopy program but that did move out uh it moved to the soil and water district this year um as they took on the program. In general, county planning has 21 full-time employees. That does include a full-time year-round intern. Our FTE count has remained flat since 2024. As a non-executive agency, we do generate outside revenues through contracts and fee for services uh that ultimately go back to the general fund. And I'll say that under Mary's leadership and my fiscal oversight, we've managed county planning spending within a balanced budget and we've maintained our revenue commitments. So back in June, I shared with you that

our operating budget had changed from the original adopted budget to an approved budget after we had proactively identified um some shortfalls in our non- labor accounts. We were able to successfully repurpose over $37,350 in some outside revenues that we had received earlier this year and put them into our non- labor budget so that it totaled uh just over $77,000. Within that subbudget, we directed funds primarily to our employee services account and our operations accounts because this is where we were seeing uh expenses coming down the pike and we were not initially. So for most of the year we did have a working budget of roughly 2.257 million. We knew however that our salaries and benefits lines were underfunded in 2025 at that 2.179 given that last year in 2024 we [clears throat] had received an additional appropriation a subsidy of about 150,000 over [clears throat] the adopted budget because when that budget was built in 23 uh it didn't account for higher costs or funding for two occupied positions. So, we actually ended 2024 with total expenses over 2.2 million. And since 2025 is year two of the bianial budget, not cooperating. Here we go. We also knew that 2025 also did not account for all occupied positions or we found we had higher um operating costs

within county issued chargebacks, things like mail and validated parking. Everything is going up, right? So, our operating budget was adjusted upwards again this year to meet the forecast of all of our expenses before year end. We worked with OBM to advance a budget adjustment to bring our total final operating budget to o just over $2.5 million for this year. So we could take a look at some of the um detail here. This [clears throat] shows our 2025 expenses against that original budget and then the final approved budget. The first set of charts do show that salaries will end slightly under that original appropriation. Um I'm sorry, the final appropriation, but that overage will have to cover the shortfall in our total benefits. At the end of the day, salaries and benefits do collapse as a singular sub budget. So [clears throat] we will meet our budget needs there. Uh you can see though within our non- labor accounts that we did not spend down our appropriation and that was primarily the dollars that we moved in. We needed those in certain accounts, but collectively we were under um spent in our operating and other expenditures and [clears throat] even uh within our contracts account, we only spent $3,700. Um I was able to post some HUTs program expenses to that program budget which freed up some dollars here. Um But we've also postponed having a website upgrade another year. We just didn't have enough funds there. So, um, ultimately given the additional appropriation that we did

receive from county council, we will close this year within budget and then any remaining funds will be returned back to the general fund. County planning does continue to out to generate some outside revenues to offset some of the work that we do in communities and in house. Uh on average, those outside revenues average $220,000 annually since 2020, which has translated into more than $1.1 million back to the general fund, right? Um, and our current year-to-ate revenues total more than $198,000. Uh, we have a couple outstanding invoices that will come in. So, uh, we're close to meeting that average again, but I'd say it's about 200,000 is, uh, what we were shooting for this year, and we'll meet that. In terms of the healthy urban tree canopy program, we are wrapping up our five-year commitment as the fiscal agent of this program. Uh both the funding and the program itself has shifted to soil and water. Although we are still active with the program and we're still managing one final round of funding which is year five which kicked off in 2024 but contracts were active through the end of this year. Uh we pushed forward that deadline though because our fiscal office closes and so folks um we were only able to issue about 67% of that round of funding this calendar year but we expect more reimbursements next year to close out because on average we've generally issued about 90% of the

full annual award each year and we are on track to do that again. Um, a quick count tells me that we have planted over 12,000 trees over the life of this program. Um, with more since we have one active round still open. Um, one thing I'm looking at is how program dollars that were unused from PY3, four, and five could be potentially reallocated, um, viewed, descertified, and likely though returned to the general fund. [clears throat] Um I'm encouraged that the program has continued under the soil and water conservation district although I suspect it is likely to be reinvented um given that there are looking at some reduced funding for prior or future years um given budget constraints of the county and everywhere. Right.

Um we have budget constraints all around. Um our 2627 operating budget is again lean. Um it was built on using 2024 expenses as its base with a few exceptions. Salaries were based on payroll from this year from pay 13 for our agency. All commissions and agencies were timestamped for pay 13, but departments um within the county, they use pay 19. That would have made a big difference for us. Um but personnel did have a 2% cola that is supposed to be built into this budget. And we also saw that benefits were budgeted higher giving rising health care costs. So you can see that in both 26 and 27, our budget is roughly $2.4 million annually, which is less than how we will be ending this current budget year. Compared against that current final approved budget, um you can see that salaries and most all of our non- labor accounts are underfunded from those 2025 totals. Only contracts is showing an increase, but that total line item is still less than $9,000. So, not enough for that website upgrade we keep wanting. Um, or even to fund some other necessary contracts at this juncture. Um I would say that in general our operating budget the next bianual is showing that we're we're being funded 4% less over current year with the most significant reduction within our employee services account which does include conference attendance membership dues meeting attendance and mileage reimbursements. It's the work that we do

for our communities. I will say that at our scheduled November budget hearing, uh, we did recognize that this recommended budget did have some shortfalls, primarily within our personnel services account. Mary shared that both years were slightly insufficient, but that many of those shortfalls would not surface until the end of next year. So, we're hopeful that OBM and county council will address these projected shortfalls perhaps outside of the bianial budget process. It seems to be uh the MMO how we we operate that um folks that are here and and uh gainfully employed we find a way to make it work. So, I think I'll have more answers um at the new year. I am happy to answer any questions and thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jen. Thank you. That was great. I appreciate that. Listen, just in regards to the urban tree canopy, 12,000 trees planted. I'm sure maybe this is to Mary that there's already kind of an identification of where all of those trees were, you know, it's roughly about $350 per tree and how are they doing today four years later?

I think early years there were a lot of tree plans that were paid for so that people could identify where they were actually going to plant trees and plant trees where it made sense in the community. Um I know some communities tried hey we'll we'll give you a tree for your front yard and thought they'd use all the money that way and people like we don't want a tree like some of those but I mean there's been some big efforts to do um different ways of doing it. I know this year uh soil and solid weights I'm sorry soil and water is looking at which communities have applied and then they're going to work with the whoever um tree service companies that would actually then do the plantings because that is the big thing. I mean it's a huge effort for any recipient of the dollars to get the invoices they have to pay and then they get reimbured. But um I know Dan has mapped a ton of the trees when because they have to give us a location of where the trees will be planted when they do their application. I would add even 12,000 trees doesn't seem like a lot but it is contributing to the urban canopy

and as well over the life of this program which is actually six years since we started this in 2019 there has been a lot of tree inventories funded folks didn't know what they had uh there's been tree management plans so it isn't just about trees it's us tree management as well I would say a lot of communities since this program started hired or sharing an arborist in the community and with other communities because that's what we also have is the maintenance issues and disease issues and just storms and other things and try to have someone on staff or a shared staff resource that can identify which trees need to go where most

correct is that I'm assuming is healthare Yes, I think if anybody saw the articles RTA and their budget issues, I mean, I think they have a 32% increase in benefits. I mean, and I know that's something the county and county council really try to figure out what is the actual safe spot to land in the budget because we just know how much they're going up. Um, so I think they budgeted for 13 or 15, but it's really okay if there's nothing further. Thanks, Jen. Appreciate it.

Thank you all. Thank you. Okay, we will then go executive director's report. It's really hard to believe we are at December already. Um, I just want to thank all of you for your dedication and support to have everybody here today in December and how busy I really do appreciate it. Um I know we've got a couple weeks left to leave early. So just a few things I want to get through today. Um and we wrap up 2025. Um thank you and congratulations to our board members who have been reappointed. So we have Mayor Wheelo, Mayor Curts, and Mayor Dailyy Jones have been reappointed to another term. Um so they will be uh three more years. So they'll be here till December 31st, 2028. So we've got a couple other seats that'll expire. You're like, you're out. [laughter] Um, we have a couple other seats that'll expire the end of this year, but we've got time. Um, but I just want to, you know, I know a lot with the county and all the different boards and positions they have to get through council. I really thanked um the administration for getting these done by in before the end of the year because we had that a lot of times where it was delayed on the reappoints or appointments and then we were at an organizational meeting and we actually have people who had expired terms and so this is the way I like to see it so that come January one the term is approved and starting. So um and then I you may have saw when you came in and some of you were at the meeting but uh we were absolutely shocked and surprised. I think this picture tells the story. Uh we were asked by firsts Jennifer Kosma to as a former awardee to present the award for the visionary program

for the city of Bedford. So we got our talking points in order and we were up ready to give the award to Bedford. And as before I could say who we'd like to give it to I mean I told the story. I told Jennifer Kusma interrupted and said, "Sorry, change of plans. We'd actually like to award you county planning this award for your work on transitori." And so it was amazing. We got a proclamation, you know, from Executive Ronain and we were just in shock. And so, thank you to Patrick and his leadership. This was another initiative he led. Um, but we got a nice award and a proclamation and um we previously received an award from the First Suburbs, but it's just so meaningful. I think everybody knew but us and so it was a lot of fun. Um but always great to add another award to our case and continue to do the you know the work with our communities. So that's what it's really all about. Um the other thing I wanted to just give us an update on the 2025 work plan. So you saw this a couple times earlier this year. Uh this was the first year we did a work plan. We always had kind of what we were going to do and how we're going to do it but never really formalized it. So this year was the first formal work plan that we brought to you earlier this year. Um our managers were assigned to lead various elements of the plan and as we thought through this is our first year. What does success look like? We set a goal of trying to get to 80% of the metrics in 2025. So as we worked through updating our plan, we're estimating at this point a 78% completion rate for the work plan. So I think that's really close to what our goal was. Um, and I think the shortfalls were things that some of it was really out of our control. If you remember the safe streets and roads for all award that we received from FHWA, um, the delays in contracting and then the new requirements that came in as part of that contract, we deferred our decision until Q126 because we had so much other work underway and it just didn't get started when it was supposed to. Um, we do do environmental record reviews for the Department of Development for the county. Um,

typically we say this is how many we'll do based on previous years. We didn't get any until recently. Um so that was one of our goals was complete x number of errs. And just so you know it's like this is how we really have an Excel spreadsheet that we're tracking and each of the managers are reporting um progress and updates. And so we have big big versions of these in our in our big map room printing room. And so we went through not not too long ago putting green dots on all the things. And it was really rewarding to see. You don't see a lot of red. So, um that's that's a good sign and hope to do more next year. Um and then the other piece was uh the resource funding guide book that we typically do because of all the changes in federal funding um availability and maybe elimination that was not seen as something we should produce this year because a lot of things um are in flux. Um so those were kind of pieces where we had some shortfalls. But overall, I mean this is really the different metrics that we have. And so that 78% is really an average of all of these um percentages individually. And so we made some really good pro progress on things. Um obviously more to do and uh we'll be evaluating um kind of what we did, where we're going, what of these need to continue into 2026 or what new initiatives we need to be identifying. Um so really again too for community planning, countywide initiative, zoning, data resources mapping, and grant administrations. Those are kind of the categories in here. We try and see of those tasks within there. What are our completion rates and how are we doing? So, I'm I'm really comfortable for us being a first year really trying to measure things this year this year. Um I'm happy with the results and I think again there's things that have kind of held things up um beyond our control, but we'll continue to strive to do better and get these rates higher for next year. Um and our strategic imperatives are really what's driving us. And this is really where we're thinking back to we had our our new vision and our mission statement and these are the things that are the most

important to us and our agency in order to impact the communities. Um you know diversity, equity and inclusion as much as that is one of those words out there that is getting a lot of push back. I mean we are at 92% of that in our efforts and a lot of that comes from how we are charging communities based on um you know level of disinvestment or whatever it may be in terms of finances available to do the work. And so we will continue to do that and evaluate how best to support those communities that need the most support. And so again, um, good good metrics on all of these sections as well, too. So, we'll look at what we did, as I said, and we're going to be soliciting input from our team to figure out what new initiatives we need to be looking at or what needs to be modified from the ones that we did this year and advance those again for 2026. Um, so we'll be bringing this to you at our organizational meeting for the 2026 work plan. um that way you have an idea of what we're doing. And I think that's it was very important for me um as a director to report to the board. So, how do you know what we're doing? I mean, how do you know that we're making an impact and that we're being successful? And I think this is a really good way to share that information with you and I'll follow up and send you, you know, the file and the actual all the other charts that go with it. But hope this is helpful to see um any level of detail that you want to me to share, I would be happy, you know, to do that. So, um, really high level at this point. Um, so I just wanted to kind of recap the year. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things on here, but as you can see, our folks are busy. Our folks are getting involved in a lot of different things outside of our uh, four walls here at county planning, being appointed to, you know, being appointed to board uh, positions locally, statewide. Um, we've got two members of our team who've recently this year been appointed to planning commissions in their own community, which I think is amazing. I did it for a very long time in Lakewood, but being able to lend our professional expertise to the planning commissions in our community. Um, I think it's very honorable and I know it's another time

commitment for them that are already so busy, but a really great um, you know, kudos to our team and a lot of folks this year spoke either locally uh, at our local conferences or at the state conference or even outside of Ohio for other things. So, just wanted to give kudos to all of those. Laura Mendes Ortiz, which I know she's been here before. She was named to the 100 plus Latinos Cleveland visitors must know this year. So, that was really exciting. I went to the event and it was a lot of fun and I've never actually heard of it before, but um something really great for her and our young team getting out there and really getting pointed to things is is really awesome. Um so, I also want to just say like thank you to my team. Um they have been extremely generous and I hope this number is right, Jennifer. Over $400. Is that right? It's more than that.

More than that. We had 460 in cash plus two online donations. So 660

660. Sorry. So I gave Yeah. I mean, so we really wanted to do something hearing about the tanic benefits and all the things that were going to be delayed to our communities and how do we help? And the county has done an amazing job in so many different drives. We wanted to really feel like we were doing something as our team. So we got dozens of non-p perishial products and um that will be donated to the food bank as well. those that cash. Um, some have already done it online. And then we also talked about doing something for the home for the holidays for foster care. And all of these obviously are optional. Um, but people, you know, stand stood up and donated money and we were able to deliver those last Friday. Um, that will be distributed to our children in foster care. Um, and we've got news for our team. I mean, our physical team's not growing in the office, but we've got two of our employees that are going to be welcoming new babies. Um, baby striker number three. You guys have been here for all of them. I think most of you any day now. Uh Christmas baby and then Alex Long on our team recently told us all that she's expecting in spring. So, it's exciting. A lot of work still to be done and we're trying to figure out how do we uh manage that, but we're very excited for them. And I think it's it's awesome just to have the young team um a lot of a lot of great support from the family and the team here that needs to jump in and jump out as they're needed. So, um just great news to share at the end of the year.

Okay. Thank you, Mary. That's great. They I have to say also, you know, the planning commission, even though they're not part of the county executive, they are involved in just about every activity going on here in the county building throughout. So, they really chip in. I would say 80% of their staff participate. So, it's great. The cleanups are really fun when the weather's nice.

Okay. So, uh any old business? None. New business. The only item I had for new business was the draft uh meeting schedule for next year. So you remember this gets approved by you officially at the February meeting. Um so February 2026 at our organizational meeting we'll approve this but I just wanted to give you heads up on when these will be and as you know if we don't have anything on those tative months we don't have to meet but I just wanted to share those with you. Solid Waste at this time did not know when they were going to need the meeting so we just said to the which we did this year. We kind of asked the ones that would have um solid waste policy.

Okay. Thanks, Mary. That's great. Uh anything else? Seeing none, I'm going to make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you so much. I just want to thank you for all your support. And this is our team. This is the team. We just had a lunch. our uh intern is uh leaving us this week and so two people not there but we went over to AJ Roas and gave them some support because I know business sometimes is slow but they thank you too. Thanks everyone. Yeah. Happy new year. Happy new year holiday. Thank you so much.