Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Planning Commission meeting of August 17th. Roll call, please.

Mr. Shipley?

Here.

Mr. Raw? Here. Mr. Hoagler?

Here.

Mrs. Stewart? Here. Mr. Shebeck?

Here. You can join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Welcome, everyone. Our first item is a public hearing for the conditional use permit for Ignite Volleyball, 2242 Pinnacle Parkway, permanent parcel number 6406912. Here's the applicant here. Come forward and... Enlighten us on what you're looking for. I think you heard before.

Yes, correct. I came spent you guys. I think it was back in January or so. My name is Tyler Price. I'm the owner director of Ignite Volleyball. We are we took some industrial space up at 2242 Pinnacle Parkway and put it into volleyball courts. We just host all of our practices. Youth programs, camps, clinics, things like that there. And we just merged with another local club called Buckeye Fire. So we are growing bigger. We just would like to now essentially join it or move over to one additional court space we have. And there's an empty... it's called a suite uh that's right next to us that is open we'd like to just put one more cord in there to make us a little bit bigger uh it wouldn't impact as far as traffic and all that that wouldn't impact anything that most would be an additional 20 ish people in the gym or in the building uh wouldn't be anything as far as bathrooms or anything like that we're still in the evening hours wouldn't impact with any of the other local businesses we've worked with the twinsburg karate institute who is essentially our neighbor has some of the same operating hours that we do and we've worked together with them if any issues have arisen which as of right now there haven't been so that's what we're here for we want to make sure do anything right last time there were some issues with everything going on make sure you're doing the right way the proper way before we decide to move on and anything like that so very good uh any questions from the commission mr stewart no no sir

I guess with this expansion, you're still not planning on running tournaments out of this?

No, we don't have the ceiling height to run actual tournaments, so we don't even let parents stay in the building. You have to come back for the last 10 minutes. The only people that usually stay are the coaches. We park in the back, and then some of the older players that drive. Because I thought the parking would not be enough if you had to run tournaments. It would definitely not. No, not at all. Okay.

My question was about parking, so you just answered that. Sounds good. Ms. Lobby? Nothing for me. Thank you.

All right. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to address the conditional use permit? All right. Seeing none, if you could have a seat, we'll get you back up during the work session. We'll do a repeat. All right. Well, I'll move into the work session. Item number one, final site plan for Coca-Cola 2100 East Highland Road, permanent parcel 6402-305. Zapp again here. Tell us what you're looking for tonight. Sorry? If you could give us your name and just tell us what you're looking for tonight.

I'm Sharif Aziz, fresh off the plane from Raleigh. I'm representing Coca-Cola Consolidated. We're adding a fuel island canopy to refuel trucks at the back of their property. And, yeah, I think you have the site plan. Any questions? Mrs. Stewart, anything?

No, I don't have any questions on that stuff. Okay.

No, sir. Mr. Shipley. I guess I don't know the regulations on a fueling station and containment and all that. I assume that's been reviewed by engineering?

Yes, this has been reviewed by fire. Honestly, the only reason it's on the Planning Commission agenda is because of the canopy structure. The way the code is written, it's a structure. It's coming here as a site plan. And so prior to the submission for the site plan, fire reviewed it. We issued a permit for the flat work associated with sort of the raised platform for the pump to allow them to get started maybe back in July. And the canopy... meets the required setback dimensions. It's the location of the fuel islands on an existing driveway. An open space kind of created there between the existing driveway and the building. So it's really at the... It's not going to be visible from the road. This is a new location for Coca-Cola Consolidated. So they're looking to be able to fuel up their... park lifts, and other equipment.

Mr. Ball, anything?

No questions.

All right. If you could have a seat, we'll get you back up here shortly. All right. Item number three is preliminary site plan, Safran Power USA, LLC, 8380 Darrow Road, permanent parcel number 6407-210. You're already there. My name is Lindsay Foster.

I'm representing the architect firm LS Architects that has submitted the project.

My name is Chris Feldman. I'm the facilities director at Safran Power USA.

And what is it you're actually looking for from us?

So we have an initial site plan for submitting an increase in parking for the new site, a new parking lot on the site for 20 additional spots as the company has been growing, as well as an outdoor pavilion. that will be used for employee lunches on days like today where it's really nice out, but also for Saffron to host family-friendly events, employee outings, these communal things within the company to promote some social interaction amongst all the employees.

Very good. Questions from the commission? Mrs. Stewart?

I think this is a great idea for your employees to have the addition of a pavilion to enjoy, especially on, like you said, days like today.

We don't get that many of them, so it's really nice when you're working somewhere that you can take advantage of that. Right. Right.

Mr. Hogan? No questions. Thank you. Mr. Shipley? Thank you.

I just read that the setback is in noncompliance unless we consolidate parcels. Is that part of the proposal here, to consolidate the parcels? Or is it right?

We received the comments when we submitted, and we are in correspondence with the landlord who has spoken with us that he's working with his attorney. So consolidation of the lots is on the table right now. I know it's not for this meeting, but to meet that setback, we're trying to facilitate that to happen.

So if I might go out of turn here, there has been a variance approved previously for a prior parking lot expansion. I think there was a variance approved for the driveway that also spans that side lot line. I mean, neither one of these improvements are a big deal. I mean, sure, it's a pavilion, but... It's an open-sided structure. The parking lot isn't huge. The other option is to pursue more variance in applications. I don't think we love that, but we would do it for you all if you can't consolidate. I was thinking that was the case, that Safran did not own that site. That is correct.

Previously, Goodrich Aerospace, we moved into this facility in 2005. So we've been there for over 20 years now. And when we originally moved in, we had 70 employees. We currently have about 130 FTEs, full-time employees. But we have about 30 contractors, government contractors that are on site with us. And we have a very large college co-op intern facility. shift program that we work with. So we're around 170 people. And so right now we have grass and using some of the handicapped. So we're trying to facilitate our growth with this additional parking lot.

Well, and yeah, we love having you in Twinsburg and we want you to have enough parking for your your operations. I think to continue with granting more variances will do it as a last resort. If the ownership just is adamant about not wanting to consolidate or not wanting to reconfigure that, then I would hope that our Board of Appeals would work with you, but that would be on them, not on the Planning Commission. Our first...

This is sort of something new that came up. Okay. You were reacquired by a new landlord about three years ago. Okay. So the parcel, the two parcels, there was a little bit of confusion in our lease because we also have the first right of refusal for... The adjacent floor was on the other side of that access way. Okay. So it was assumed that that parcel was that. And in reality, here recently we found out that it wasn't. It's not that. So we are pursuing the consolidation. Okay. That's our first way we want to go forward. My challenge is trying to get it in before the end of the year, before the asphalt plant is closed down. Okay. And I got to deal with wintertime. Got you. But that is our preference.

So they had inquired here at the last moment, is there any possible way to come in as a final site plan? Well, you know... If I would have said yes to that today, we still would have been going to a Board of Appeals hearing, so we wouldn't have had a final answer today. But there was like a phase one and a phase two of a 2014 parking lot expansion. Yes.

And it...

Some of the parking got installed and maybe a portion of it didn't?

No, it all got installed. The phases were we had, in years past photos, we had a very large pad going out of the front door. Got you. From the previous tenant that was in there, we removed that and we got like eight or nine more spaces. Then we added some parking on the west end because we had a little bit of room there. up to the whatever the distance was allowed up to our property line or so many feet back from we added like four or five spots there to accommodate additional parking and there for a while I was narrowing the lines and I took a lot of heat for that.

Now did all of the storm water management facilities get installed as part of that? Yes. Okay. All that upgrade was done then. And like the underground chambers were installed? Underground chambers shown on that site plan.

Well, we have one, two, three, four, five, I think four or five catch basins with very large things. And so, yeah, those were all installed because we actually had those repaired twice. Okay.

in the second time if you turn the pavilion i think you can get in the setback if you put it well we and that and that's something else yeah so we had also discussed and something to uh put forth is that if we had moved the pavilion uh west towards the building the 10 feet so we are no longer in that 50 foot setback that or i can okay or i can

Or do a 90.

It would be a smaller ask to bring, say, the parking lot variance request. I mean, I could go back and read what the old one was and see how specific or not it was to allow the initial.

Actually, I don't know. Yeah.

Okay. I mean, that's where we're at. We've had numerous sort of setback issues. There's technically two lots. So to kin you down this pathway of sort of encroaching on that side lot line, it maybe becomes problematic that the city keeps issuing variances for the same area. site when there's a vacant parcel next to it. So, okay. Well, maybe we can convene here this week and see what options are. That's fine. We're happy to do whatever we can to help.

Absolutely. We definitely want to work however we can.

We're definitely willing to work with you as well.

For sure. Thank you. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you.

Item number four is preliminary site plan, metallic resources, 2368 East Enterprise Parkway, permanent parcel 6407150, 6404583, and 6405340. Is the applicant here this evening?

Good evening, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Chad Rothschild. I'm the Vice President of Financial and Legal Affairs of Metallic Resources. I'm here today with my brother, Stan, who's the president. We are second-generation owner-operators of Metallic Resources, which has moved to Twinsburg in 1982. We moved across the street on Enterprise to where we are in 2010. Last May, an opportunity came up to purchase the building next to us out of auction, which we were successful in. So now the time has come to expand even more. We thought we had all the space we would need, but we're looking for preliminary approval to add on about 40,000 square foot of manufacturing to just expand our existing operations. We are a solder manufacturer of tin-based solder products, one of the largest in North America. Our business is equipment intensive and so we're at a footprint in order to install the new equipment that we need to deploy to our customers. We're finding ourselves having to turn down opportunities. We're outsourcing certain manufacturing products to people that we would like to bring in-house so currently we're at a position where we're ready to do an expansion and we were looking for guidance from the planning commission the city planner on how best to accomplish that happy to answer any questions mr stewart anything

Mr. Argo? It's great to see all these companies adding. How many more employees would you be adding?

So we have about 50, a little under 50 right now. We would envision at least 15. All this new equipment requires people to operate. So 15 is our target, but certainly a sizable amount. Okay.

This is a setback issue again, right?

It is. This one's a little bit more convoluted than the staff.

So I can expand a little bit, perhaps, which we will be here next Monday with the Board of Zoning Appeals. Okay. The rear of the property butts up against our seven senior living residential district. To the side of us is, however, I am industrial manufacturing. As we understand that our seven lot is owned by the senior living home at the end of the street. We understand there's no current plans to utilize that space. I think the setback would be 30 feet. We're requesting 10 feet, which would be consistent with the setback next to us. That's for parking. The building itself would be 50 feet instead of 100 feet. Currently, I think the property's been owned by the current owner 10 or more years or so. But even so, if someone were to develop that, we believe there's sufficient woodland, ways we could address the downward lighting, things of that nature that will not present the types of a negative impact to someone living in a residential district.

And I assume the manufacturing, most of the noise is contained within the building, so it's just more visual and trees would probably do a factor of that.

That is correct. And then, as you can see in the plan, we've accounted for, even with the setback and things like that, to have proper emergency fire lanes, things of that nature. So that's one of the things you'll see is we own the three lots. I guess they're contiguous. So when you put the three together, we fall just under the 40% max building, the filled site. So we view this as the opportunity to grow now and into the future. We're really excited about this.

And so this one, I've let the applicant know the lot consolidation is required. Yes. Because the building addition will span the one lot line. Yes. Most of the parking sits on its own lot right now. So there's no reason not to consolidate it if you're doing this. I just would like to make the point that that R7 senior housing area that's behind the site is zoned R7 to allow for some type of accessory use that might be... supportive of senior housing on the larger part of the parcel. This would never support housing on this strip. It was just seen as a way to provide maybe some garages or storage space. So it was It's owned by the same property owner as the memory care facility and the remainder of that vacant site. But this was really seen as a way to access the site, as a secondary access, or again, maybe to provide some type of storage units. It was never anticipated for that to be housing.

Okay.

Don't R7, but it would likely be some type of storage buildings if that site ever was fully developed.

Yeah, welcome to the expansion. Really appreciate you investing in Twinsburg. Mr.

Roll? Yeah, I mean, so I understand the setback. You have the 60 feet or 50 feet and all that, but on the senior, on the R7 side, is there, if they wanted to build, how far would they have to be setbacked? And how much distance would there be from the edge of your building to the beginning of their building? Ten years down the road, five years down the road.

You mean behind it or adjacent to? Well, it would be behind it. Well, I guess adjacent to. Because adjacent to is industrial. Okay. I guess I cut that off on that aerial, but...

You're probably talking about the southern.

Yeah, it would be right here, right? On the zoning map here, if they're here and here, then there's a big building here. It's where we're starting right there. Yeah, this brown.

But doesn't that limit the property owner for here to build something if it's too close to his building?

No, this would never be housing there. Well, I understand it wouldn't be housing. It wouldn't limit the setback there.

That's why you just want to make sure that we don't grant one and then limit another.

I think in terms of planning commission looking at it, you really need to focus on can we get an appropriate... access around the building addition? Yes, we can.

Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah. Can they detain their stormwater? They're doing it through underground chambers. They're not asking to expand further to the south than the distance they're already at. To be honest, we added that extra setback dimension in the new code. to sort of increase an industrial building setback from a residential setback. We went from 50 feet to 100 feet, and we didn't take this scenario into consideration when we proposed that. Generally speaking, a good thing to have that extra distance, but we've made the existing building non-conforming in that sense.

Yeah, and then if you apply the new setback, then it's just going to even make it look architecturally non-pleasing.

Yes, our plan is to come back Monday for the Board of Zoning Appeals, and then we're not quite sure when we'll submit final site plan. Our plan was to be back in September, but our contractors have said they can start construction after winter, still get in by the end of 2027. That's our goal. So we may or may not be back September, but we do appreciate planning commission's time. Thank you. Well, we appreciate your investment in the city. Absolutely. Thank you, City of Twinsburg.

All right, that completes our work session. We'll move into the regular meeting. Item number one, approval of the June 15th, 2026 special meeting, June 25th, 2026 Planning Commission minutes. Any additions or corrections? All right, those will be approved as submitted. Item number two is public participation. Anybody who wants to address the Planning Commission on items that are on the agenda this evening, please step forward, state your name and your address for the record. All right. Seeing none, we're going to move. I'm sorry. Is there somebody who wants to speak?

I think maybe there's some confusion, Mr. Chair, about public participation for the applications that were just permitted versus public participation for the second work session. Yeah.

So, yes, we will have some public participation during the special work session on the streetscape design. So, my apologies. Very good. Thank you. So, nothing on the current items that are going to be voted on tonight. All right. We're going to move forward to item number three, final site plan. That was for Coca-Cola Consolidated. Yep. And that is 2100 East Highland Road, permanent parcel 6402305. Will the applicant come forward? Anything additional you'd like to offer tonight? All right. Anything from the commissioners? Mrs. Lobby? All right, I'd like to make the following motion. Upon reliance on representations made by the applicant and their representatives, along with the submitted application and final site plan date stamped received July 31st, 2026, for a fuel island and canopy structure at 2100 Highland Road in the I-M Innovation and Manufacturing Zone. Do I have a second? Second. Roll call, please.

Was that seconded by Mr. Shipley? Yes. Okay. Mr. Shebeck?

Yes.

Mr. Shipley?

Yes.

Mr. Raw?

Yes.

Mr. Hogler?

Yes.

Mrs. Stewart? Yes.

All right, that passes 5-0. That'll go on towards, I think we're good, right? We're good. Thank you. You're good. You're good. Making Coke.

All right.

All right. Next item is a conditional use permit for making night volleyball 2242 Pinnacle Parkway, permanent parcel 6406912. Will the applicant come forward, please?

If I could just interrupt, I'm calling this a revision to the conditional use permit that you all approved in January. It's... I'm... It seemed like maybe we didn't even need to be doing this, but just to keep him legal, I said, okay, let's call this a revision to your original conditional use permit. And this one will go on to council again as a revision.

Perfect. All right. Anything else from the commission? Alright, I'll make the following motion. Upon reliance on representations made by the applicant and their representatives, along with the submitted application and final site plan date stamp received, I'm sorry, upon reliance on representations made by the applicant and their representatives, along with the submitted application materials, I move to recommend to City Council approval of the revised conditional use permit for expansion of Ignite Volleyball facilities located at 2242 Pinnacle Parkway, Unit 100. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mrs. Stewart. Roll call, please.

Mr. Shebeck?

Yes.

Mrs. Stewart? Yes. Mr. Hogler?

Yes.

Mr. Wong? Yes. Mr. Shipley?

Yes. All right. That'll go on to council, and you'll be good to go. Thank you. Good luck. All right. Any communications and miscellaneous?

I have none.

Mr. Stewart?

Yeah.

Mr. Hovland? No, sir. Mr. Shipley? No, I have none. Mr. Rolf? None for me. Mrs. Lobby? Nothing for me, thank you. All right, you have nothing. All right, we don't need to excuse any absent members, and we're going to roll right into our meat and potatoes, the special work session, streetscape design standards. Mrs. Muter, you want to take it away?

I think we're going to have Rebecca Ziegler present sort of an overview of where we're at with this.

Good evening, everyone. So I'm Rebecca Ziegler, the Economic Development Director here, City of Twinsburg. The design guidelines, the draft that was presented to you all, what, July 14th, I think, was the email that I sent out. It was also presented to Council members. And the community on Together Twinsburg as well. This has been, what, about 10 months in the making at this point. We hired Environmental Design Group to be our design consultant throughout this process. So we've been gathering information from latest internal stakeholder meeting. We had a large survey that went out. We've had the Together Twinsburg page that's been open as well. and been receiving comments. Anything that I received was always been posted online. So if you've had a chance to check out some of those comments and replies, Those would be on that page. But essentially, we've had a month to kind of look at the document, see what you like, what you don't like about it. And then we've also been able to get feedback from residents as well. So like we anticipated, the roundabouts and the concept on Church Street Commons were the hot topic items for discussion. Lots of questions there on, well, we need more information. What does this look like? Rightfully so. the question being presented to you all during um this process is do you want us to explore these types of things is we've been hearing over well since as long as i've been here which has only been four years but for at least 10 15 years the last comprehensive plan update and the one prior to that is that pedestrian safety pedestrian mobility walkability place making Those are all missing pieces in our downtown, and we wanna see our downtown look and feel better. We want it to be more inviting. So that's what our intention was behind this document. Nothing in here is a new concept. Traffic calming is not a new concept. Those are all things that have been in our comprehensive plan. We just wanna know if you wanna explore them further. Do we wanna see if roundabouts are feasible? Do we wanna see if closing something like Church Street to make it more of a commons, make it more of an event, impervious surface area for farmers markets, for Christmas festivals, things like that. Do we want to explore that? So that's the question being presented to you all. This document really does give us, instead of piecemealing as development happens here and there throughout our downtown, instead of kind of picking and choosing, we can have one full document that really is cohesive and is the vision that we want to see for all of our downtown core. And then it also If when it gets approved, that does give us something more tangible to be able to take to federal, state, and local agencies that provide a significant amount of grant funding. They take us much more seriously when we have an approved guidelines document. So I'm here to answer any questions. I can share anything else with you. But that's kind of the gist that I have, Lynn.

That's kind of it. I can add to what Rebecca said a little bit by... Pointing out, we did adopt a document in 1991, and this was called a manual for covering the Gateway District building and site design standards. This was more of a document that emphasized architecture guidelines and site design guidelines, so more of a kind of a private property document. set of standards and not standards for streetscape improvements that are within the public realm. So that's the difference. The streetscape design guidelines are strictly for amenities and furnishings that would be in the public right-of-way. And in particular, the document focuses on what we would call the pedestrian zone. Its focus really isn't on the traffic lanes. It looks to, in the case of a median or a one-way street or a roundabout, it looks towards sort of innovative ways in our downtown to create more opportunities for streetscape amenities in the public right-of-way. But at the heart of it, the document is focusing on that pedestrian zone. And It divides the arterial roadways that approach a square and go around the square into three categories. And I left a map at each one of your places to sort of highlight that.

You'll see that there's the... Commercial activity in the community corridors. All of these can be applied outside of the district as well. We just had to have a project scope to focus on initially.

So it's really making a distinction between the activity corridors, which would be immediately adjacent to the square, and then it distinguishes the area south of the square on Darrow Road as a commercial corridor, and that's the emphasis, and then all the other approaches we're calling a community corridor. And what that is doing is sort of prioritizing what the choices we could pick from the document. What would we prioritize? Always looking towards pedestrian facilities, But would we emphasize more landscaping? Would we emphasize more street furnishing? What would the form of the sidewalk look like? It's not a huge distinction between those corridors, but nevertheless, there's three sort of different standards established in the documents. I don't know. I think Rebecca touched on in our 2014 plan we had goals for enhancing the downtown and increasing pedestrian safety. We did that in the prior plan document. This really has been going on for decades without any real implementation on the horizon. So we're hoping that adoption of these guidelines may bring us a little bit closer to some of these projects coming to fruition. Again, I guess we just can't emphasize enough that some of the bigger concepts in the document, like the roundabout proposal or the Church Street Commons, they're fairly conceptual. It's... I mean, ODOT legally controls those roadways. There would have to be safety studies. There would have to be very specific traffic studies done. The cost of those would have to balance the gain that the community would perceive. You know, when you're developing a significant document like this, you... We have the smaller concepts and the smaller ideas, which I would classify as the furnishing, the landscape materials, the idea that we could have gateways or wayfinding signage or historical markers. All of those things are identified in the document, but then you have these sort of big-picture items like placemaking or... making things more pedestrian-friendly. And the roundabouts and the Church Street comments fall into that bigger idea sort of category. There's nothing binding in the document that we have to do those things. It just provides some extra sort of bit of what might be aspirational in the document. So with that, yeah, if you had any particular concerns or questions, I think Rebecca sort of categorized the comments that we got.

Yeah, there's been the roundabouts in Church Street Commons. Overall, I think people are excited to see the emphasis coming on to downtown, especially with walkability. We did receive a few comments about the landscaping, wanting to see more native drought-resistant plants. We could add that language into the document as well. We really wanted to make sure that whatever pedestrian light poles or what we call street furniture, benches, that sort of a thing, A, would be, I think we lean towards a more traditional kind of a classic black powder-coated look. that seemed to be more well received within the community. Um, but we do want to make sure that, you know, we have conduit in place. So if we want to light up trees that go along all around East Aurora road at Christmas time, um, we want to make sure that we can put banners on our, um, pedestrian light poles. We want to make sure that the glow and the ambience of those pedestrian light poles is really what, what we want to see as well. Um, the amenity zones, um, would be differentiated by different brick pavers. We also want to make sure that we We have a freeze-thaw cycle here in Northeast Ohio, and we don't need these braking all the time, so we want to be cognizant of, A, whatever materials we get, we can get easily. We don't want to have a pedestrian pole go down, and then it's a three-year wait to get it. Um, so we want to make it something that's doable. Um, but a lot of the other comments that we received, which I've been excited about is, is people really leaning into, um, I know Jeff brought this up when I first met you, um, about really leaning into twins days and leaning into twins and the concept of twins. I've heard this feedback also, um, from our council member sitting over here. So people saying we don't have anything twins related. Why aren't we kind of incorporating that cultural placemaking? into the document as well, and I think we absolutely can. We could be working with a historical society to kind of be establishing more, better wayfinding, historical markers. We could really have a nice entry feature into Locust Grove Cemetery. There's some gateways. They don't have to be exactly at those locations, but we thought maybe having something that different, that lets you know you have entered into what we hope to become really truly our core. The biggest, and what we kept thinking, or I kept thinking, I don't want to speak for Lynn, but I have a feeling she would agree. During the zoning code update, the number one thing we heard is, do we have a downtown? Where is our downtown? I don't know where it is. We're hoping that we could look forward in five, six, seven, eight years from now and say, we know where it is now. We've entered into it. That's the goal of this document.

How'd we do? Do you know what, do you understand what's in that? At the heart of it, it's identifying the furnishings, the landscaping, and the study area.

No, I totally agree. I think there needs to be a plan that we can base everything on as we move forward and do different things, and it's not going to happen overnight. But as we do projects and we move forward and do this area, do that area, at least we have a common standard that we're going to go back to. And I think you're 100% correct. Getting the infrastructure in ahead of time, whether we use it or not, makes total sense. Because doing it afterwards, after you've already done all brick pavers and stuff, and then, well, we don't have any conduit, we can't light these trees. And we really do need to emphasize the downtown area, although it's kind of hard to recognize. Um... It's kind of tough because this area has grown. I can remember when 82 was a two-lane road, and there were no sidewalks on 82. And now it's four lanes and there are sidewalks, and we're trying to redevelop all this. So we've moved forward in all these years, and having a plan in place that we can go back to, I think, is imperative for the success in the future.

So I thought about some towns that I've drove through in the past and actually just went to Michigan and visited a friend. And so I was able to notice as I was going through their area how they have changed just their streetscape. And my first thought was... Like, oh, this is all they did. But it's because it's the first phase of what you would do is what exactly we're talking about, you know, you're talking about in this design. And so it allows for some forward thinking and, you know, being prepared for what could be the next step. changes downtown. As you know, I did have some concerns with, you know, like many others about, you know, with the roundabouts, the way to go or not. So, you know, as we would get to the next phase, I'm looking forward to hearing what, you know, ODOT and whoever would... you know, say about those because my main concern is pedestrian because that's the whole reason why we're, you know, looking at, you know, this is to make it pedestrian friendly as things continue to change downtown. So, yeah, it's a great starting point. I mean, we have to start somewhere. You know, it's not set in stone, which I think is really important for the community to understand that. No pun intended. It's just a guideline, which I had to understand that myself on some things that I question, as you ladies know. So that's all I have right now.

So I have a couple of opinions. I actually lived in a community, Medina, for 18 years that had a square, and it is a double-edged sword when you try to commute through it. We keep talking about pedestrian-friendly. I guess how would you connect that to where most people live? I would have to drive my car. to walk downtown.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.

My daughter... Because I live up on Liberty and Cannon. I wouldn't ride my bike down Cannon Road.

First instinct for me, or even there's some Maple Drive residents here who would be able to literally walk to downtown. When you've immediately said that, and Lori, as you were speaking, is I remember my daughter attended Young Explorers in Aurora, and I remember they wanted to go to the square, and they would not. They shuttled them. There's not a safe route to get there. Whether that's right or wrong or real or not real, there are sidewalks. They're not consistent sidewalks. They're not the correct depth. It doesn't feel safe. It's a very busy road. East Aurora Road is very busy. I would argue you could take a different route. But nonetheless, going from Young Explorers there, that's a problem if people don't feel safe or feel comfortable being able to walk consistently. The first letter I ever got when I sat and the first week I was here was a letter from a gentleman saying, I'm so glad that you're here. I want to introduce myself. And it is not safe to walk in downtown. Please fix that. And I had a long conversation with him. It's something we've been hearing all the time. There isn't connectivity. We would have to get, as you can see, there's the right-of-way acquisition that we would need to be pursuing to connect all of these up because they would be fragmented. But making sure that these are all ADA accessible and then making also things more pedestrian friendly by bringing down those light posts. You'd be surprised what some of those calming measures would do with flower baskets with banners, with appropriate size street trees, with landscape offers. That's what really makes it look and feel more inviting, whether that's just psychological or not. Visually, it's a lot more inviting. But I see what you mean. And a lot of people have asked the question, well, why are we investing? There's nothing to come downtown for. Why are we coming downtown? There's nothing to come downtown for. But Lori's right. We have to start somewhere. And we're hoping the investment we're making with the city, the business owners and the property owners will will also see that and want to contribute as well right well i still that the question being is how would you get there from like from from a lot of places in the city yeah well there are i mean like taking the sidewalks here like on ravenna road or or once you're here you'll be able to walk around too is also the goal like once you park in the square probably have to drive down in order to partake in that

Where I live.

Or if you, say you went down to the square and there was a restaurant on the square, say the new bank building became a restaurant, you would then park there, but then maybe you could possibly be walking around once you are within that realm.

Right.

Would you not?

Right, exactly. Okay. There's not an easy way to get there from where I live, is my point. I heard a lot about pedestrian, and I couldn't walk it, is my point.

to where your house, and I don't, I apologize, I don't know exactly where you live, so I don't, I can't.

I live off on Liberty.

Okay.

Yeah. Well, Mayor. That's just, I mean.

Let's add a sidewalk. I'm hearing more sidewalks are needed. I'm hearing, I see what you mean though, and it's the same thing in Aurora as well, I'll be honest with you, I, you know, I live in a community, I don't, it's fragmented as well. I love downtown, but how am I supposed to get there? I have to drive there. How about a people mover?

What, I'm sorry? A people mover like Walt Disney?

Yeah.

So I think there's two things here. This is what we're talking about is the transportation and walkability, but we also have the downtown redevelopment project. So I think with both those coming together, the downtown redevelopment project is going to add more parking because there's going to be more business and shops and everything. To your point, there would be parking areas. And yes, we could always use more paths and walkability. Even in that project, there was not a lot of parking.

I had more in front of Mavis than with that. But anyways, that's just my thought with that. I'd have to drive and then park somewhere and then take advantage of it. Not a problem, but just this whole walking, I'd love to see it. that all come together is the bigger picture.

Correct, but again, that's why we, you have to have a project area, right? And so that's why we're encouraging that these can be applied throughout, but we have to start somewhere.

So I can ride my bike from my house and Glenwood Preserve through the bike path and get downtown and do that to get my haircut a lot. So I welcome the development down there and make it easier and accessible for walking. I don't really have any... The one thing which I struggle with a little bit is just... The flow of traffic, and that's a big issue. I mean, both 82 and 91 are busy roads. It would be nice if we could direct them all the way around and have some zone, but I don't see the real estate to do that. That's my biggest concern. But I guess this is just the start of it, and I like the gateway part. I think that gives a good feel and gives some setbacks and some shrubbery that I think would make it – a nice view and hopefully spur development in the area. So I support it, obviously.

I've got a lot of opinions. First of all, I think it's fantastic that we're thinking of doing something instead of just sitting down and not doing anything. No matter what we come up with or what everyone comes up with, it's going to be difficult because we're going from hodgepodge to a plan. But to get to where we want to go, we have to start with a plan. And getting with all the development that's happening and is hopefully going to be happening, we've got to get set standards on light posts, type of sidewalks we want, how we want that. new development happens or redevelopment, like the Giant Eagle parking lot, if that ever got a facelift, it all kind of matches. And we're all thinking on the same wavelength. So I encourage you to keep going. I think it's fantastic. You're going to catch a lot of flack along the way. But I will tell you that if you talk through them, I think we will get it to a point that's going to be fabulous. And to your point, I think it would be great if we could do like how they do in Chardon when they have 44 and Route 6 coming in, and it's all one way. Well, we can't do that in our square, obviously, but it would be nice if we had the real estate to do that because you have those big intersections. Obviously, it's a much bigger square, but it would be nice if we were able to do something like that to help with the traffic flow instead of a roundabout. Well, I guess it would be a big roundabout, I guess, but it's traffic lights and everything. But I do like the idea. At first, I didn't like the idea about closing Church Street. But then I was talking about it with my wife and she talked about downtown and West 4th and all that. I was like, oh, yeah, that would be kind of neat. It's just hard to envision now because there's nothing down there that you want to go down there for. But if we envision it and we build it. We encourage other people to add to it. I think that's where the future is. If we sit around and do nothing in 10 years, we're going to still have what we have today. I think Twinsburg is a fabulous city. I think it's got a ton of history. I like the Twins idea that you came up with, Jeff, adding, incorporating that into Twinsburg. the the light posts and benches and things like that um there's a lot of great ideas out there and i think we should keep moving it forward because again doing nothing because everybody's complaining about is not going to help us i think we need to continue the conversation and start making some decisions and moving forward so in five years we actually have a finished project and we can cut a ribbon instead of still complaining about how downtown looks that's my opinion

I think that, in my opinion, the biggest challenge right now in front of us, this is all good stuff, but we need to improve the traffic flow. And we need to improve the signalization, which is terrible. I won't even go into the issues I have with the signals. When they're prompting for a left turn, there's nobody in the left turn lane. So even thinking about it. We don't have the real estate for roundabouts, and I think that's going to be an issue. We did two roundabouts, and in my opinion, we put them in in very limited space. Roundabouts are efficient. I'm not against roundabouts, but they have to be designed, and I think we shoehorned those in. There's no way I think we can put roundabouts in downtown. But what we can do is look at traffic flows and improving traffic flows. And I know there's a lot of people that probably are against closing Church Street, but I think it makes sense. But the problem is we have all this... Our development of downtown has basically been hopscotch. I've lived here my whole life. I can tell you what downtown looked like before that. But we built these things, and we have to be more forward-thinking about... We approved a plaza on 91 and didn't put a turning lane in. That was ridiculous. So, I mean, we need to look at traffic flow right now and get improved traffic flow. And then as we developed the downtown area, build upon that. But right now our signalization is terrible. And that's what frustrates people now. And that's why most of our intersections are rated F. because they're not efficient. So I think if we do anything, first off, let's improve the traffic flows that we have right now and then look at further improvements from there. But I think the design standard is definitely a needed thing. We have to have something in place that says, if you're going to do this, this is how you do it. And I hope that we build upon what the township did with the square and further improve the downtown area to complement that. So thank you for all your work.

Thank you. I think we're done other than sort of sharing with you that we anticipate when the document is approvable by you folks and is adopted by planning commission, we would move on to city council. ask City Council to allow us to take some of the guideline elements and incorporate them into our zoning code that would be our next step but should we get a development agreement and a downtown redevelopment site the document as it stands now we can still use sort of dictate what type of streetscape components we'd like at that location. So there's no imperative at this meeting to take action. Of course, we'd love it if you adopted the document this evening, but that would be the next step for us after we get through planning commission. So move on to council and start thinking about ways to incorporate some of these items into standards that would then go into the zoning ordinance.

My apologies. Mrs. Lowe, did you have anything?

I just have an additional question. What has to be done to get the first step of the traffic study and the ODOT? I mean, I think, you know, can we expedite that without doing some of the approvals of the whole process? document or do we have to wait for that document? We need to approve the document. Yes, so that's what I wanted to emphasize, how important that is because the future relies on the traffic study and all of that.

Any funding agency or other regulatory agency wouldn't take us seriously without an adopted plan. They just wouldn't

tell us to come back when we know what we're doing correct yeah yep so that's our first step well I know we have some people here to speak tonight so I think we'll do the zoning text amendment next and then we'll do public participation then we can circle back and talk more about this perfect

Okay, so the zoning text amendment came to, this originated at council level, and it's a request to add some additional sign permit requirements for temporary yard signs. It's specifically looking at requiring a permit in the industrial zones, in the commercial zones, and the public facility zones. And it's asking for that permit for any yard sign that exceeds that typical little size that you see, that six square feet. I think it was brought forward to control political signs, if I'm going to be completely honest. I think that's what this was about. I don't know how it was presented at council, but we... Federal court cases have dictated we can't treat political signs differently than any other. Commercial messaging sign, real estate sign, happy birthday sign, whatever the temporary sign content may be, that doesn't factor into this. So what we do for one type of sign, we've got to do for the others. And... The downside of this, if you had a yard sign that was bigger than the six square feet, but was smaller than the total allowable 16 square feet, you'd still be into a sign permit application, technically. I don't know what that looks like for our code enforcement officer, but it might be a lot of signed permits or a lot of us antagonizing folks that had a 12 square foot sign and needing a permit. But the point of it is to regulate that larger allowable sign. And really the crux of it is, if I'm not mistaken, is to ensure that the person who owns the property has given permission for the sign to be placed there. That would be sort of the crux of the permit, to tell the person placing the sign, hey, this is where it legally can be placed, and can you show us evidence that you have permission to place a sign there? Unfortunately, their sign size is between 6 square feet and 16 square feet that are going to fall into the gauntlet of the sign permit requirement if we choose to adopt it.

So, Lynn, for the residential area, so maximum allowed is two signs per lot? Correct. So, say if I have... I'm having a birthday party. Yep. To be 25 again. And and, you know, I'm I have I'm getting my roof done and mayor's running for reelection. And I want those signs in my yard. Yes. But now I have three. Right. That's all I'm allowed? Yep. Because I've had, you know, before where I've had school board. You've got to take your roof one down for a bit, put up your birthday one, and then when you're done with that, you can put up another one.

But that's our limit. We're allowing two yard signs per lot in all of the zoning districts. And on a 25-mile-per-hour street in a residential zone, it's a six-square-foot sign. Okay. Then in the commercial zones and the industrial zones that may be on a 35 mile per hour highway have a much bigger lot. We're allowing up to a 16 square foot sign with two per lot.

Did we have... I mean, a maximum before we had no rules because I believe I've had more than two signs. You know, when I have, you know, Board of Education.

Maybe you said one per issue or event or something like that. You know, like the example that you gave, if you had one free birthday celebration, one for a political candidate, and one advertising the company that re-roofed your house, those would be three separate events or issues. And then your kid's in a sport and the band is out, right? Yes, yes. But the reality is I have to read the content of the sign to make that determination, and I'm not allowed to do that.

So I would come up with two.

Yeah. I don't... This was... Not for any... I don't even remember if there was any dialogue or not. If we had it higher... I don't recall how we did it, too. Right.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Your kids, you know... And, I mean, I can understand if you say one sign... For a roofer, not two. Okay, I can understand that. But like you said, you know, you have a child graduating. You have a sport. Let me say this. Not that I want all these signs in my yard.

I'm not saying that. The question at hand or what you're being tasked with is would you agree with requiring a sign permit for... sign above six square feet where the larger sign is permitted so basically in a commercial district Well, actually, you can only have a six-square-foot sign in the residential district, so that's out. So in the commercial districts and industrial districts, you need a sign permit for anything over six-square feet. The topic of, hey, two yard signs doesn't seem like enough, that's a separate issue from this text amendment. We could talk about that, but that would be separate. Yeah, I mean, someone has multiple children.

I'm just struggling with that. Like I said, not that I'm looking to see people to have a bunch, but... That's already in the code, right? Correct. Oh, two's already in the code? Yes. The only thing you're acting upon is... Oh, then it's not going to enforce.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I think prior to, at one point, I know the ordinance allowed for one yard sign per event or issue or candidate kind of thing. There was language in there. And then at some point, the Supreme Court ruled on temporary signs and said, you have to be content neutral, was the wording they used. Content neutrality is absolutely required. And so if you have to read the sign to figure out what it's for to then decide how you're going to regulate it, you're in violation of that ruling.

Sure. So the number of signs really has nothing to do with what we're talking about. No, no. That's a separate issue. No, it's the large six-point sign.

We're just talking about requiring a sign permit.

Big signs, right.

We want to do it. We're up to the task of regulating it, but that's the fallout of it. If we do it, then it's... Is there a cost for the permit? No, there's no cost. It's an administrative review. You get it to us. We check if you have permission from the property owner on that larger sign, say, in a commercial district.

So let me just take a shot at this. I think what it really is focusing on is businesses who are going to just put up a temporary sign in lieu of a permanent sign, and there's no regulation on it.

There is some regulation for that in terms of it being a banner sign. Yeah. And we technically do not allow a temporary business identification sign without the approval of an actual permanent sign. Now, is that always followed? No. It's a lot of effort to chase all of the sign violations around. It's a full-time job. Sign violations, and there are hours and a day to deal with them all. But I think really the intent of this, I don't know, maybe Karen knows, I think the intent of this from council was to require more scrutiny really as related to the larger political science.

I don't think it was actually voiced that way. Okay. However, I think maybe the intent is that. Is that.

So to pretty much keep the signs... Sign pollution. Same size instead of... Yeah. Mismatch, whatever. Okay.

So at the end of the day, it's very simple in what it's asking. Do we want to require a permit, a no-cost permit, an administrative review of signs that are larger than six square feet, and those will only happen in basically the commercial industrial zones because you can't have a larger sign in the residential districts to begin with.

Yeah, I have nothing on it. I mean, I guess the two per lot, I'm sure if I put my kid's graduation sign up by my door and I have two political signs out front, I wonder what that will, I doubt that would be a violation, but maybe it would be. I mean, that's not in my yards, in my flower bed. I don't know. It's hard to say. But I do support limiting the size and giving them the functionality to get a larger size and a non-cost, easy way to do it. Mr. Rowe?

So you say that there's no fee. It's just an administrative review. At what point do you have to have a paid permit signed? What size? Is that the six foot by whatever?

I don't believe that there's any fee associated with... with any of the temporary signs. There may be a fee. I didn't bring my big book. It's possible there's a fee for the temporary banner, but there's not for any other temporary signs. So the fees are all associated with inspections and permanent signage. If you go to ARB, you maybe have to get an electric permit. There may be a foundation. Some of the signs get fairly involved for permanent signage, and there's fees associated with that. I don't think there's a fee tied to any of the temporary signs.

Okay.

They have for the temporary banner.

Yeah.

Okay, so I don't think there's any strong objection to moving this forward, so I'm going to make a motion. I move for Planning Commission to recommend to City Council approval of the proposed text amendment to the Twinsburg Zoning and Development Regulations as indicated in Ordinance 2026-095 concerning signage. Do I have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Mr. Shipley. I'll second.

Got you.

Okay.

Mr. Shebeck?

Yes.

Mr. Shipley?

Yes.

Mr. Raw?

Yes.

Mr. Hogler?

Yes.

Mrs. Stewart? Yes.

All right, that passes. All right, that's going to bring us to the public participation portion for the special work session on the streetscape design standards. I apologize for making everybody wait. I'm sure you weren't here for all the other items. So if you would like to come forward and speak on the streetscape design, please state your name and your address for the record.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Sue Clark, 9845 Crestwood Drive. I'm used to attending council meetings, so I don't know if it's okay. Can I just approach you guys? Because I'm going to talk about this. I figured it would be easier if it was in front of you. Sure. It's okay, though.

Oh, that's fine. This is just one of the roundabouts. It should be pretty easy. Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Okay. I wanted to talk about the streetscape and the downtown development. After hearing Mrs. Leiby, I understand why the traffic study wasn't done first. And Mrs. Ziegler can correct me if I'm wrong. But in the last council meeting, they talked about the Twins Crossing and that potentially being back on the board with the school signing on. So if that's the case... Then if we're going to do all the streetscape, which I understand why we're doing it. I understand we want a walkable downtown. I've been invested in this community since I was born here. Bought my childhood home. Remember when Crestwood was gravel. So I also am instaked in the community big. But if we're going to do that, if Twins Crossing is back on the table, We've really got to plan out how we do the streetscape because we don't want to do it and then redo it. The infrastructure is important to what takes place on that corner. So if that's back on the board, everybody needs to know about that. I mean, were you guys aware of that, that Twins Crossing was possibly coming back up?

Okay. I'll leave it there. You guys can figure it out.

So where is Twins Crossing? Twins Crossing would be the old school property. It's the new high rises with the condos and the shopping and all the good stuff.

I guess, yes, we were aware of that. I didn't know that was the term of the project.

That's what they called it. I just refer to what I know it as. Also, on the second one with the roundabouts, there's a medium in there that's going right in front of Twyla's. My mom uses that hairdresser over there here on the square. If that medium cuts off that front parking lot, that's going to be huge for your seniors. 32% of our population is them to get in there. I will never let my mother go behind that shopping center and walk those steps in winter. It won't happen, guys. I've been back there, and I can't do them. They are a sheet of ice. So you've got to take into consideration if that medium goes there, we're cutting off those businesses. You're cutting off Twyla's, Teresa's, you're cutting off Hair on the Square, you're cutting off the new guy that just developed all of those spaces in there. We've got to think about that. I don't know that people want to go down around Richner Court to 91, up, through a roundabout or another traffic light to get there. That's meaningful to their businesses. So if we're going to think about that and think about where those mediums are going, we've got to think because according to that study, that's how this medium here is drawn. Okay, so that one needs to be looked at, finessed, touched on, whatever you guys think, or at least go to them and let them know. I know that the township owns that parking lot. Maybe that's why, but I still think putting people in the back of that plaza, knowing that they don't assault it, is going to be an issue on those steps. They are bad back there, because I know I walked them myself. Also, if you're going to put the medium on 82 there next to T Bridge, and I know it's just a concept, does anybody know how far down that's going by the T Bridge house? So that would be this pretty one right here. You can see a medium right here. Taking 82 down to one lane on the Dunkin' Donuts side, is concerning to me. That is such a traffic nightmare at 8 a.m. and 5 o'clock. I don't even know how we're gonna do that. Even if you close Church Street if you close the whole street and you leave that medium you're talking about a state route where do you put the trucks where do they go that's a traffic jam of a traffic jam and there's no way you'll get all that traffic through those roundabouts and out the other side you're talking about big rigs you're talking about car haulers you're talking about fire trucks it's that is a nightmare upon night pair with them circles i don't i don't even know why we would even consider that i get it's a concept and i think it's a bad one that's a bad bad concept to there also i want to talk about the downtown redevelopment i also want to see something i don't know that i'm on board with this plan But I'd like to see something. So let's just take a walk as the way it is now. And I think you guys would get 100 more people on board if somebody would share the visions. Okay, so we'll just start at Starbucks. You got Starbucks, you got Verizon, you got the bank, you got the Altel. You go up the street, we gave away prime frontage to a daycare. Can't put anything in front of that. Go across, you got Dunkin' Donuts coming down that side. You get to the T Bridge, they close at 5. You got the historical, they're closed. You got the church, you got a laundromat. Then you get on over into First Watch, come down the other side, Twyla's is closed. Where am I going to grab my girlfriends and go? Walgreens? I don't understand the concept of what we're trying to do. Now, maybe there's a bigger one that we're not aware of. Maybe that's coming with the facades. Maybe that's coming with the closing of the roads. I'm not sure. Have any of you guys seen that 2013 comprehensive, 2014 comprehensive plan? Because I have. Okay? I actually have it right here if you guys want to see it. Okay? It's pretty close to what's happening now.

It's pretty close.

On the corner there, we will see the old schools just changing the directions of these buildings and relocating them. But it is pretty standard to what was done, okay? So this is the plan. I get this plan, okay? But you're talking, and we'll just go with this because this is all we got to base it on. You're talking just on the old school, 448 more cars. If that's just if two people drive in all those units. You're talking about reducing it to one lane. You're talking about four roundabouts. I think we've got to really do that traffic study and I think we've got to really look at how we're going to figure out the traffic jam because this, I think, is coming. We didn't spend all the money on 317 pages to not have this be a commitment. It's not a concept. It's going to happen. This downtown will happen. Whether the residents like it, whether we're involved, which I hope we will be, but it's coming. This plan is coming. We're talking in here, they're talking about relocating Mr. Chicken and relocating the Historical Society. So all I wanted to do was let you guys know I've seen it. I've seen the plan. I've seen the tweaks. I'm going to follow it very, very closely. But I wanted you guys to see this. I didn't know if any of you have ever even seen it. But this is going to be come reality. And the residents have to buy into this. We can't buy in if we don't know. If there's a plan for that downtown where you guys are changing the facades and it's going to be bakeries and coffee shops, then we want to see it. But you have to be careful. You go up to Hudson and Main. Not all their buildings are full. Then you talk going up to Joanne Fabrics. Joanne Fabrics is going to develop that site. We have Amazon, one of the largest hubs here in Twinsburg, because everybody buys from the internet. What are we really driving people to? I can get on board. If I know, but I don't want to be driven to Walgreens. I don't want to be driven to a niche grocery store. What is it? What makes us different? What makes us unique? What is it that would really bring people in and want them to be able to walk downtown? I also cannot walk the downtown. I mean, I live in the acres. I can walk Ravenna Road all the way uptown if I want, but then when I get there, what am I walking to? You go down Richner Court, we put an orthodontist at the end of that. So it's like, what is the plan if we're giving away all the frontage to businesses that close at 5 o'clock? I'm not seeing where we're going. I mean, it would be great. I also lived in Cincinnati for 10 years. There's a little town called Lebanon. They closed the whole streets, lit the carriages, had horse-drawn parades at Christmas. It was beautiful. Beautiful. I'd like to see something like that too. I just don't know how we're getting there. And maybe it's because we only have a little piece of the puzzle, but I read all 317 pages of the 2014 comprehensive. I've read all 94 pages of the streetscape. I even read the bike pass in the interior ways. I read the 2019 comprehensive. so i know that some form of this is coming we have to be very careful about how we do it so that we can sustain it because if you look at first in maine they also did tiff funding and they can't they don't have the businesses to pay for that so we really we've got shopping we got aurora who's building out got shopping in every area seven little places aren't going to draw people to our square It's just not. I don't think brick and mortar is your answer when it comes to retail. Give us something cool like an interactive science museum or a splash pad, something that we can say, hey, friends, come on over here. Let's grab a beer. Let's go to Brewster's. Let's go to Mavis Winkles. Let's go anywhere. And then we can go here and here and here. We don't have it. We just don't have that. And I don't see the plan. I don't see it. I've been trying to follow. If I'm missing it, I'd love for you guys to share that. I'd like for council to share that. But right now... I don't know what we're trying to drive it to. It's a lot of money to put in a lot of infrastructure if we're going to talk about putting in a huge complex on that corner. We might as well figure out somewhere else to put it because you're going to have trucks bringing in backhoes, all kinds of things. It's just going to get tore up. I don't see the point. To me, that's the cart way before the horse. I just don't see why we would even entertain that right now, not knowing what we're getting. Maybe you guys do, but then share it, please. Put it out there. Let us see it. I wish there was another way other than just the city site. Because even though Sam's doing a good job, people don't know to go there. They don't. And all we have is social media, good, bad, and different, whether you like it or you don't. It's what's out there. It's what gets people talking. We still have no way to reach seniors in the community. My mom's not on a PC. My mom doesn't go to the senior center. So we have to find a way to engage with the people. If stakeholders are going to make decisions for me, I want to stay in bench and lighting and bricks. I do. I want to say in that, I want to say what I like too. I like to see what I like. It's my tax dollars. I think it should be. I mean, you can narrow it down to five and let people pick, send out a survey, whatever you need to do. But you guys needed to see the whole plan and have an understanding of what's happening because this will impact everybody. And it's unfortunately starts here. You guys are going to approve it. It's going to go to council, but it starts with you guys and you guys knowing. So I wanted to make sure you saw this So you were aware of what it was. And that's all I got. Thanks. Thank you.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Lori Ficina, 2950 Cannon. Before I start, she is a treasure to this city. And not a lot of people give her. her dues for the work that she's put in. She knows more about what you're voting on than you do every single time. So I'm going to follow it up, and I'm going to be a little more in a different quadrant on this. Last week, a citizen put up a post on Twinsburg Roundtable because a lot of people do not go to We Together Twinsburg. They don't know it exists. And sometimes we need to get a bigger message out. In my opinion, the post that was put out was not antagonistic. It was informational. And then a member of council came back and said, this is wrong what you did. You should have talked to us first. Well, we get tired of that. We get tired of being on the outside of all of this. And let me explain to you why. For anyone sitting up here or in the audience who does not know that this is a charter-driven city, It's a charter-driven city. And that's important. That's important to know. When the person in council came back to us about this conceptual plan, we were told this by a council member. The stakeholder group met on Wednesday, December 15th, from 3.30 to 5 p.m. in the engineering conference room. The participants included the then head of the planning commission, a city council member, the mayor, the city planner, the assistant city engineer, the then city engineer, the economic development director, and EDG consultants. Do we see one person who is a member of the community? in this stakeholder group, and we keep hearing this bandied about. I don't know if you guys have heard it sitting up here. I know some of you are newer. I know some of you have been here for quite a while. In a charter-driven city, the state sunshine laws say you cannot have a placeholder stakeholder put up, and it's been done several times without us knowing who's involved. These people made a voting decision that then came to you all. If you look at our charter, there is nowhere in our charter that enunciates that whoever, I don't know who put that together, is allowed to put a stakeholder group together to make a decision as meaningful as what Sue Clark has mentioned to you. And it isn't just about a streetscape. It is about this whole change that's going to happen maybe in the downtown area. And you also need to know that there's still an active lawsuit in the courts concerning the downtown redevelopment, and it's important to respect the process. So I would ask you that you not adopt anything tonight on this. And, you know, the ongoing actions of your body You all take an oath, correct, when you join the Planning Commission? And it's the same oath that the mayor and the council take. We have a document that has been on file in this town since 1979. By the way, I'm a political science major, so I'm coming to you with some education myself. This document is still in force, and you need to hear these lines. Because I am not anti-downtown redevelopment. I am anti-outside the law. If you're going to do things, you do them protocol, process, and adherence to the laws on the books of this city. We have a constitution. That charter is a constitution. So I'm going to leave you with this. And please, you know, I'm not a teacher, but I'm married to one. And we always say, listen with your ears open. Listen to this. Don't be antagonistic towards me for bringing this to you. It might just save your professional lives at some point in the future. The enactment of the codified ordinances shall not be construed to affect any rights or liabilities accrued or incurred under any legislative provision prior to the effective date of such enactment or an action proceeding. Such enactment shall not be construed to relieve any person from punishment for an act committed in the violation of any such legislative provision, nor to affect an indictment or prosecution thereof. Let's do things by the book. Let's include our citizens. We retain the right to referendum in this town and the right to initiative. on top of 7A01, and I'd encourage you to look at 7A01 if you even know what it is. And I appreciate that you listen to me here. I'd be glad to answer questions about what I just said. And again, if things were done right, we wouldn't have to come in here. We sit at home and do our jobs instead of coming in here and having to make these conversations. But again, I would urge you to listen to this woman in the corner. She comes to you with knowledge and an open heart, not adversarial. I'll be a little more adversarial because I know what the law says. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anyone else? All right, we're going to close public participation. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Jeff Deeds, 10011 Parkland Drive, Twinsburg. I really wasn't planning on speaking tonight. But really, you know, and I've read through the streetscape. design guidelines. And really, it's just that. I've heard some of these other comments. These are just design guidelines. You know this. This isn't a plan. There's no conspiracy theory in this town with hidden plans in a back room for something to happen. These are just design guidelines. And I would say they're not perfect, but they're pretty good. And they're a start. And I look back at, for anyone that's been in Columbus and has gone to the Short North, in the Short North area, they have these lit arches over High Street down there. In the first couple of years, they only had a couple of them. Then they added a few, and they added a few more, and they added brick sidewalks, and then restaurants opened. And look, we know we're a small town. We're not Columbus, Ohio. And the first two or three years didn't look like a whole lot. And after 10, it's like, wow, this became an area. And after 20, it became a destination. So I would urge you to look at this. These are just streetscape guidelines. And from a common sense perspective, I look at it and say, wow, if we could add some brick sidewalks and some nice benches and some flower pots and then people start coming down and, well, then a restaurant opens and then maybe a little wine bar opens or a bakery opens. It's not going to become anything in the first three, four years. But, you know, in 10, it might become something. And then we're going to have a little bit more and a little bit more. So from what I've heard tonight, I would just implore you to look at it and say these are design guidelines, and I would ask you to support them. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jeff.

Jane Weiss, 2586 Maple Drive. I certainly didn't plan to say anything tonight, but I do live on Maple Drive. I just want to go on record. Obviously, it's a plan. It seems to be a very casual attitude from everybody outside of Maple Drive that it'd be a great idea to close Church Street. That's like... I think that the people that live on Maple Drive that would be affected by this every time they drive in and out of their street, their property values, need to have a big say in that. And I think that we need to totally be... involved in the process and i mean honestly i've been traveling a lot this year just got home in and out i've just heard about this here i am i haven't really had a chance to read it but just the casualness of i think it'd be okay to close church street i didn't hear anybody say they didn't think it would be okay to chose to close church street so i'm going to go on record I don't think it would be okay to close Church Street. I think you could look at the goals. I mean, we've already made it pedestrian friendly. That was the whole point that we were told with the township thing. I think you could improve a lot without having to close Church Street. And part of me wonders, too, how much more we need to work with the township I feel like the city's trying to overtake Church Street to make it their park because they don't own the township square. Church Street is already closed when we have a special event. I did have a chance to scan through. They want to close it for a special event. Well, it's already closed. Every time they need a special event, it's closed. So we don't need to make it One Direction. have a special event we already do that we've done that for years so i don't know it just it's like asking people that don't pay taxes to raise taxes so you're asking everybody do you think about clothes or making church street one direction the people that live on maple drive should have a lot more weight than the whole towns i'm saying and i think the goals could be accomplished in other ways it does it's not a given that church street has to be one direction and i think that as far as traffic goes Making Church Street one direction, unless you can, I mean, potentially, if you get the whole big circle, then maybe you should focus on buying the real estate around if that's what you really want, a big traffic circle. Well, buy the real estate around. Make the square bigger if that's what you want. But to just make Church Street one direction is going to put more pressure on the already... other intersections around the square and around the town i mean we wouldn't to get home we'd have to go through twin hills down ravenna and and down in to maple drive and if you look like to go to giant eagle which of course is something like you know that's what we do let's go to giant eagle You won't be able to get home without going clear around the block. And if you watch the traffic, I mean, I'd be really interested in the traffic study because every time I'm stopped coming out of Giant Eagle, I'm not the only car coming out of there. There's a lot of cars. And then there's a lot of cars that turn left on Church Street, like at rush hour. I mean, cars... come east on 82 and turn left onto Church Street. They wouldn't be able to do that. So where are they going to go? They're either going to go through Twin Hills and come around, or they're going to go all the way around the square, which is going to make the left turn at 91 and 82 worse. It's going to make all the left turns worse. So it's just a whole other can of worms when it comes to traffic. So all to say, some of it I think is great. I just think just the given of part of it needs to be making Church Street one direction. I think that's... I think that's wrong, and I disagree with it. I want to go on record with that.

I just want to let you know that I did reach out to Lynn and Rebecca and have a conversation about Church Street. And then I asked that, you know, as part of the traffic study that we do study how much traffic is. I mean, I've lived here for 30 years and, you know, I'm curious how how much traffic is actually going through there.

There's not, you know, where is it going to go is my question. It's either going to go up. To 91, trying to turn left around the square, which is going to make all those left turns backed up even more than this. Or they're going to have to turn at McDonald's and come in that way. And then, you know, I mean, just logistical things. If Church Street is closed for a special event... Are we going to have to cut through the parking lot again to get home? Or are they going to give us a... You know, it's like... I thought that was the whole point of, you know... I don't know. I'm just...

I appreciate that you came and spoke because it's good for us to hear this from a resident living over there.

I mean, the people on Maple Drive, it would affect us a lot. Selling our house. Who wants to buy a house that you can't get in and out to after, you know, throughout the day? I mean...

I think the chairman made a very valid point that this document is a process to get the important traffic study. And I think everything really will, the traffic will tell us what we can do and what we can't do.

Just what, was it a year and a half ago? We were told that there was a traffic light study and that's why we had to take out the traffic light at Ravenna. and Church Street, which has turned out to be good. I'm not complaining about that, but we were told it was all studied then. So now you're saying, oh, we need a traffic study.

Well, I guess where I was looking for the traffic study was at Church Street and 82, because I'm imagining, like yourself, coming out of Maple, just coming this way, and then how would you, what would be your best route home, and how much traffic is there?

Go to McDonald's. Go that way, turn right on Vendor Road and come home, just to run up and get killed.

Yeah, or turn right and go around the square.

Right, the left-hand turns take a lot longer to get around.

Yeah, and that's where I think it's going to be interesting to see what the traffic state is.

I mean, they're already backed up. Like that rush hour, the left-hand turn, it's already backed up through that. People will gridlock it if they want to. So to make more pressure on the left-hand turns, I don't see it.

There's definitely a lot of questions.

There's a lot of questions, and I just... Somebody had to stand up.

No.

Thank you.

Well, you're not alone because... Church, let's face it, Church Street is a shortcut.

But it's a real street.

Yeah, I know, it is. And it's not alone because Richner is a shortcut as well. And all the school buses shortcut instead of going to the light at Ravenna and coming down. So even though it's no trucks. So I don't know, truck, school bus. But we have, you know, it's because it's evolved over the years. So in the grand scheme of things, we really need to look at the traffic in the downtown area. What is best? I'm not 100% sure the roundabouts are the answer, but we have to look at the traffic flows and what makes the best sense, and we need a traffic study, and we need to improve the signalization and get rid of signals that aren't warranted. I mean, I... I can never understand why they put that signal on Church Street and Maple Drive. I grew up there, lived there all my life. Yeah, and they threw a signal up there because somebody thought.

Not on Maple Drive.

No, I mean at Church Street, but where Maple Drive. We've realigned that intersection, I think, three times in the time I've been in Twinsburg. It's been moved around. But, yeah. I just want to.

I think a lot of improvement could be done without making Church Street One Direction. To say that it has to be One Direction for a plan to work, I think is wrong.

Oh, I agree. Any other comments?

It's not saying it has to be One Direction. It's saying it might be something worth considering.

Yeah, it's a proposal. absolutely not saying it has to be in planning commission um i had no intentions of coming up here tonight i just came to listen to the residents uh concerns but i just want to say that you know a lot of this design that you see there was based on the um the questionnaire that went out to the residents okay and what their wishes were and what we saw coming back to us And what we saw coming back to us was they wanted a place for a gathering place in the downtown area. They wanted somewhere to get together. Ed, to your point, it's never going to be walkable from all points of the city of Twinsburg. That's just not going to happen. But the point is to get people down there and to be able to make it more vibrant downtown. I've said it for years, ever since I've been on city council, Twinsburg has been a drive-through community. There was no reason to stop here. And then when Starbucks came in, yeah, you stop and get a coffee, and then where do you go from there? You take off and go back to wherever and entertain yourself somewhere else. But it's not here in Twinsburg. So we're trying to make Twinsburg a more community of a destination than anything else. And truthfully, what you guys are being asked to do tonight, and maybe this will help the question out here, is just to provide us some information, we're not asking you to exactly provide look at the plan as it is and approve the plan. We're asking you to look at the plan and say, okay, yeah, we do need, and we're hearing that, we do need a better downtown, we do need a better traffic plan, more signalization or less signalization, or we need to do that. All those roundabouts that were on that plan, When I saw that that went out to the public, it's like, who said? Who said we're doing all those roundabouts? That was in an old plan from 2014, I believe it was, okay? But that's not even a reality right now. And even if it was, somebody made that on the plan, does the city have the money to do that? No, we don't. So those are not realities. It's just a concept plan that somebody drew up based on the questionnaire that came in and what we heard from the residents that replied. So I know everybody thinks that this is a done deal. Boy, if Planning Commission approves this, this is over. It's all over. It's not over because we're just asking for your authority to go ahead and say, yeah, continue the study, continue to look at, you're going in the right direction. And that's what we're looking for, to make sure that you guys are on board and gals are on board with what we're trying to do here. But it's all in the name of making Twinsburg a more destination than a drive-through. It'll never be a first in Maine. It'll never be a Chagrin Falls. We don't have that kind of area. We don't have that downtown. But with the new development that may be coming in, that'll help us. That'll bring people down here. There are plans there. If you look at that plan, and I'll let something out of the bag, I mean, there was a splash pad plan for there, Sue. That was something that was there. Is it going to be there? Is that even going to happen yet? We don't know that yet. We don't have a construction agreement between the developer and the city yet. So there's nothing solid. We can't even say anything solid. But there are a lot of plans that are in the works that we just can't put out there yet. So we're just not shooting from the hip. We're really trying to make this a good, and I think that when it's done, I think there'll be something for everybody down there. And I think we'll all really be proud of it. And that's what we're trying to do. Just be proud of our community and be proud of our downtown. Especially in light of what the township did to the square. I think they did a beautiful job. And I told the trustees that the other day. I said, you guys did a great job with that square in the middle there. And we're working on doing the rest of, finishing the rest of it. Greg, you said on the CIC. You know some of the plans that we've looked at over there, the facade programs that we've got going on to try to enhance the buildings around it. So we're working on it. We're working to make that a beautiful spot, a place that we can all go down and gather and give us something to do in our downtown. So that's all. I just wanted to make that clear to everybody. So whatever you see there is not in concrete. And that's not what we're asking them to approve, to say that, yeah, this is the plan and this is the final plan. It's not the final plan. Thank you, guys.

I guess I have a question of sequence. With the old school development plan, where does the traffic study fall into that? Because that seems a little further ahead because it was voted on. How does that come into play? We definitely see traffic as an overlying inhibitor of everything that we want to do.

When the developer first presented the plan for that site, he was interested in incorporating a roundabout really for aesthetics more than anything. and so an initial traffic study was done it wasn't an involved enough traffic study to make a decision that it could be a roundabout or it couldn't be around about staff questioned it in terms of we had questions about it it My understanding of where that first traffic study got us was the current level of service at Route 91 and 82 at the intersection there, we were at a level of service F. And by adding the roundabout, we'd still be at an F. So... Does that mean no impact? I don't think so, because the traffic study wasn't involved enough to really understand, well, what if traffic did back up to the roundabout, then what did that look like? So since that initial abbreviated, I'll use the word abbreviated, traffic study, there hasn't been another one. So right now, none of us know truly what that would look like to have a roundabout at that location. The comment made by our previous engineer, Amy Moore, was that, well, if you want to pursue grant funding, you should incorporate into the document more than one roundabout because you won't get any significant funding for one because it doesn't really impact graphic flow in any real way. You need to think about more. And so... We took that to heart. We have several roundabouts illustrated in the document, but it's really just saying, hey, this is something you may wish to consider moving forward. But we're not far enough along in terms of understanding what the redevelopment site would be comprised of, use-wise, necessarily, and there has been no further traffic impact study beyond that first sort of abbreviated one. So, you know, if we needed to come up with a development agreement next week, it would have to be as a traditional intersection at that location to provide for that mid-block crossing that's needed there. You can't have people walking up to the light at Darrow and East Aurora Road or down to the light at Creekside. You have to have that mid-block crossing and it would be a traditional intersection until we could show that a roundabout was a better choice. That from a safety perspective, it was a better choice. That from a pedestrian perspective, it was a better choice. And then it would still come to that question that the mayor presented. Could we fund something like that? So that's not the next step. Probably to look into the roundabouts on 91 because I think probably we'll move faster than that. That it will end up being a traditional intersection as the site is developed would be my guess. Don't hold me to that. I don't know. There was a traffic impact study. It basically indicated there was negligible change in terms of the level of service at East Aurora Road and Darrow.

With the addition of all that development?

Yeah. What it was saying is the level of service there is horrible, so it's going to remain horrible.

Yeah. It's not going to get any better. Right, right. So that's not something we want. No.

Okay, good. And it didn't, there was no real understanding of, well, when traffic volumes are much lower, then what? Then what?

Is it really terrific then?

It's a D minus. Yeah. I mean, so we're a long ways off from understanding what would be the best alternative there.

So a short way to say it is until we find an improvement on the traffic, we really, there can't be a lot of development.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if development interests want to follow through on the concept plan that you all were shown, and the city wants to sell that land, and we come to a development agreement, it is more likely than not at this point to be a traditional intersection at that new roadway location than a roundabout. Because then if you had stacking of traffic during rush hour at the intersection at the square, then it would just stack to the next intersection. You wouldn't have sort of this weird potential for traffic stacking in a roundabout.

So you wouldn't have the stacking in the roundabout, but then you would have pedestrians... having trouble crossing.

Well, and then you'd be crossing with the light. And frankly, is it easier for a pedestrian to cross using the signalized light than it is for a roundabout? Well, I think in heavy traffic, yes, because you get your own dedicated phase to cross. I don't know how that would work. I don't know what options are available with a roundabout designed to sort of allow for safe... pedestrian crossings during that high volume of traffic. That's slow.

That's a little bit scary. You have to have the pedestrian signal.

You have to have the islands. You're hopscotching.

You have to have the signal activated.

Yeah. Yeah. I think about when I go to San Armando Circle in Sarasota. And it's a circle. Yeah. You know. And there's all kinds of shops there that you're walking around and you're crossing. Yeah. And I can't even think of how I get through that. You know, I think people just stop and let you through. But it's also, it's a very slow moving area. It's not, it's a different type of traffic because we're tourist traffic versus this is commuter and sunrise and everything else. So this is just different.

Okay.

Okay. So do we want to move this forward? Do we want to take pause and go to the next meeting?

Well, I mean, the question at hand is just get it started. I mean, just like the mayor said, we're not making any decisions because we're... I mean, we're a long way away from a finished plan of that because there's so much involved.

And it is a guideline, which can be revised. To start the guidelines, right? It's to get it going.

It says it right in the title, guidelines.

Yeah, and it can be revised as things change.

And there's no decisions on one way for Church Street, closing Church Street. But I think as, you know,

This area is viewed for development. I think we need to have something in place that we can tell the developer this is what we want, this is what we are expecting, this is our plan. Right now we have nothing. So if somebody wants to build something,

And if we do nothing in five years, we'll still have nothing.

So I think it's a good guideline. It's a good starting point. It's not anything that's cast in stone. It's just a recommendation.

And having some sort of a guideline may have other businesses thinking about, oh, maybe I should look at Twinsburg because... They're starting to forward think about ideas of, because right now, who would want the way it is?

I agree with you 100%, Lori. And just like what Jeff said, I mean, in Columbus, before businesses didn't start going there and restaurants until they started the development. I mean, if I was to open up a restaurant, I certainly wouldn't put it on the square right now. with the way it is.

I remember, I have friends that live in Plymouth Township, Michigan. And that was just a bunch of streets. And they started with their streetscape years ago and their whole redevelopment. And these just brought businesses and breweries and everything else. But if you don't start somewhere, yeah. And it is a guideline. It's nothing set in stone.

And they can change.

And having the, you know, just to me, continuing to engage with the community and, you know, hopefully more people continue to do surveys and, you know, things like that, then we can have better ideas of what to do moving forward.

I think what Rebecca kept emphasizing to us is it's giving us the ability to explore what the next step is. I mean, without it, nothing gives you teeth, is what she said. You know, and she's right. And I have to remind you how much experience she has and how blessed we are to have her to do this and to really look into how you can do it and the right way to do it and all the avenues because it is extensive. She does a lot of work as far as that goes. So, you know, she needs to be able to explore everything. And that's why we have an economic director. She does a great job. And I think with the mayor backing her and council backing her, I think this is a good place to start just to explore. And, you know, I'm all for that traffic study. We all are. But without the document, we can't even go there. Right.

I just have one last comment. I mean, Sue, thanks a lot for everything you brought up. There was a couple good points that I didn't know about, so thank you for that. And also the information about maple. So that was nice to hear about that, too. So I'm good.

That's all I got. All right. I move to adopt the streetscape design guidelines for the city of Twinsburg as prepared by the Environmental Design Group, Columbus, Ohio. I'll second. Seconded by Mr. Rall. I'll call.

Mr. Shebeck?

Yes.

Mr. Rall?

Yes.

Mr. Shipley?

Yes.

Mr. Hogler?

Yes.

Mrs. Stewart? Yes.

All right. I'd like to thank everybody for coming out tonight. Thank you for your comments and your input. And we will, I'm sure the Planning Commission will be engaging, and I'm sure the city will be engaging as well. This is definitely, as the mayor said, it's a work in progress. And it's only going to succeed with everybody being involved in it and giving their input. But I think... Over time, it will grow, I think. So thank you, everybody. I move to adjourn at 825.