Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll call this meeting to order. Ms. Linden, would you call the roll, please?

Mr. Valverado?

Here.

Mayor Burke? Joseph Nani?

Here.

Mayor Daley Jones? Here. Mayor Gallo? Here. Marka Fields? Here. Mayor Kurtz?

Here.

Mayor Orcutt? Councilperson Simon? Mayor Weiss?

Here.

Mayor Wheelow? Here. You have a quorum.

Thank you. We will entertain comments from the public. I know there are a number of folks who signed in for public comments. But if you're representing the developer and Olmsted Township, including the building official, we'll put you in as a part of the agenda under item number three, if that's OK. So I'd like to recognize Mayor Prosek, who signed in.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've never stood at this podium before. It's a different perspective. I'd like to remind you that I'm the only mayor to ever sit in that chair as the official chairman. When the county government was changing, Commissioner DeMora would be the commissioner in charge, but Longo would sit there as the assistant. When the government changed, he didn't know what to do, and I was the vice president, so I did get to sit there. I sat in your seats for 16 years. I know how difficult some of these decisions are. You depend on information that you're given and stuff. And I just wanted to give you a little bit of background on the property owner that you'll hear about the resolution that you're... Mr. Fred Shaker and I met each other in the mid-'80s when we both served together as we were each one of the five board members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Health back in the mid-'80s. And I've known Fred ever since. He's retired. He lives in Las Vegas. He's not able to fly in for these meetings and stuff. But he is Mr. Olmstead Township. And I'll tell you why. When he was a young man after he served in the army in Germany, he actually served the same time with Elvis Presley. But he rented a house in Olmsted Township in 1962. He opened up a convenience store in a Quonset hut at a gas station about 1963. A few years later, he built an 8,000 square foot grocery store when Kroger's closed down their operation in North Olmsted. So he was a very hardworking young man raising three children. And again, at that point in time, he was in the right place at the right time because the only large shopping grocery store nearby had closed down. By 1985, he built a store 18,000 square feet, and that's when he opened the strip center. In 92, he expanded that to 34,000 square foot. but not just his business. He also owned the trailer park that a lot of these folks from the township are familiar with. That was 150 acres. Him and his son owned that. His son had a battle with pancreatic cancer in 1998, and he passed away. And Fred started doing a lot of fundraising for the Cancer Association and stuff, and he got very well known in the county. But he sold the trailer park, 150 acres, back in 1999 when his son passed away. He donated $50,000 to build the high school stadium, and his son's name, Robert Shaker, is still on that stadium today. This is his last parcel that he's owned in the township. He's 93 years old. He's vibrant. He's full of piss and vinegar. When I go out to Vegas, I see him every day because the township The guys at his country club like to drive down from the McDonald's Highlands in Henderson, Nevada, and they have coffee at a Starbucks every day at 10 o'clock. And everybody knows them. They're like celebrities and stuff. But Fred's not able to be here today. And I just wanted to assure you that the Shaker family was instrumental in taking good care of Olmstead Township their entire lives. They still feel that way today. Mr. Shaker has been trying for three years to jump through all the hoops, cross all the T's, and dot all the I's to make this last parcel sale. And you'll hear from the other people afterwards. But I just wanted to give you a little bit of background, and thank you for hearing me.

Thank you, Mayor Posen. Any other comments from the public? Very good. Let's have the approval of the minutes for June 11th. Any comments with regards to the minutes?

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve. Thank you. Motion from Mayor Dealey-Jones. Second from Mayor Kurtz. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any against? Very good. Let's move to the next item, and that is resolution number 27.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will turn this over to Micah Stryker, Senior Planner, Planning Commission. Eric Engel is no longer with the Planning Commission, so Micah is now taking over duties for the township.

Yes, thank you. So before you use resolution number 260813-A, the applicant is requesting approval for a preliminary plan for the villas at Terra Creek. This is a mixed-use town center development subdivision in Olmstead Township. Property is located south side of Bagley Road, west of Stearns Road, property number 265. Here's a map of the location. To the north is some commercial and residential. South is Butts I-80. To the east is some commercial, as well as a little further east on Stearns is Swings and Things. And then west of it is single-family residential as well. project overview so pride one development submitted a preliminary plan for a mixed-use town center plan development consists of 50 unit market rate townhome development to commercial out parcels along Bagley Road and subdivided parcel would contain those residential cluster The application qualifies as a major subdivision or county land development regulations due to new access needs, creation of more than five taxable properties, and inclusion of shared open space and utility easements. In accordance with Section 104.5, county subdivision regulations, multiple reviewing entities evaluate the preliminary plan for compliance with zoning, stormwater regulations, county design standards. Recommendations are found in the staff report. One issue that was highlighted was from Highway Design, they issued a formal recommendation for disapproval due to the absence of any approved, scheduled, or funded roadway improvements to Wyden-Bagley Road. These are shown in the plans, but they do not currently exist. And as they were shown on the submitted plans, these improvements are necessary for the subdivision to access or subdivisions access to function safely and legally. Without them, the preliminary plan fails county standards related to access transportation safety. Here are, again, just overview of the map as well as the landscape. We are recommending staff finds that the preliminary plan does meet requirements for sidewalks, open space, street trees, and other design standards under Chapter 106. But because the project cannot demonstrate safe legal access to Bagley Road, nor meet the county's subdivision review standards per 104.5c4, staff recommends disapproval for this subdivision. To revisit approval, we would need to see a county-approved engineered roadway plan demonstrating how Bagley Road, Widening, and Stearns Road intersection improvements would be constructed, a written project development agreement entered into with Olmsted Township for the cost of the improvements shown in the traffic impact study, and a coordinated access plan if widening cannot occur immediately. They're wanting to resubmit future board meetings October 8th and December 10th are the next meetings scheduled for right now. Materials should be submitted 20 business days prior. Any questions? Discussion?

I do have one question. Can you go back one slide, please? Yes. Again, the emphasis on revisiting approval, is it required that place, or can you give a little more detail on that?

Yeah, so a lot of this is something that needs to be approved to the satisfaction of a highway design standard. So whether that is, again, building the infrastructure, having that project agreement, having a plan in place to do that, and until that can be implemented, what is the plan for accessing Bagley Road until that is complete. So a lot of that would have to be ironed out with highway design and what their requirements would be.

Very good. Yes, please.

Regarding Olmstead Township, how do they feel about all this widening of the road? Are they willing to jump in?

I cannot speak for Olmstead Township but they are here and they'll be able to.

What I'd like is certainly for representatives of Olmstead Township to speak after Mr. Stryker and I'd like to also recognize those who provided comments as part of the subdivision review and then to be able to then allow the developer and the township to be able to respond to that so that we're Any other questions for Mr. Stryker from the Commission? Thank you. Are there any comments from folks who've provided comments under the subdivision review? This includes Mr. George, but also at the township.

Please. Good afternoon, Board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Chris George with the Highway Design section of the Department of Public Works. And in essence, we need Pride 1, the developer, to accurately depict the changes to Bagley Road necessitated by their own traffic impact study that was put together. The preliminary submittal that was received and reviewed in July when comments were presented, the preliminary submittal plans and the traffic impact study are showing the access for the development onto Bagley Road. They're actually showing it into a widened Bagley Road to three lanes, which doesn't even exist currently right now. So we can't in clear conscience approve or recommend approval for something that doesn't exist today. And without any type of proposed plan on how that's going to be accomplished, we would still recommend denial for this. And keep in mind that This may be the first time that this preliminary submittal has been put before the Planning Commission Board. It's actually the second time that we've reviewed this. Back in May, the preliminary submittal from the developer was reviewed, and the same comments were brought up. Bagley Road is being shown as a three-lane section. It's a two-lane section right now. Who's doing this? How is it doing it? The timing? It was brought up back then, too. So that was it. If there's any other questions, I'm happy to entertain anything right now.

Any questions from commission members? Just one, Chris. Is that a limitation, is the access and the highway and impact on Bagley? Are there any other, I didn't read anything that criteria, other criteria that you haven't already examined?

Yeah, the traffic impact study had recommended, the developer's own traffic impact study had recommended that it's widened to three lanes. And there's only two lanes out there right now.

That's the concern from your perspective.

Absolutely.

The traffic.

Absolutely, the traffic and just the functionality of how that's actually going to function.

I didn't see any other limitations within the subdivision, though, that were exposed.

No, no. There was nothing. There's really not a whole lot of detail right now as far as the subdivision goes. So we worked out with the improvement plan submittal. But the access point, the only access point, It needs to be shown how that's tying in too badly.

Any other questions for Mr. Joyce? Mayor Orkut.

Thank you very much, Chris. Chris, thank you very much for coming. I apologize for running a few minutes behind today. I have studied this, and it is kind of hard to read some of this stuff, but I do see daily resource groups, so

Well the issue is there's no plan or funding in place right now and I know I know I'm some township they are going forward with looking at hiring an engineer to have tangible tangible plans constructible plans for how this is gonna be constructed, and the timing of that.

So basically, the developer is a traffic study. They're saying that this needs to be widened. Correct. And there's been no overview by the township itself, and there is no funding at this time.

Not at this time, correct, as far as I'm aware of.

I'm certainly looking forward to hearing from the township today, because it's good to hear that they are here. Not always do they do make it.

I know that Chris and Mike, I think, too, referenced a plan that was shown. It was a streetscape improvement plan, so it was renderings showing that third lane. It was not a turn lane. It was not a drawing. It was an engineered drawing.

Correct. Are there other questions for Mr. George? All right, thank you very much, everyone. Are there any other comments from folks who were a part of the subdivision review? If not, we're happy to either welcome representatives from the township or the developer, whoever wants to speak first.

Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I'm Justin Reed. I'm the building commissioner with Homestead Township. I also do the zoning reviews as well. So just to give you a little context, the developer has been working well with the township, has gone through the processes for the zoning commission recommendation of approval to the trustees. After they went through that process and obtained that approval, the trustees did approve the preliminary and detailed development plan. So from a zoning standpoint, a zoning perspective, the developers met the requirements of the township, has actually worked very well with the township to provide easements for open space to try to help the vision of our town center. The township has recently acquired a property to the west of this and has hopes of turning that property into some form of a passive park. And the developer has worked to provide easements throughout their property to allow access of the general public to utilize their property as well as the township property for open space and some passive recreation, which is a great thing. Throughout the process, the developer has worked to modify and alter their plan. It's been a pretty lengthy process, and we've had a lot of comments and a lot of back and forth, and we feel that we're in a pretty good spot as far as the development goes as a whole. I understand that there are still some questions and concerns regarding the road and the traffic. From my understanding, the county came in and did some improvements on Stearns and Bagley Road several years ago before my time there. They made some updates to Stearns to go over railroad tracks and kind of widen the road and provide better traffic signaling there. But Bagley Road, for the most part, has remained untouched at this point. It's still a two-lane road. As that area is developing, we do see there is a need to improve that area. And the township had started a process to do a streetscape improvement plan. And they've been working through that project with OHM advisors to gain a plan for how they want to continue to improve that area. There have been a lot of conversations with the county regarding how the county and the township can work together to improve the right of way in that area. And we think that that needs to be done regardless of the development. If this development were not occurring, the improvements need to occur on Bagley Road to improve the streetscape and to improve traffic in that area. From my understanding, there is conversations. Our township administrator and township engineer, Gary Alanosky, is here. And he can maybe speak a little more to that if needed. But I do know there have been conversations and discussions with the county. And I believe there are some soft agreements. I don't know if there's anything written yet where The township is willing to pay for a large portion of those improvements to make that happen. And the township is also willing to get an engineer to do a study. And they've already put an RFP out for that to have an engineer design any improvements on Bagot Road. At our, we're looking to see if the developer would be willing and interested, and it sounds like they are, putting some money into escrow to kind of cover the costs of their portion of those improvements. Because it doesn't make sense for them to go do their turning lane right in front of their development, and then the township and the county will come in and change the whole road after that. It's better if that's done together. So that's all I have. If there are any questions.

Questions from the commission. And I won't hold the township to a certain dollar amount, whatever that large amount is.

And if you have further questions or if Gary would like to speak, he may have more information than me. But thank you.

Mayor, please. So it has escaped my mind that development tool in which a portion of the, there can be a fee that can be attached, that can be used towards roads and things like that. It's not quite a TIP, but it acts like a TIP, but I'm putting that in my mind. But are you gonna talk about, I mean, I'm just thinking like out loud if this is something.

So Mayor, Commission members, thanks. Gary Olanowski, Township Administrator. So we have been actively discussing with the developer on those costs. And as Loudon can attest, they are fully agreeable to put money in escrow aside for the portion that they would be responsible for. But we do plan on tiffing the property as well. Not that that is relevant for this.

I mean, there's a whole new way of doing it now. Is there a new community authority? Yes. Yes, a new community authority. It is a brand new way of doing it. Are you going to use it by you? I don't know. But it's a new tool.

The township might be limited in our authority to exercise that. We don't have as many tools as most municipalities. Councilman.

Just a question about a TIF now that that was brought up. Why does this project require a TIF for the township? I mean, that's a township decision. It's a good question. I mean, to incentivize development in Elmsland Township is like saying, you know, pot of water is going to boil if it's on a stove. I mean, this is what they do.

I can clarify. So the TIF would not be used for any part of this development. the TIF dollars will be exercised on this development, but will be used to fund the streetscape improvements. So all right away, pride one doesn't need any TIF money to make their development work.

So is there going to be a diversion of tax money, um, to the county based on what for this project development?

No, not for this project, not for this, for the right away improvements, which are two County roads. Yes.

determined in conjunction with yes so we will work on the TIF agreements obviously once the project is moving forward any other questions thank you thank you thank you for coming yeah thank you

introduce yourself thank you everyone my name is loudon Klein I'm with pride one construction appreciate the comments from everybody particular mayor and the township as well we've been working on this project for it seems like three or four years now it's quite some time just navigating the vision that the township has for the town center district in the mixed-use district and complying with that bringing in a commercial component and addressing open space and all these different things. So just to be clear, we did a traffic study. It indicated the need for a left-hand turn lane into the development heading west. If the township had no plans to improve, but Bagley Road has not begun investing in Bagley Road with OHM, and as mentioned, hiring an engineer, we would be showing a left-hand turn lane and installing it. That's part of the world of development. We'd be doing that. But as mentioned, there's a big push and a significant investment that's about to be made in widening Bagley Road. It seems like the timing of our construction and their construction are going to be ultimately pretty close, and that's going to significantly impact the businesses, the residents, and it's just going to be a mess for two construction seasons. So our conversation has been centered around sinking those up and timing those up. And my background's in the public sector. I require developers to do development agreements, to put money in escrow for traffic studies or for lights and turn lanes and so forth. So I completely appreciate the comment that Mr. George had, and I understand where he's coming from. They've got to see a plan in place. I believe that we're at a preliminary plan stage here, and I'm hoping that there is a conditional approval that could be had that would require us to submit that agreement and have it approved by both Highway Design and the township for the escrow agreement and a amount determined by an engineer and agreed on everybody and And that I think there could be a timetable set So if for some reason the townships not able to move forward with their widening of Bagley Road by the end of 2028 Then we would be required to install our left-hand turn lane and do so by a certain deadline So that would hold our feet to the fire So I think there's a lot of mechanisms in place that we can provide some checks and balances to ensure this happens. Ultimately, engineering's going to have to approve our improvement plans. There's a lot of ways between road opening permits and that that they can stop us from building and prevent us from actually constructing these units. As I mentioned, at this stage, we're going to be breaking ground. Luckily, by the end of the year, if not early next year, and we won't have units online in the residential portion, which is only 50 units, likely until summer and fall of next year. And then the commercial lots will follow into that late 27, sometime in 28. So we've got a significant runway before this development, this mixed use development. development is up and running. And like I said, hopefully we can coincide that with the improvements to Bagley Road that the township's working on. So I don't want to play victim and say we're caught in the middle here between the township wanting to do this project and wanting to sync it up. Obviously, we just want to move forward as much as possible. And as the mayor mentioned, this has been going on for the Shakers for almost four years now. And I think they're eager to see it happen. So I would add, as you can see in the packet, all the agencies have approved or recommended approval of the plan. We've been working through those comments the last several months and feel confident we can address everything that was recommended. So again, yeah, just to wrap up, I feel like there's a common ground with that agreement that we are certainly supportive of and willing to do and are not trying to bifurcate this improvement that we're required to do. Yeah, happy to answer any questions you have about the development specifically. I know we've kind of been harping on traffic, but if there's any questions about what we do and the plan itself, I'm happy to answer those.

Commission members? Yes, Mayor, okay.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I have the opportunity to work with you guys, and you guys do very good work. When it comes to the road and some of the questions, for people going in and out of that neighborhood. My question to you is Bagley Road is a county road. They're the ones that will be selling that project.

No, Mayor. It's going to be on the township. It's on the township? Yes. But it is a county road.

And I want to make sure we're doing the right protocol here if we have an open dialogue here.

Absolutely.

Do we know when that is going to sell, that project, when the township will go out?

So as Justin, our building commissioner, mentioned, we are releasing the RFQ, which will be due next Friday. I would anticipate probably a year-long design process. So we're not looking until probably 28 to sell that project.

Without the design process, we don't know exactly what the engineer's estimate will be for that road project. That's correct.

We just have a conceptual plan that OHM did for us, but we don't have any engineering numbers.

And then when I hear that the township's doing okay financially, is it something that's anticipated where appropriations are going to start happening sooner than later for that project, ahead of the project? Yes, they will.

We will have to sell bonds for the project to fund it.

Thank you, Mayor. Other questions?

Just to follow up on the Mayor's comment. Township's going to be responsible for all the road improvement on Bagley. Sorry.

being recorded. And we like seeing you.

That is correct. There are two county roads as part of us working with the county. The township's going to take the lead. So we will administer the project, obviously working closely with the county.

And Pride 1's schematic matches up with your left turn lane and

Well, not yet. So that's part of the trouble is we don't have it engineered yet. So if they go ahead and put their improvements in, there's probably going to be a lot of rework. And everybody here wants to avoid that. It's just unnecessary. So the goal is to match up. To sync up. And match not only their needs, but there's some other development in that area that we need to address. We're looking at a broader picture here. Yeah, maybe you could.

both sides of this proposed development have. Tell me what's going to happen there.

So currently on the northwest corner of Begley and Stearns, there's a There's a larger development, a Sheetz gas station, McDonald's, Aldi, and then there's a phase two for 50-ish residential units. And then so in addition with what they're proposing, those are the two things that would be coming new. Currently there's a CVS, a Shakers Plaza, which has the grocery store, some restaurants, some small little suites. And that's the main corridor for our school system too. So it gets pretty congested, and now that we're adding a potential new development in this, we have to look at it holistically from the township's perspective, so that's why we're undertaking this.

So we're not here to opine on the subdivision itself, or just the access, or some of the other questions about the... proposed development. I'm not sure which are we.

So if I may, I think what we're here to do is, yeah, this is not a judgment on the development. In fact, it sounds like everybody wants this to happen. It's a question of the timing of plans. It doesn't even sound like, and I'm looking at Mr. George right now, does it sound Is there a need for a fully engineered plan with a full funding scheme for this? Or what is it? I'm asking general questions.

Yes. I feel like that would help to have that in place so we know more where we're going, what direction. And keep in mind the preliminary submittal that the board is voting on today We can only review and recommend, make recommendations on what we have in front of us at that time. So all of this discussion and things being talked about, and we have talked with the township, but it was after the submittal that was already made.

Is this an agreement?

This may be to, is this to Mr. Jelanowski or Miss?

Whoever.

The township is starting the process. We're just a little ahead of them. So I mean, I guess for us, are we supposed to wait a year till it's designed and not be able to construct our improvements? Because we'll construct them tomorrow. And then the county and the township have to, I wouldn't say suffer the burden, but then they've got to do a lot of maintenance of traffic. They've got to tear the road apart in two construction seasons that could be back to back. I think the question is, can we provide an agreement with an escrow dollar amount that ties us to the improvement, and then the township's going to immediately, you know, they've got an RFP out there, hopefully have somebody on board and immediately begin the design. Otherwise, we're going to be designing with our own engineer, and they're going to be designing the same improvements, you know, 50 feet apart with a separate engineer, and it just seems like a poor planning practice, just in my opinion. So I'd like to hear his thoughts.

So maybe real quick, it just comes down to timing. The improvements are going to happen regardless. We just want to sync it with our project because we don't know if the alignment in that section might change. And as Loudon indicated, if we have to go in and do a lot of rework, not to mention the consecutive seasons that it might take to construct it, we just see it as being a potential burden.

I might ask one follow-up. Please. So I think I'm understanding the timing difference. Is there a risk that they From a construction standpoint? From a developer and townships.

I mean, based on what I understand, Pride One's schedule, once they complete their development, we would probably be then constructing our improvements. Now, there's a lot of variables that could potentially delay some things, but that's what we are trying to work towards.

So mine's for Mr. George. If an MOU is put into place, Are you allowed to review again and monitor this, or is it just a done deal?

A memorandum of understanding is in place.

The developer is going to put this money into escrow to handle this situation. Is that a done deal, or is it where you can...

step in if it's no we can i mean they're still going to coordinate you know with with us but i mean to your answer gary and to the mayor's uh you know comments there are a lot of unknowns right now and it seems kind of complicated it honestly feels a little to me it just feels a little rushed i i'm not saying you know let's we're not saying recommend denial for the whole subdivision We're just saying at this time, based on the submittal we received, we cannot recommend approval. But I do feel we'll get there. I just think a little time is needed to put in place what's needed to sync up and, yes, make sure that the widening that they're doing syncs up with Pride 1 and how that's all going to come together. I mean, it's our obligation to the traveling public, I think, to make sure that's right. Just want it done right.

Go ahead, please. It sounds like everybody's on the same page in terms of the overall, the overarching goal. Yes. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Township, Pride 1, everybody knows what they want to accomplish. It's just disjointed, the timing's disjointed. Correct. Is that fair to say? And that you're willing to want to get moving with your proposed development and the road may not be ready or to sync up with your development. You want to put money in the escrow that if it's not ready, you want to put the turn lane in to make sure it's a safe situation. And the township's saying, why would we create this humpback exercise rather than just sink it all together?

Yeah, that's correct. Absolutely. And to your comment, I encourage this recommendation to be conditioned upon Mr. George's approval of that MOU or that agreement. I think he should have every right to review and approve that before he would sign off on engineering plans. I mean, it's the county road. We fully support that. I guess what I'm pushing for is to just get at least a conditional approval on the preliminary plan so we can get into more detailed engineering stuff and drawings. We have not gotten through that yet, and we're going to be another two months out. We're not going to be back here until October to even get through the preliminary plan stage. Like I said, I'm confident that we've got a plan in place and we've got a good working group together. the same page with what we need to get done it's just you know we would like to get into the engineering phase and I feel like the county and my understanding has a million measures in place to stop this project from actually breaking ground you know through the engineering approval through that development agreement approval through reviewing the escrow amount and so forth so Like I said, it's more about getting through the preliminary plan stage so we can start spending dollars and investing in the project a lot more.

Madam Vice Chair. So this board, I, as a member, am not comfortable with bum-rushing through a recommendation from the Planning Commission that's spent a lot of time reviewing the safety issues around the county road, and this is too premature for me to even, we can't. I mean, we're bound to safety and to adhere to the regulations around the Planning Commission's guidelines, and I'm sorry that you wanna move faster than the process, but this is where we are. I suggest Coming back, when something is prepared and ready for us to consider, but we can't, I can't jump over something when there's safety issues and the work done by this Planning Commission is very thorough and thoughtful. I don't think we, you know, held up any project. It's just the timing, and that's between really you and the township, how you've come to this place. And the Planning Commission is just here to make sure that things are done properly and within safety guidelines. So that's the position of Vice Chair Simon.

Thank you. Mayor Rickett, and then I've got a question for Mr. Stryker. Go ahead.

Is there a engineer's estimate on that turning lane?

No, I don't have a detailed estimate. My best guess is at least six figures.

Okay. And Pride once said that they would be willing to, if there was a condition of approval for the preliminary plans, at least just for that to go through, put the money into escrow in case the city manager, something came up. Let's say there was another emergency on the other side of town and all of their appropriations need to go towards that. that at least there'd be funding to be able to put that tournament in. That's something that can be done. You would be willing to do, I should say.

put money into it and ask for help. That's correct. I mean, we are fine with that obligation. And like I said, I would add that if something happens with the township appropriations or the design of that road, that we work with Mr. George and agree upon a time frame. Is that December 2028, the township has not sold the project, then we go and install the turn lane. So I think our feet should be held to the fire for that.

OK, because where I'm going with this, there is a lot of variables in place. Is there a final development? just this preliminary development plan, and then it's okay to put a shovel in the ground? I would speak to the staff.

After this, they would have to get development plans approved and then go through the final plat approval before they could. The development plans would be what would, their approval would be what would start putting it. The improvement plans.

So we do have the authority to be able to approve so that they can at least move forward with preliminary development. if we place a condition to the approval today.

Those plans would still be?

Yeah, I recognize Mr. Cortez. Well, the commission has the authority to vote as they decide. But I would point out, in the subdivision regulations, it is 104.5 VC. Four, it provides some guidance on how a board should approach a preliminary plan approval, and I'm stating it verbatim. In order to approve a preliminary plan application, the County Planning Commission shall find that. And number four, the County Public Works Engineering Division has determined the preliminary plan for streets, stormwater management, and natural drainage ways is acceptable subject to approval of a more detailed construction drawings. So if you were to move forward with approval, there would be a factual inaccuracy in the resolution. But that is not a, in my opinion, that's not a bar to you deciding what you would like to do with this issue, but it could potentially you know, expose the resolution to legal exposure should someone wanted to challenge it at a later date because it is factually incorrect. As of now, there is a disapproval from Highway in the record.

So that's the guidance that's provided to the commission. Mr. Stricker, what's the date that's needed in order to be able to get this on the October 8 agenda, assuming that we've already passed or about to pass the date for the September 10?

September 10.

September 10? Yes. OK. So we've got a few weeks potentially there for this to come back to the commission for that preliminary review. Any other questions or comments recognized? Mayor Jones?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is tabling this an option for us so that then everyone can come back to the table, literally back to the table, with more information?

I believe that that is an option, yes.

It has to be, and I apologize for interrupting, but I believe it has to be at the request of the applicant to table. It cannot be a unilateral decision by the board.

Okay. And if there's a request to table, would that allow then for this to be heard at the September meeting with the assumption that there's time to review any future plans?

Well, it would have to be October. It would have to be October. Today is the deadline for September.

So, yes. Mayor Wheeler.

That was one of my questions. The second question was, I looked here from the city exactly the schedule for how you're moving forward. I know you said Friday, you know, you're going to put something out. I would like to hear your...

So Friday the 21st the proposals are due We anticipate probably three to four weeks for evaluations, which the county will be a part of We would like to get this awarded Hopefully early October and as I mentioned probably a year design schedule so that puts us at October of 27 And then hopefully that following year we would be under construction The difficult thing the township has is these are two county roads, so we do have to work through the county. We haven't got a commitment from the county on what they're contributing, which has been a part of this challenge and part of why it's kind of drug out so long. We do have a clear indication of how we're moving forward, but I don't know if the county could even provide, as Mr. George mentioned, a funding of the project without going through their internal procedures. And my understanding is those procedures also include a budget for the project.

Sure. I'm sure that would come up during those. Is this project dependent on the county's contribution to the roadway?

We feel that it being two county roads, there should be some sort of county obligation. I don't want to speak that the township will fund the project 100%, but we are deep into it. We would seek alternatives to move forward.

Are there any other questions or comments from the Commission before we entertain a motion? Can I entertain a motion to pass Resolution 26.0.8.13 .

Mr. Chairman, is there a consideration for tabling?

There is a consideration for tabling, yes.

The applicant must request. The applicant must request.

Yeah, we will request a table.

It would be, I feel, responsible to do something. I've been in that area. And when you talk about health, welfare, and safety of the community, it has to be done to really fill those spots. So I would just like to hear an actual, you know, how it's going to get done for me. And that I do understand that you'll put the money in escrow, but with times and how much things cost and all of this and that, I wouldn't know it will ever get done. And that fits my question.

would be able to demonstrate to the board that the township, Taiwan, everyone in the county, I would hope the county would exercise good judgment in our representatives and be expeditious in supporting. You're going to move faster than any government entity, but we're asking you to slow down a little bit to let us catch up, but we got to make sure that we're committed to catching up too. That linkage is what's important, I think, and hopefully in two months you're here and you've created an environment where we all can say there's linkage, we have a better understanding of what we're doing, and it makes it more comfortable for us to take action.

Thank you. Thank you. Anything further? If not, we have a motion second to take. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, thank you. I trust everybody is going to work together to help move this forward in an expeditious and safe manner. Next, we've got information presentations, Brooklyn Comprehensive Planner. It's me again.

Yeah, so again, I'm Micah Stryker. I'm a senior planner with the County Planning Commission, and just giving an update overview of the Brooklyn Strategic Master Plan update. So it's completed. Well, not quite completed yet, and we'll get into that. So just some background. So in 2021, the County Planning Commission, we completed the Brooklyn, City of Brooklyn Master Plan through our community planning services program. Once they adopted that plan, the city aggressively started pursuing implementation. We're very successful in doing so. So much so that at the end of 2024, that winter, we were contacted by Mayor Van Kirk with State of Brooklyn. He's like, hey, we've done a lot. We want more. And so we started having some initial conversations about what potentially that could look like. Being only five years old at that point, at that point not even quite five years old, they weren't eligible for a master plan or update under the CTSP program. So we started talking about what they would be able to maybe afford and drawing, talking about scoping projects to what we could to get them some updated recommendations. So through that, some back and forth in a few meetings, we came up with a scope, kind of a pared down, very targeted scope, especially since it's just an update, kind of see five phases here. Implementation scorecard and current conditions update, so kind of seeing what they've done, but also kind of what's changed. Then because it's just a – typically with our master plans we have a lot of – it's usually three, maybe four public meetings, a lot of public engagement that way. Again, because of cost considerations and because it was an update, it wasn't really appropriate to have this huge – have a bunch of public meetings to kind of rehash vision. That hasn't really changed much. So we're really focused on what we call a community attitude survey, so an online public survey. that we'd have open for a long time, get the word out, get a lot of feedback that way, and combine that with the first phase to kind of say, okay, where's the community at? What are they happy with? What are some challenges and opportunities? And from there, take that information and make some strategic recommendations or targeted sort of next steps. Then come up with a quick implementation plan and then tie that all together in a complete plan. So we started in May of 2025 when we entered an agreement with them. We got our draft done in May of 2026, then the council went on recess.

This is the season.

And you'll hear that from Meg as well later. So just kind of an overview of some of the different phases. So with implementation scorecards, so this is really the first time we've done an update. We worked in a community that's had a master plan done by us, and then they were coming in just five years rather than 10 or 12 or 15 years later and saying, well, we've got to kind of think of this from the start. So we really wanted to see what had they done, what were they in the process of completing, what had they not been able to accomplish yet, but also what maybe wasn't relevant anymore. Maybe they were like, well, we looked at it, didn't really, didn't think it was worth it, or conditions have changed, and we don't really want to do that anymore. So, and really create a sort of public piece for them to demonstrate, here's what we've done, here's the success we've had. So, we went through for each of those, identified those goals, identified those successes for them. And so, and then we also, as part of that, I'll go back, it's not here, but we did just do a brief, usually with a master plan, we'll have a you know, dive into demographics, things like that. But again, having only been out of the community for about five years, there wasn't a ton of change, so there's no reason to really spend all of our time trying to dig into data that wouldn't really help us kind of go anywhere with it. So really trying to be targeted with where we look at where are the changes, where are the things that have happened. And a lot of that was relying on city data, sort of occupancies and things like that that they were able to have. And from that, again, as I mentioned, we did really focus our public outreach on the community survey. So we had an online survey. It was a little larger. I think it was about 30 questions. So for an online survey, but rather than trying to get people to show up for meetings here or there. And we just made sure we left it open a long time. We had it open for about a month. Actually, we ended up extending it a couple of weeks. We've kind of learned, and we've been trying to do more of this, trying to get out in the community, go to events, try to get the word out, especially for surveys and things like that. We had the opportunity to go to the rec centers trunk or treat event. So we got to dress up. I got to have my wife and kids come and give them candy and stuff, but also hand out QR codes, links to the survey, let people know what we're doing, things like that. So it was really great. So we had 397 responses to the online survey, which when we think about sometimes we have public meetings, we get 10 people there and the same 10 people from the previous meeting. There's a lot of benefits to that, especially when we're looking at such a targeted survey or targeted project.

Um,

One thing we also did is the mayor connected us with the Brooklyn City School superintendent. And we were able to give a short, quick five, six question survey out to students that he distributed. So there we had, I believe, 264 students from fifth grade through senior year. Just kind of, what do you like about the community? Because a lot of times what we find is we get a lot of stuff from certain age groups, not a lot from younger or different things. So that was great to get their input and kind of say, What do you like about your community? What should we focus on? So we kind of combine all this information and kind of have some few key takeaways. So again, desire for updated recreation center. So this is one area. They're still in the process of it. It's an older recreation center. They have an ice rink that they got to keep up with. And they're in the process of updating their natatorium. So just a lot of things. And so just wanting weight rooms, new programs, things like that. One thing we heard a lot of was kind of property maintenance, just the visual appeal of the community. So that's something the community, again, is also working on. They hired a building management official. So they're working on that. Again, recreation, community-wide events, kind of building that community, but also having those options for the community. Public safety was a big thing, sort of the perception of property crime, not feeling safe walking out. Some of that, too, was traffic and enforcement of speeding and things like that, and then just some local economic development. So a lot of these things that a lot of communities are dealing with, but again, finding out what have they done, what is still going on, and what are their new priorities. So taking that, we were able to kind of the goals, the vision was relatively unchanged from five years ago, which we kind of expected going in. But then, so we had about 35 recommendations with some sub-actions underneath those, but really focusing on those key takeaways. We also looked at... focus areas and corridors. So in the previous master plan, we had identified some focus areas and corridors. So again, we looked at those again and said, what have you worked on? What have you completed? What's still there? What's necessarily no longer relevant? So one of their big successes was their civic campus. City Hall was a combined police station and wasn't very welcoming and just very kind of old and outdated and didn't meet their needs and needed a lot of maintenance and upgrades. And it was just made more financial sense to build new. So they built new across the street. What that allowed them to do was demolish the old City Hall and they built a Cleveland Public Library or Coyote County Public Library. built a brand new building there. It's a really, really nice building. And so again, and they're doing park upgrades. So really a big success there. Retain Biddulph Plaza. It's an old shopping center. It's kind of the thorn in their side. So keeping that in the plan. And then identified a few new ones. One of the big ones was they have a vacant property, about seven acres at the corner of Memphis and Tiedemann Road. And part of the survey was, what should we do with that? And so the mayor's like, housing, the economic development director's commercial. And so we've settled on some potential for mixed use. And from there, implementation was really, again, focusing on what are the quick wins, identifying those things that they could jump on right away, and then also reprioritizing everything. Again, from what we know from their previous master plan, they're very motivated to get to work. So it wasn't necessarily something that we needed to really draw out into some big process. They're just like, let us know what we need to do. So in that way, it was a very positive project. As I said, it's currently before city council. Like I said, we finished it. We presented it to council. They went on recess. So that was June. And so we're expecting them to come back in here in this upcoming month.

And hopefully they'll get it adopted.

But in the meantime, we know in our discussions with Mayor Van Kirk, he's teeing things up, getting things ready to go. So he's ready to move on. And so just to wrap up, a few lessons learned. Since this is our first master plan update, one of the things is celebrate successes. And so that's something we've heard a lot. We think about it a lot. Even us, we kind of, what's the next project? The city's like, what's the next thing we got to do? And we don't always necessarily take the time to think, well, what have we accomplished? How do we celebrate that in the community? Because it's a good marketing piece. It's a good public relations piece for politicians, but also for us for our work to be like, what are these communities doing? Because especially we step out once we're done. So it's great to go back and see that they're using these plans and how important they are to them. Then again, focus on next steps. A lot of these communities are doing things, and then they're like, well, now what? So trying to figure out what's those next follow-up steps. Oh, sorry. Others find ways to get out in the community. And we've been trying to do this a lot. Like I said, we went to the trunk retreat. We worked with the Chamber of Commerce. They have their home days. And so they got the survey, helped get the survey out for us, put out links and QR codes, things like that. So just finding different ways to get out and let people know, hey, we're planning. What are your priorities? What are your concerns? Um, smaller project teams provide flexibility, especially for a smaller project like this. It was nice to have a small project team so we could be flexible and, you know, when we were doing, you know, the mayor kind of thought, well, maybe if we send out another mailer, we could do it. It's like, well, that's not our scope, but he said, we'll take care of it. But we were able to put that together and it's something that having that small project team, we could kind of move forward that quickly and get that out. Um, for me, integrating the planning team, the rest of the planning team into the project early is key. Um, the middle of the project i went on parental leave so our other planner laura mendez ortiz was on the project and just from the start having her be an integral part throughout the process and preparing project work and things like that having her integrated it was great that i could step back for a couple months and she could just keep rolling she had that knowledge the working relationship with the mayor and their economic development director. She could just kind of keep it going. And then when I got back, I just kind of supported her. So that was a great learning experience there. Thoroughly editing and establishing terminology. Sometimes, you know, do we capitalize the city? Why does Google Earth put, let's call it Memphis Road and not Memphis Avenue or vice versa? Things like that, that it's, you know, it's like, especially when the mayor's on, council's on break, he has time to go back and be like, wait, why did that happen? So that just generally always thoroughly edit. And then again, beware of council sessions. Try if you can get it done before June. That's great. So any questions, thoughts, ideas?

Yeah, go ahead. Please. The responses you got back, nearly 400 responses, did any of them include traffic at Tiedemann Brook?

I think traffic is always something that came up, but I think it's kind of one of those It's always kind of there behind you. But I know that's something that the community is working on. It's something we definitely made recommendations on. I think they were working on, I forget what they were doing, something they basically took over from ODOT because they're like, well, we'll get it done. So it's something that definitely has come up throughout the first planning process and remained there. But it's something that's just a continual, it's more of an incremental process because it has such a big intersection with the interstate.

No interest for them to get into the right of ways and be able to put in extra traffic lanes, turning lanes?

No, they didn't get anything that detailed. within their means to make traffic better in that area, but this didn't quite get into that specific level.

One last question. When was the start date for?

It was May 2025.

I would just like to add the first meeting we had with Mayor Van Kirk and his economic development We walk in, he's got a binder. And in the binder is the master plan, the last one. He's like, look, check, check. I mean, he walks around with his master plan. He's like checking off things in there that were recommended from the further plan. So that's how we got to, we're done. Like, we need to do more.

Yeah. So he has it all in a Word document. So that's one of the other reasons we did the scorecard. Because you can't really show a Word document with all your notes. you know that that you know the people on the street are going to be like oh that's awesome but having that kind of document to kind of shows like hey we a lot of green check marks awesome so any other questions thank you so much for your time thank you um next up and i know we're longer than usual but i've got megan chaney here just to give an update on the lakewood public public arts master plan i'm going to try to be fast there are a lot of pretty pictures mary knows to um get the cane

So thanks, Mary. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm here to talk about the Lakewood Public Art Master Plan. So just to give a little bit of background, the city of Lakewood allocates $50,000 every year out of its capital budget for public art. In 2021, the Public Art Advisory Board was created to help direct that funding in conjunction with the city. The city wanted to apply for a public art master plan to help grow their public art program and help improve efficiencies at the city level and for the Public Art Advisory Board, the PAAB. So they applied to our community planning services program in 2025 and were awarded. So the project goals were to grow Lakewood's public art in an innovative, strategic and equitable way, to understand how demographics inform accessibility, increase efficacy of the PAAB and identify solutions to installation and maintenance challenges. So I'm not going to go through all this. You guys have seen this before. This is our standard process. The public arts master plan was exciting because it was a little bit of a departure for us. We haven't done a public art master plan before. Public art has featured pretty prominently in a lot of our master plans as a method to create space and activate space. but never one devoted specifically to public art. We weren't sure if this process would translate that well. Turns out it did. And I'll talk a little bit about how we focus some of the data, considering the focus of this plan. So we were guided by a steering committee. We met monthly. It was comprised of people from Lakewood Planning Department, Public Works, as well as City Council, the schools, members of the PAAB, Lakewood Alive, the Chamber of Commerce. They were immensely helpful and insightful. So our data, our jumping point was to collect the places of existing public art and then create a walk shed around that. And our typical walk shed is about a half mile. That covered the whole city. So we scaled it to take a very localized look at what was very available to the immediate population. So we did a quarter mile. And it shows that a lot of the population in the city of Lakewood had very good accessibility to public art. And as you would expect, it was along the main corridors of Detroit and Madison. Those white areas on the map showcase mostly residential areas, which is to be expected. But we did touch on ways to integrate public art into residential areas as well, which was pretty neat. So the traditional data that we did really look at included diversity indices, senior populations, differently abled populations, and we overlaid, that's just one example up there, we overlaid that walk shed to see where those populations existed in relation to where the public art was. and tailored recommendations based on that. For senior populations and differently abled populations, there's introduction of accessible art like the mural on the accessibility ramp into a store. That middle picture is a picture of a street map. that's lit backlit and is also raised so people with low visibility can access that and so not only is it functions as street art but it's way of finding as well. We also looked at impervious surface and tree canopy and looked at the opportunities there. You see that heavily that those dark black areas are the areas of the highest impervious surface might be great for asphalt art or conversely public art that also provides shade. We also, as part of this, we looked at many public art master plans that were done all over the country, had some really great ideas. So we also created an opportunity inventory. So we looked at all the impervious surface, the large swaths of the impervious surface, the green spaces, the parks. And then we also went through using Google Maps and looked at all the different blank facades and parking lots and pinpointed those on the map that were tied to an Excel spreadsheet with the exact location that was then provided to the city. So community engagement was really strong throughout this process. So in addition to the steering committee, we had stakeholder interviews and meetings. I believe we interviewed over 25 people. Those included area artists, governmental and non-profit arts organizations like Cleveland Arts Network, Assembly for the Arts, Art teachers from high school, I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second, service providers like the Metro Parks, the library, advocacy groups like Bike Lakewood, and they had great feedback regarding opportunities regarding placement and events, the form of public art themes, aesthetic style, accessibility, and artists had a lot to weigh in about the various challenges that exist for artists working in the public realm. We also did a community survey and tremendous support for public art in Lakewood, tremendous support for upping the support of their public arts program. with almost 80% of respondents supporting a required art for new development for increasing the annual budget. And then preferred places for community art included significant buildings and commercial corridors. Preferred types included murals, infrastructural art, and sculpture. And preferred themes include nature, diversity, and community. So like Micah, we really tried to engage those populations that a lot of times we don't get very good response in terms of public meeting and community surveys. So we went into two area high schools, Lakewood High School as well as St. Ed's High School. And I don't know if you can see very well, but we had four different boards. So we asked the high school students what Lakewood public art they liked the most. And we included kind of a broad representation of kind of some different styles. We included a board that asked the kids what kind of art they would like to see more of, what form. And then where they would like to see more of it. And the last exercise was their school campus and they wanted to give ideas. So it was interesting because a lot of their responses really mirrored the community survey. So they really liked art that was nature focused. They loved the murals. They wanted to see the main corridors and city parks. And this was a really good check for the people working on the PAAV in the city, in the public art realm, who wanted to kind of move away from nature-inspired murals and city identity kind of murals. And it was good for them to realize that those are the ones that really resonate with the public. So the guiding principles that were developed for this, and considering all this data that we had gathered, that public art must be authentic, inclusive and accessible, innovative, placemaking, and functional. So the recommendations, Our four recommendations were created, one being having to do with the form of public art, the second one having to do where it's located, the third having to do with equity and accessibility, and the fourth having to do with process of the PAAB. So goal one, Lakewood will continue to inspire and embrace the community through a diversity of public art forms, style, and themes. So this was a really fun goal to develop. We were able to include all sorts of examples from across the globe of really innovative art that had a huge impact in communities. So just to highlight one for infrastructural functional art. The hand right there is in Texas, and it was a sculpture that actually captures stormwater runoff from a highway overpass, filters it before it meets the creek that runs underneath it. The mural on the other side is from New York, and they used air light paint, which actually captures pollutants and cleans the air. So that associated recommendation was explore how public art can serve multiple purposes for the public good a great green infrastructure. So for goal two, continue to pursue the installation of public art in target areas throughout Lakewood. And as an example, Parks and Green Space, we highlighted one particular piece of artwork in the Smithsonian National Zoo. It was an installation that created sculptures of marine life that was entirely of found plastic material on the beaches right outside DC. Goal three was to ensure public art in Lakewood embraces all aspects of equity. I'm sorry, that picture covered it up. And that includes promoting racial, cultural, and gender equity, diverse art forms, styles, and themes, accessibility, and representative of all ages and abilities. One example that we highlighted here was a mural that was done in Canada. This particular artist worked with another artist who had low vision. He was a comic book artist and developed this mural that was accessible to people with low vision. He also incorporated elements that were tactile and meant to be felt and experienced. He also created a 3D sculpture of the mural. for people to be able to feel that that was very neat. Goal four had to do with create sustaining processes for the PAAB, including planning, funding strategies, and public relations procedures. So one funding strategy was to create a percent for public art program for city of Lakewood. A lot of cities do this. And it seemed like it had very good support with the community survey respondents. So this is one piece of art that was commissioned for Ohio's Present for Public Art program at Central State University. So next steps, I should have done the lessons learned, like Micah did, because I think that working with, if anyone has the opportunity to work with a group of artists on planning endeavors, you should, because every zany idea we threw out there, they were like, yes. And like Micah, this was done in early June, just in time for everyone to go on vacation. have a recess so we will go back to the city in in september um and hopefully it'll be you've heard only good things so far so it'll be approved without a hitch

to that part of the process as well.

Yeah, so we, and actually Shaker Heights has a great example that we included in the plan. They require, when a piece of public art is built in, they require the artist to submit a maintenance plan and to describe how much it will cost to do maintenance, if they're able to contribute, how they will lend their expertise and how that maintenance should be done. So, and there's, oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.

Is that a component? or not to install it or not.

I believe so. I think that was one of the recommendations in the process to make sure that that's considered in the decision-making process of the PAAB. Thank you.

That was really cool. Yeah, good.

It was cool to work on.

know we are tight on time and I know Beth's got her meeting right after this so I'll go very quickly through my report but I think it's good for you to hear about these projects before they're done and moving on to the next one because I you know there are some really creative ones that we had last year Thank You Micah and Megan so just real quickly Patrick's been sitting here patiently the whole time but I did want to say congratulations to Patrick he has been officially was hired, and I remember the very first time I came in and met with him before I started, and he's like, I want to help you be successful. So clearly he's helped me and this agency be successful, and I'm just happy to see him in this position before we potentially could lose him. Congratulations, Patrick. We had Susan obviously retired. Eric Engel resigned. He moved on to another job. So we had an opportunity to start reshuffling a little bit. So there'll be more turnings of the dial coming as we move forward. But thank you to Patrick and Jim. I didn't see you sitting there the whole time, but everyone was standing in front of you. So we'll be looking moving forward. So just some changes you heard now. Obviously, Micah is going to be leading the township. Maureen Riley is taking over NREC for Megan because Megan is leading our Safe Streets and Roads for All project. And so we just had a lot of things going on with that. It's a lot for her to manage both. Paul Triolo and our team is going to transition into leading SCIP in 2027. Elaine Price is retiring in the spring. next year, so we still have, like I said, this dial's gonna keep on turning. I've been appointed to the CCIC for, Susan was originally on that, and so now I am on that. We had our first meeting today, so yes. And then we'll be posting for a planning services manager position to Phil Patrick's, because right now he can't do assistant director and still have all the people report to him that he did as manager, so. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we are in the middle of a four-year Personnel Review Commission class plan maintenance. So this happens every four years with job descriptions that are in the class plan. And so this is the first time we're going through it because we only became classified since I have joined. So we hit that four-year mark. We're coordinating with PRC, we're coordinating with HR here at the county. Right now we've been given job descriptions, asked for our feedback, provided with feedback, that goes back to PRC, and then their consultant determines if we're accurately, if people are assigned where they should be, and if salaries and pay grades and all of those are aligned. So right now we're looking at where everyone's falling. Obviously, budget is budget. We were not able to do the merits, as I mentioned the last time. So just trying to figure out how do we make sure people are getting what they should in the very large pay scale grades. And so more to come with that. But it's a good time to be re-evaluating everything and make sure people are where they're supposed to be. Just quickly on the CPSP, we have awarded five projects out of the 12 applications we received. So this is again capacity. I wish we could have done all 12. Impossible. But these are the ones that we're going to be starting. Project leads have been assigned and they have reached out to the communities. We're going to try and probably stagger some of these because we've got some other work still going on. Brooklyn Master Plan is essentially done, waiting for approval. Same with Lakewood, but Orange Wayfinding is about finished. And then Valley View and the Bedford Master Plans are still underway. So we've got to balance our capacity with those two still working to finish before the end of the year and then starting new ones. But Alex Long is back from maternity leave, so we've got her now back in the rotation. So we've got some extra hands. Safe Streets and Roads for All we did put out. an RFP for this. We got six proposals. We had a project team involving RTA, Public Works, us, ODOT, I know it might be more, but there was a lot of us that were part of the project team reviewed and scored them. We've notified two firms that are advancing to the interview stage, and so those will be at the end of August. We've got a date set for that. So we're likely going to be back in front of you in October, I hope, for a contract with that consultant. So that's the federal contract that we got two years ago. So finally signed it this year and moving forward.

I'll just raise my head and say the interviews are scheduled for August 26.

Thank you. I couldn't remember the date. We had a lot of holds, and now we're down to one day. Unified zoning code update. We've got six confirmed communities. We've got one pending, potentially delayed. There's a lot of different things that happen at local levels that are out of anybody's control, and so one of the communities has got some changes in their building commissioner and building inspector, and so we're trying to figure out what that means for them. Fundraising, we've got our first deposit of the $75,000 of the $150,000 coming from the Cleveland Foundation, $25,000 has been received from Cuyahoga Land Bank, and then $25,000 from ACAR, which Patrick just did his obligatory presentation to their group yesterday, so I'm excited to have those funds in and then figuring out how we go forward. We did get authorization to dedicate $200,000 of our own revenues that we bring in over the next three years to support this effort. Still working through how exactly that's going to happen, but it is something that we're moving forward with. And then we are working on an RFP right now for that, hopefully getting it out Q3, Q4, now that we've got funding secured to move it forward. So not much going on in our office, right? No. And then we are going to be, we have kicked off now the West 117th Street Corridor Plan. I've talked about this a while ago. We had many conversations with RTA, City of Lakewood, City of Cleveland. This is a border shared road. It is also a county road and it is not in good shape. And there is a significant transit station there at Madison and West 117. So we have an MOU in place with the City of Cleveland and the City of Lakewood It's a mile. It also ties into the lakefront public access plan down at Edgewater and then up to Maria Road. It changes significantly. Yes, sir.

Just curious. that would include the target.

Did Cleveland ask you to say that?

No, no, no.

I do know that that is something that we talked about. Part of it is it becomes Cleveland once we get past Berea. Oh, I see what you're saying. And then it is a whole different corridor in terms of... interstate ramps and all commercial versus kind of some mixed use. But it was discussed. So we're going to lead that effort. Rachel on our team is going to be leading that, working with key stakeholders from Public Works, RTA, and the City of Cleveland has agreed to help any of the engineering pieces that we cannot do that extend beyond the planning with their on-call contract just to help make sure that we're doing things right. And then eventually that this will then come into a capital improvement project, but at least the plan

Real good. Any old or new business? A quick reminder, we do have the Solid Waste District Policy Committee meeting. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second?

Second.

All right. Meeting's adjourned. And meeting started for the Solid Waste District Policy Committee meeting.

Sorry about what just happened. But we had one action item I didn't think we'd be able to pick up.

OK.

I just have to move. I just have been sitting so long. Walk around.

Thank you very much. We'll call the Solid Waste Policy Committee meeting to order. Call the roll.

Chris Alvarado.

Here.

Mayor Burke. Joseph Nani.

Here.

Mayor Daley Jones. Here. Mayor Gallo. Marga Fields. Here. Mayor Kurtz.

Here.

Mayor Urquhart. Councilperson Simon? Mayor Rice?

Yes, Chair.

Mayor Wheelow?

Here.

Michelle Wilhelm? Here. Tim Weber?

Here.

You have a quorum.

Thank you. We have the approval of the minutes from the March 12th Policy Committee meeting. Any comments or changes? So do we have a motion? Any comments? On favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Thank you very much.

So we have been very busy. We came out of Earth Month in April and jumped right into our annual district report that is due to the EPA on June 1st of every year, which requires extensive surveying. On the slide here, this gives you an idea of all of the entities within the district that we need to survey, everything from your individual communities, institutions, processors, and facilities. We gather all that information up. We do extensive number crunching, make sure we didn't double count anything. And we compile that into our annual district report that demonstrates if we have met our goal one, which is at least 25% reduction activities on the residential commercial side to the EPA by June 1st. So we successfully completed that. This is the report and with every report we submit June 1st and then the EPA does a mass balance of all 53 solid waste districts within the state to make sure that all of the solid waste facilities have reported correctly and that the information that each solid waste district puts with that They do it in reconciliation and then return to us adjusted numbers. These are the adjusted numbers we received from the OEPA. I know it's a little difficult to see, but on the smaller chart, it would be just depending on how you're looking at it. On the right, you will see that we did obtain 25.44% reduction in the residential commercial sector and 65.13 in the industrial. The state no longer requires all those districts to track industrial But we have since the inception of the district track that and we find that's an important component to continue to track so we understand Waste flows and needs of our businesses and then overall we're at thirty eight point five two percent reduction Here we have, which hopefully you all received through mail at your offices, our 2025 annual report and the residential recycling report. And what this does, we publish this every year about the same time that we submit our annual district report to the OEPA. This reflects the activities of each of our 59 communities within the district, and it also is a snapshot of our accomplishments for the year. Just so you can see that a little bit better. We were on target budgetarily with our revenues and our expenditures. This gives you some idea of our breakdown. The majority of our revenue comes from our generation fee. What is our generation fee? It's the $2 per ton on every ton disposed anywhere within the state of Ohio that's been generated from within our district. And then we do get a few other dollars from the sales of compost equipment. and then grants that we may receive. Our expenditures, as you can see, primarily come from operating our programs. So that's our outreach and education, as well as management of the grants that we operate that many of your communities participate in, as well as all of our special collection events. So we are heavy on those hands-on activities. This is the residential recycling report. This is a listing of all of your communities, both this year and last. We break out what is associated with curbside recycling or other recycling activities in your communities, as well as any organics diversion. Organics is continuing to grow. We're seeing lots. applications through the grant programs that we offer for pilot programs for food waste so that is a growing activity we're very proud of and thus far that the pilots that we have underwritten The communities had great data gathered during those pilots, and when presented to individual councils, councils have decided to underwrite that as a benefit in those communities. So that is a wonderful story to tell. I'm going to go back one more. I neglected to kind of go over some of our other, oops, I went the wrong way, I'm sorry. What am I doing here? There we go. I went the wrong way. My apologies. These are some of the statistics associated with our individual specialty waste programs. As you can see, some of our heaviest programs are our household hazardous waste at over 408,000 pounds. The way that works is the district holds the contract for household hazardous waste. Each of your communities collect that material on whatever frequency is best for your community, whether that's continuous, monthly, quarterly, annually. And then when you hit critical mass, you bring that to us for consolidation and proper handling. We also hold county contracts for Scrap Tire Roundup, which is getting to be that time of year again. That's in the fall, where we underwrite a program where we work with Liberty Tire, run what's called a milk route around, and come to your communities to collect those scrap tires that you have collected from the rights-of-ways within your community. Litter collection, we hold a contract and send court community services throughout your communities at least twice a year to gather illegal dumping and litter from the rights-a-ways within your communities. Starting next year, we'll be moving to three crews. Right now we have a contract for two, next year we moved to three, and that was put in all recently approved. We're getting into pumpkin collection season. Several of you sponsor containers for that event. And last year we collected over 53,000 pounds of pumpkins. I know that sounds just staggering, but we hope to break that record again this year. All those pumpkins go to a compost facility for composting. So they are unadorned pumpkins and gourds that we collect. And it's been a huge, this is our fourth year, it's been a huge program. We have two comments, questions.

So our city donates our reptile rescue. We all know when South Dakota has this national. Should we weigh those and tell you how many people are donating? I mean, could we submit that to you? I mean, can we take a picture of it? You could weigh them. I mean, if we weigh them and take a picture and show you that this is really going on. Because they're not going to the landfill. It's a reuse. Right. Like, we do a huge electronic roundup. They bring a sub-eye. Now, we get the results with your processor, because we do survey processors. So we get those. But the pumpkins, we could get you that. That could maybe get you even further. You saw this pumpkin thing. I think I'd rather be a player club going down the slide every year. Having to beat the pumpkin. I'll talk to my team about the pumpkin. You know, help me out on that.

too early. I wasn't really sure at the time period or whatever, but for what it's worth, people, they loved it and said, oh, I forgot or this or that.

We will definitely take that under consideration. Because it's kind of two different programs, you would have to kind of truncate it right after Halloween and then probably right around Thanksgiving. But we can definitely look into that. go to the next one and then these are some of our additional statistics gives you an idea again we've talked about the pounds for all of our diversion our social media is a huge KPI that we track we have broke the three million individual mark this year for those that follow us and key into our web page. And these are some of the other statistics. For example, we had over 3,700 attendees at 86 recycling and composting webinars and events that we manage this year, as well as I mentioned we provide grants. So we had 35 of our communities take advantage of those grants. providing almost $300,000 in funding for recycling and composting and outreach and education associated with those activities. The one thing I'd like to point out is our Environmental Crimes Task Force. We have been very, very busy, and 2025 was a very busy year for us. These are the statistics. We have representation on the task force from both the City of Cleveland Police Department as well as stuff used from the Sheriff's Department. They are constantly investigating illegal dumping throughout Cuyahoga County. As you can see here, they actually had 80 felony charges. We're able to gather about $20,000 in restitution and are just constantly investigating. We have, when I passed out, our door hangers that we have developed And we have distributed since June almost 15,000 of those throughout the county. It has contact information on there. So if you're within Cleveland, there's a set of numbers and kind of a process that you utilize to report illegal dumping. If you're within the county, another is based on law enforcement jurisdiction. And if you would like some for distribution in your community, please shoot me an email. We can get them delivered to you. This information is also on our website. We've had some communities just really embrace this and have begun some regular community cleanups to discourage illegal dumping in their community because if you see something, say something, if you're active in your community, that's the best deterrent for illegal dumping.

Is any of that mapped at all, like where the illegal dumping is taking place?

We don't, simply because For investigation purposes, we don't want those potential criminals finding out that we have cameras on them or that type of thing for prosecution. But we also have a flyer if you're interested. This is a trifle pamphlet that we can get you. We are currently waiting for our next print of this. We went through all of our printed ones already. So if you're interested, it's somewhat redundant to the door hanger I passed out, the door hanger. On both of these pieces, you can see all of our partners within the Environmental Crimes Task Force. So it's not only the Sheriff's Department in Cleveland, Police Department, it's Cuyahoga County, as well as the Board of Health, Ohio EPA, and then Court Community Services. And they all have a very specific and important role to play in helping to hopefully get illegal dumpers out of our communities and get those sites cleaned up. Just real quick, some of the webinars and whatnot that we've got going. Tis fall, so we've got some Fix-It workshops underway, as well as I'd like to point out we're launching for our business resource champions First of three webinars. This is business pointed. We use our business resource champion acknowledgement program. If you're a business, there are different levels that you can obtain. Think of it as kind of LEED certification, but saw LEED for solid waste. And if a company meets the criteria, we actually go there, present them an award that is made out of repurposed materials, of course. And so we're sponsoring a webinar that asks the experts that it's actually easier than you think to encourage businesses to acknowledge the green work that their employees are doing. and I can answer any questions.

Beth had assisted setting up a tour of the WM recycling facility. And I've been wanting to do it a long time. You've talked about it quite a bit in previous meetings. And I'd highly recommend it to anybody to do it. It's great.

And if any of you are interested or your councils are interested, please drop me an email. We can get you scheduled to get in there and see it.

Well worth it.

You also send out people that can speak to your communities as a great slideshow and then actually show pictures of how they're actually recycling and how even with an I think one lady just kept sitting there mesmerized because it was an envelope with like, you know, it has that little cellophane. Yeah. And it just shows how it spins up. Separates. There it is on top. You have all the paper on the bottom. And I think it's a great tool just like for board meetings or.

Because we have Karen as our educator, and her car will travel.

Any other questions or comments? Great. Anything else? Do you have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Thank you very much. And we're done. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.