Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we will call to order here the uh North Canton Planning Commission meeting. It is January 7th, 2026. Um time is 6:02 p.m. Uh first thing on the [clears throat] agenda is our roll call. Mr. Delpes here. Mr. Mahalsen. Mr. Sarah present. Mr. Leage here. Mr. Reid.

All right. The next item on the agenda, we have some administrative items to take care of the night tonight since it's the beginning of the year. Um, first thing is the election of our officers. Any discussion? Any motion? Look like I should probably make that, shouldn't I? [snorts] [laughter] I move that Mr. Delpas be chairman and Mr. Sarah be co-chairman. Okay, we have a motion. I'll second it. We have a second. Can we call it a vote? Mr. Sarah? Yes. Mr. Leage? Yes. Mr. DP?

Yes. Thank you, gentlemen. Um, next, establish our 2026 planning commission meeting calendar. Um, I think everything that was circulated was the first Wednesday of the month. The only potential conflicts I saw as always July 1st. Um July 4th does land on the weekend, but I know a lot of people take that week off or whatever. I didn't know if we wanted to move that to the second Wednesday. That works for me. I'm always available for the city. Thank you, Mr. I was mostly concerned with the public. I know we will all be here.

No matter what time of day it is. No matter what time of day, never mind. Wednesday. Yeah. The second Wednesday. So July, what would that be? The eighth. Yeah. Yes.

And I think that that would probably be the only one that currently I think is the top of my head unless there's another from anyone else. Well, my birthday's July 7th, so well, we'll have a I'll agree to the 8th. Okay. I'll try to get a celebration on the agenda. All right. If everyone uh in his agreement, I'll make a motion to uh to approve the calendar with the only edit um being July 8th. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Can we call a vote, please? Mr. Mr. Sarah. Yes. Mr. Delpes. Yes. Mr. Leage.

Yes. All right. I think that covers all our uh administrative items tonight. Next on the agenda would just be our minutes for consideration. So, this is submitting the July 9th, 2025 meeting minutes for approval. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. I call a vote. Mr. Delpes? Yes. Mr. Sarah? Yes. Mr. Leage? Yes.

All right. Next is our public hearing portion of our meeting. Um [clears throat] on the on the agenda tonight is the development review application number DPLN-25-25. This is at 447 North Main Street, North Canton, Ohio. Uh this is the development review for a new North Canton Fire EMS center. So, at this time, I would ask the applicant to uh go ahead and present the review in front of us tonight. If you could uh please state your name and address if you approach the podium. Sure. Is it okay if I come up here so that everyone's not turning backwards?

Sure, that's totally fine. As long as you can speak loud enough [laughter] to get it picked up on the the microphone. My name is K Curt Sparks with App Architecture. We're at 615 Woodside Drive in Inglewood, O Ohio. Uh I'm the designer on this project and we're just here to present what is the proposed fire station that will be built that will break ground late spring early summer this year. Uh [snorts] it'll be on the corner of Biking and Main Street. Uh so while the fire station's exempt from the zoning codes, we are trying to stick to as much of the main street central zoning code as po possible because as a government buil building, it should set the the the example. Uh as you can see, it's going to be an allmasonry built building, capstone and brick. The darker brick being to be similar to the h the Hoover brick that's recommended as the selling code. It is a one-story build build with the mezzine and six apparat apparatus phase. If you want to just go [snorts] the next view that's the view from Viking and Maine. This is from the north side looking south on Main Street. And this is from on Viking Street. Uh, one unique thing about this site is from Main Street to to the rear of our site, there's about a 10-ft elevation change. So on the rear of the site, which you'll see on the plans, there will be up to an 8 foot segmented retaining wall. There will also need to

be retaining walls on the south side. Uh it was originally planned to be a se segmented wall. We're looking now at making it brick just because it is on a street front front and we want to maintain the same aesthetics. Uh so that that right there will be brick. Yeah. This that's white. Yeah. Probably we haven't put any material on a heat yet because we don't know what it is yet. Okay. It would if it's brick it would be a poured concrete. Yeah. with the brick facade. Yeah, the brick facade on the front.

These are just elevations of it showing where we have cast stone, a lighter brick, the Hoover brick, uh the red doors, and then sign signage on the bu building. Planwise, the entrance will be at the corn corner of Main and V biking uh with the administrative functions of the fire station along Main Street and the more private functions of the fire station itself toward toward towards the re rear. Here's the mater materials that are being proposed right now. This brick we are definitely using. This brick is still up in the air because we're not positive we can get the right size of that that yet. And there will be a couple camp canopies, one in the rear and one at the front front entry. Sightwise, as you can see, we're we have tight sight. Uh so this is the area here where there will be the large retaining wall. We are also going to have a metal privacy fence along the rear and side just to since we are going to be elevated higher than the house the the houses on on Fair Oaks. We want to make make sure we're not causing [clears throat] issues for them with headlights and stuff like that. And the fence will help keep noise down from going back to the neighbors as well. And this one means nothing to us. So

this just shows those [snorts] rap rapid grade changes on the site. a landscaping plan. I think there's one more sheet that is supposed to No, keep keep on that. There's more sheets in here than we need. Here we go. This is the site lighting plan which is we will we will only actually have at this point planning on four P pole lights uh with cut cut off gates so the light won't come past outside. It'll just do the lots. Then there are sconce lights between between the apparata space to light up the the front and re rear aprons. There are currently some street lights along Main Street here that will need to be we're working with the city on where where those will get re relocated because one of them is right out here right now. So

So that light light by the uh parking there. Uhhuh. Is that I mean the drive is right there. So, you're going to put shields on for only to light up the parking lot? Well, we want to make sure that we don't have more than one foot candle. Yep. Coming past here. If it ends up that it's not a shield, you know, because to get light here, that could be, but we will we will do a phototric study before anything goes out and it'll be submitted along with our, you know, for permit to ensure we're not sharing lights onto the adjacent propert.

Exactly. Okay. And that's really all I have. if there's anything that you know you guys saw in the pack packet that you would like us to address. We are still we just finished the design develop development phase of this. So, we're still at a point where we're making tweaks and, you know, while wholesale changes are probably not in store at this point, we are, you know, are open to if there's anything that you guys feel is not representing what the central main street district is supposed to be. Okay. Thank you. No problem.

Um, at this time, any more questions from commission members? So, [clears throat] I noticed that there's parking is going to be off of Viking Street. Yes. [clears throat and cough]

And you mentioned the retaining wall that's going to plus the fence. The retaining wall is it looks like it was 7 8 foot elevation change. It is [snorts] this area here. You're seven or eight ft. Yes. Okay, because the the contour from here to here is a 10 10t difference. Biking goes downhill. But so is there going to be a a drop off that's that drastic to Yes. next door property? Correct. And what's that wall going to be made out of? Do we know yet?

Uh uh product called Ready Rock. They're like 24 in blocks that look look like stone. And what's the life expectancy of that material? Uh the build build building like expectancy. It's the stuff that you see uh a lot by o overpasses. Okay. stuff where there's serious grade changes. They come in sizes from the smallest is about an 18 inch block and the largest they make are like third 36 inch.

So you haven't decided what size or anything else it'll be. They they design it. It's a delegated design. Uh what we have initially from what we've seen is they would be a 24 in And then I notice that you have a dumpster in the corner there. Correct. And it's intended to be shielded.

It's a masonry enclosed clo closure with gates. And then there's a generator there too. A generator pad. Correct. Which would be right here. And will that be exposed then? It will be exposed, but we do we are having the privacy vents along here along the hole. And what height is that going to be anticipated? It's the height supporting your zoning six feet.

Okay. Which is what we intend to be. All right. So that will block that correct generator. [clears throat] Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sarah. Um, at this time I would turn it over to the uh city for any comments. Mayor, any comments? Good. Good. I think we've all seen this and discussed it a lot. Okay. Great. We need it, but it's been years and years and years. We finally are getting

All right. So, at this time then I would turn it over to our uh, you know, public public speak section. Um, if anyone from the audience would like to get up and speak at this time regarding this project, um, we would ask you to state your name and address and, um, keep your discussion to around 5 minutes if possible. So, if there's anyone that would like to speak or ask questions, this would be the time. Okay. Anything else from commission members? Sure, sir. Go right ahead.

My name's John Martin. I live on that uh from the corner of that where you stop garbage disposal. That's our property right behind me. Okay.

Um my [clears throat] question is um as far as drainage uh what are we doing? You will go a couple pages up here. The one that had the great grading on it. I think there's one more. Yeah, here you go. So, this dash line right here underneath the driveway, we're going underground retention because we don't have room on the site for a detention pond. So everything and if you underground storage here if we go up one more sheet the one I said we don't need [laughter] uh all of the storm water everything is set here so that everything drains in into this you will we will not be shedding water water off onto your property. So yeah, so there's no possibility as far as you know of any type of drainage into the backyards.

Correct. You should not. All right. And you said that the wall back in that section where our house is in fact it's the second block there. Are you this house? Right there. There you go. Okay. Uh you said that the uh retaining wall that you said would be about 24 in thick about 8 ft high. Correct. Okay. And then uh I'm I'm concerned with the fence back there, the privacy fence. Uh how high would that be then in addition to that 8 ft? It would be a sixoot fence in addition. Okay. On top of that. All right. To make sure we don't have headlights and stuff going into your property.

Okay. Headlights is one concern. Okay. The other concern is uh sound. Uh what type of fence would that be and what type of guestment would you have as far as uh retarding the sound?

Well, with zoning trying to stay within the zoning, we're limited on m materials. So, what we're looking at right now is a metal privacy fence. So, it wouldn't be like a rod iron fence, anything like that. We want it so that it blocks light and will reflect sound. and you actually and actually in the back, [clears throat] you know, we're do doing it to make sure we're being a good good neighbor. But this is the rear. All the trucks enter here and pull out this way. This is a pass through station. So you shouldn't have other than cars coming this way, headlights come coming anyway. And we are not going to have speakers on the rear rear of the station either. Oh, okay.

So, when we do exit the building, of course, it's going out to Main Street. Sure. That sound is heading right. It's, you know, hopefully the back doors are closed. Uh, but like sometimes fire stations will have external speak speakers as well for when they get call calls. We are not putting those on. Okay. that material for that privacy fence. What what would that uh be similar to that I could, you know, envision that's already, you know, utilized? I mean, think of just like your typical vinyl privacy fence, but not vinyl.

But not vinyl. Uh one that's not allowed by by the zone zoning code here to have vi vinyl. I wouldn't want it any [cough] building this to last 50 years. Uh, and we have not picked it out yet. Can you kind of explain to them the elevation height that will be from that top of the parking or the drive to where this property [clears throat] is?

So, yeah. Like so here this is this drive is a steep hill up and over but then to where this corner is the biggest elevation ch change. Like we said this lot is 8 foot above your backyard. Mhm.

Uh so then you'll have an additional six foot fence. So you've got 14 feet of not seeing their stuff. [clears throat] And we are well through some of this area where where we have the property space. There's also landscaping on the bottom side of of the wall. Uh not so much in your area because we're pretty tight to the property line and yours. Yeah. That wall is going to go pretty much up against the fence that's already existing there. pretty close as far as your understanding.

It's a a few feet. Okay. [cough and clears throat] Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Any other questions, uh, comments from the public at this time? All right. Um, the only comment I had was the lighting, just making sure that that's cut off at the property lines due to our obviously our proximity here. Um, I think you covered a lot of the other questions I had. Um, but that was kind of the major one, but I know I understand you'll be submitting that to Martin and that'll be reviewed outside of this commission for compliance. Um, anything else from commission members? If not, I would entertain a motion.

I make a motion to approve the development review. Okay, we have a motion. I'll second that. We have a second. So, this just to be clear, this is for the development review application number DPLN-25-5, 447 North Main Street for the North Canton Fire and EMS Center. And call to vote, please. Mr. Dpes, yes. Mr. Sarah, yes. Mr. Leage, yes. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Um, I think that's all we have tonight unless there is any other business.

Good. All right. Motion to adjurnn. I'll second. All in favor?