Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call to order here at the North Canton Planning Commission meeting is June 3rd, 2026 at 6 p.m. First thing on the agenda is a roll call.

Mr. Dalpais?

Here.

Mr. Mahausen?

Here.

Mr. Serra?

Here.

Mr. LePage?

Here.

Mr. Reid?

Okay, next on the agenda is our minutes for consideration. This will be submitting the February 4th, 2026 meeting minutes for approval. I'm not sure if there's any comments on there. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. I'll second. We'll do a roll call on this.

Mr. Mahausen?

Yes.

Mr. Dauphais?

Yes.

Mr. Serra?

Yes.

Mr. LePage?

Yes. All right. Next on the agenda tonight is a public hearing. This would be for Ordinance 16-2026. This is an ordinance repealing Chapter 1139 Industrial District Regulations and amending various provisions of Chapter 1137 Business District Regulations of the Codified Ordinances of the City of North Canton to update, modify, and clarify the regulations governing the City's business districts. Okay. At this time, I'm not sure who from the administration would like to present first. Marty wants to kick it off.

Marty, do you want to kick us off?

Yes, thank you. This was a combination of efforts between Liam, myself, and Jason. With that said, Liam did a bulk of the heavy lifting. He did a very good job. It's very well put together. Liam also has a couple other documents here that will help guide us through the various changes on that. With that, Liam, if you want to take it from here.

Okay. Yeah, there is the red line that was provided to you guys. It's up on the screen. I believe they provided it to you separately as well. That's just all of the changes that are going through. I'll just kind of run through a quick summary of the proposed changes. One of the major components is the establishment of the neighborhood business zoning designation. So the neighborhood business districts are defined as environments that are conducive to well located and designed offices. and limited business service activity that provides service to the community while protecting the adjacent residential neighborhoods by regulating the usage that would reduce any congestion noise or other objectionable influences so you know thank doctors offices dentistry things that are light use and then typically beyond nine to five aren't going to be active so there's not going to be anybody coming to and from no overnight storage of heavy equipment or anything, so no big landscape or something that's going to want to leave heavy equipment that generates noise, especially if they would be coming back from a job or something like that. It's all going to be basically just offices, accounting firms, those types of businesses that are adjacent to houses without creating an undue burden. And then this is intended to be a stopgap between the more permissive GBA or GBB business designations that the city already has and protect those residential districts. So there's a few businesses throughout the city that are pretty adjacent to residential properties that would be otherwise zoned as GBA or GBB. Those can allow for some heavier uses, including equipment, all-hour operations, just kind of depending on what those businesses may be. This is a bit more limited use that would dial it back into that very subdued, typical nine to five office kind of thing. Some of the other changes, some additional regulations for limited or yet for the light, the limited industrial zoning district. So Chapter 1139, the industrial district regulations is a largely vestigial section of the code. There is one block of parcels in the city that has the ally designation. That would be the Diebold Complex. We don't anticipate there being any other significant industrial uses, which with the industrial districts, there was an additional designation, the General Industrial District, which was for larger industrial uses, a little bit heavier manufacturing, those kind of facilities. We don't have any anymore. We are not going to get any, presumably. So having the GI designation is just, you know, kind of moot. We don't have a purpose for it anymore. So we wanted to get rid of that, which would just leave LI as its own in its own chapter. So we wanted to combine that with the existing business district regulations, just to put all commercial activity in a single chapter. Both administration permits, city council's initial comments were know all in line that this makes more sense to just combine everything into one chapter um additional points there's some expanded language across various provisions in the chapter just to increase some clarity specifically with the appeal requirements letting that go any determination from either the development services department or the planning commission to be appealed to the zboa which does align with The ZBOA's charter-defined authority, they oversee all appeals of any determination from the development side of things. So that just kind of cleared that up. Establishing a procedure for uses not listed in the schedule of permanent uses. So within the chapter is a pretty long list of all the different types of businesses, where they may or may not be located, depending on their zoning designations. This gives the Director of Permits and the Planning Commission a bit more authority to establish a designation for something that may be outside of that schedule, just so that we can be a little bit more agile. So if a certain business wants to come in that we don't have a designation for, then we can do that without having to make a significant amendment to this code. This process, similar to those designations, would be a multi-month process that would stop up a business from coming into the city. So giving you guys a little bit more ability to be more nimble with those designations. It also modifies the schedule of permanent uses to add those neighborhood business district and limited industrial uses into that schedule of permanent uses. That's more of a formatting thing than anything, but it's just important to note. Additionally, and this would be A bit more consequential is the prohibition of cannabis-related businesses, which is pursuant to Chapter 513 of the Codified Ordinances of the City, and also establish some regulations of smoke shops, which would be your more traditional tobacco nicotine-type businesses. We establish smoke shops as any retail establishment whose primary use is related to the sale of products relating to non-tobacco nicotine, so your vapes and others. oils and things like that, CBD, kratom, or hemp-derived or synthetic cannabinoids, Delta-8s, Delta-9s. So prohibiting that from being the primary use of a business, which is either 33% or more of a particular business's stock in trade, or that those products occupy more than 33% of the shop's floor area. This will not prohibit the sale of products relating to the usage of traditional tobaccos, of cigarettes, cigars. So like if a cigar shop wanted to open up a business, that would be perfectly fine. It's just to kind of rein in the more, the less understood types of businesses, the bake shops and things of that nature. Some other regulations, adjusting height regulations to be consistent with the nature of each district's commercial activity. So putting them all in one chapter. Your GBA and GBB is not going to have the same type of business as an LI that might be a much larger, taller facility. So it's just kind of shoring up the regulations for that. We built in the drive-through pickup window standards that we previously put forward. That would have been a year or two ago. This was just a win and roam kind of thing. If we're already in here making changes, let's just shore it up and align everything across the board. And that's about it.

Can I add maybe just one or two things for context? I'll be brief because Liam ran through a lot of stuff and I wanted to give you guys time to react, but Liam did a good job of describing the what. I wanted to just talk briefly about the why. Why is there all this red all over this markup? There's really, I think, two main reasons. So for context we've got two commercial parts of the code we have main street i'll just call it main street and then everything else and so main street um not too long ago we had done a lot of work on the main street districts but it had been some time before what i'll just call everything else in terms of commercial um was looked at so a lot of what's in that red line that liam didn't discuss i would categorize it more as kind of housekeeping just looking you know it's been a long time since we went through these business districts and the industrial district we had so a lot of those language changes or we're looking for consistencies or inconsistencies maybe wording things differently kind of modernizing it um the the second reason i think that we wanted to take a fresh look at this um really was more from are there more significant things that maybe there's gaps or things missing and that's a lot of what liam just ran through like he said by far i think the most consequential changes are taking a look at the smoke shops and so like liam said if it's a traditional tobacco business um that's not really changing but if it's a if it's a business that given those percentages, you mentioned the 33% where it falls, I'll just call them non-traditional smoke shops. I guess they're getting more traditional with each passing year, but where they're more of the cannabinoids or the CBD or the other non-tobacco stuff, a lot of communities around us have gotten into situations where they've let those businesses proliferate. And then they're in a situation where they've got, you know, four of them close to one another. We wanted to be a little proactive and say, like, maybe before that happens here in North Canton, we want to regulate those businesses more. Looking down the road, we felt like if this was well received by the Planning Commission and the City Council in terms of those smoke shops, that might be something that we would consider, you know, proposing changes to Main Street as well. But we thought we would start here with that. So I know we talked a lot. So I'm going to stop now and let you guys, you know, take the meeting back.

All the knowledge behind it is helpful.

One other thing I would like to mention is that as a part of all these changes, especially with establishing the neighborhood businesses, no parcel will be forcibly rezoned. So this is purely textual for right now. We're not going to force anybody in the neighborhood business or any other designation for that matter. It will just be as new things develop, we'll be able to use that designation if people would want it or if it would be the best case for the area.

And like we have said, the rationale behind that neighborhood, that's a bigger change to that neighborhood business district was more, we're kind of on our commercial regulations. It's almost feast or famine. We either have these really big general business districts like Washington Square or some of the properties along Whipple and so forth, or there's residential. We thought there might be a place in our code to have something that would allow smaller clusters of office, low-intensity retail, doctor's offices, things like that. But like Liam said, we're not proposing rezoning anything right now. We just wanted to Growth Team, Create a category that down the road, there might be some ability to have a transition between currently residential and no big square footage retail and other uses.

Okay. Anyone else from the administration comments at this time?

Just talking about the drive-through windows and that. That just saves you guys time with all the ones coming through for variances because we have been granting those. It seems to be the norm. Two windows were different, and now everybody wants them. So it's a good cleanup there. It's time-saving.

I can't possibly add to anything that they just said. Okay. Well, thank you. All right.

uh questions from planning commission members i know mr sarah has some i have some do you want to work on the line go right ahead you can start on the cannabis uh businesses i think you said there are some existing uh i can think of at least two or three that

exist right now?

So for traditional cannabis, it is outlawed under Chapter 513. So the businesses like dispensaries and stuff are already prohibited. The places that sell CBD and Delta 8 would be grandfathered in under any new changes. So any of those businesses now provided they want to expand their operations, they cannot exceed that 33%. ONCE THEY WOULD TRY TO EXPAND PASS ON ITS OWN PROHIBITED USE.

THAT WAS MY QUESTION. I'M PLEASED WITH THAT PROVISION BEING ADDED.

I'VE READ THE PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS. I DON'T TAKE ANY ISSUE WITH ANY OF THEM. So, I got quite a few questions for you.

I actually, I don't want to sound negative, but I am concerned for these changes.

It's more than just saying the GI is default. The GI needs to be, there could be other buildings other than default in that complex.

LI, right?

Yeah, the LI. I'm sorry, LI. GI. LI. So, you know, I think that's a misstatement. But back in April of 2021, we did a special planning committee meeting that was quite extensive and involved quite a lot of research. And that kind of set up and established the Main Street, North Gateway and South and everything else. So I was involved in that, and I think that was really...

Needed.

Needed, yeah. And I think where you're taking it is needed and needs to be tuned up. But if I go back and I look at what you're proposing, and I also have an agreeance of taking the Chapter 1137 Business District in the chapter 1139 industrial district and basically combining it into this. So I think that's a very good move. I am concerned that we are going from five districts to four districts as you're proposing. You know, with the neighborhood business district, the general GBA, GBB, and the LI. So, I mean, the reason it was set up for five districts originally was intentional, and you're taking it to four districts. I'm going to add a little side note. I know we're focusing always on the Main Street, I don't know why we're not focusing on other major streets going into North Canton, like Apple Grove and Maple. And I think it would be nice because we do have commercial buildings and office buildings on those stretch. And I think it'd be nice to see this once and for all be compensated into one ONE BUSINESS DISTRICT AREA. BUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR SCHEDULE PERMITTED USES, YOU CALL OUT IN THE NB, YOU CALL OUT MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL AND LIVE WORK UNITS AS UF. What's UF? Upper floor?

Yeah, so it'd be the upper floor. Marty, if you want to speak to that point.

Sorry, I was trying to get off mute there. Yeah, that was a carryover from the Main Street district where we picked up the upper floor and lower floor. So that's getting into the mixed use area. So with UF, the multifamily would be anything above that first floor.

So we're more promoting that lower floor to be the commercial type uses, professional offices, retail, those types of things.

Any other primary use that's listed in that table of permitted uses.

That makes sense. I just didn't know what it stood for. Some of the other things in the I'm just going to go through it and tell you my comment. You list flagpoles, and you reference a section. The section name, when you go to it, limits it to 15 feet. I don't know. I know what you're going for. You don't want to have this 50-foot tall flagpole, but I do like flags myself. SO, YOU KNOW, I THINK 15 FEET IS SOMETHING KIND OF SHORT. IN YOUR SCHEDULE 1137.04, THE MINIMUM WATCH REQUIREMENTS, YOU DON'T SHOW BNB DISTRICT. SO YOU GOT OB, GBA, GBD. that goes. In your height restrictions you're saying 50 feet is the tallest height in the LI. Before I think it was only 40 feet. I was just looking at that. It was 35. 35, was it?

Uh-huh.

Yeah. Previously, it was 35, and then it stated you could...

Except otherwise, but...

Conditional use if you went over 35.

In the Section 1137.13, he references dumpsters and waste receptacle screenings. saying that it's required. There's a lot of businesses in this that do not have it. So I get it, but, you know, you made a comment that this is not going to be enforced, but you also said for now.

For now.

So watch your words.

Yeah. I mean, it would be a, you know, prior print of reviews. I'll just shed light on that, too. Like, where that comes from is we do have a lot of complaints with that now. So if we can go forward to not have that, as we have so much commercial mixed in with residential, there are people that the back of your business is the side lot to their, you know, backyard, and they're looking at all the trash. you know, we're trying to enjoy their backyard and they look it over and they're seeing all that, you know, get more screening. We can coexist better together.

It references the business district, but I didn't notice any revised zoning map. So I don't know if that's been created, but if I'm going to

So the zoning map wouldn't change because no parcels are being rezoned. So currently, so if this was adopted, there would be no existing neighborhood business parcel. So there's nothing to include on the map. Until somebody ultimately changes designations, the neighborhood business would not appear on any zoning map.

Right, like a property owner might. come to us for example and say i'd like to be rezoned as neighborhood business and we'd have a code section then and would allow them to at least pursue that but like liam said that's a good point none of this proposing any changes to the existing zoning map it would stay as is this is purely text changes to the code but you're already adding an mv

To the list of available designations, there's just nobody currently zoned that way. Similarly, on this map, I don't believe GI is represented anywhere just because we don't have anybody zoned as GI, though it is currently an existing designation under our code.

Should we have that, we would send them to the map?

Correct.

That's my comments.

That was quick. Scared us. I know.

We could set that up for an hour.

Good setup, though.

I might take an hour.

Let it go here.

Well, my question, yeah, number one, my question was, one of my questions was the map. So we're going to, the map is not changing. You're creating the designation for in the future, if. if a property owner wanted to change them or in the future, the zoning map could be changed like it has in the past. And I, I do, I appreciate the intent, the intent of this of creating something to step down between the residential and our current business districts, because as you mentioned, there definitely are scenarios where that could be a problem. Right. So yeah, I do appreciate the intent here to try to scale it down as we move towards the business items. First, the procedure for something that is not in the schedule of permitted uses. So I'm looking at your summary and I didn't highlight the exact text in there. But it says, you know, the director of permits slash planning commission may determine a given use's compatibility with the code slash business district in an issue of determination. So I guess my question is, currently, if somebody comes in and they meet all the requirements, let's say they're coming in for GBA, or let's just say the new designation, NV, they come in and they meet all the requirements for, let's say, Screening building size etc etc etc Typically now in our code that at that point the director of permits could just say Okay, you're good to go. You can move forward. It doesn't have to rise to Planning Commission If they don't fit in the schedule are we saying if they meet all the requirements of NB then it the director director of permits has the authority to put them in a certain category and What, I mean, I'm just trying to understand what would determine that the Director of Permits allowed, but how would it come to Planning Commission? Because I don't think that's clear.

Well.

I think that's a good question for Margie.

Yeah, the Director of Permits is on the phone.

Yeah.

Yeah, so the intention here was similar to how we handle the development review, is if the use, the proposed use was something that was similar to the listed use,

uses in the table, then that would stay at the level the director permits on that.

Conversely, if it was something that maybe didn't quite fit or might have some adverse impact to the community, then that would

be escalated to Planning Commission or even as a level of appeal, even if, let's say, a use does come in and it might seem to someone that it should be permitted as part of the table, they would have that level of appeal to go to Planning Commission and get their review of it, more thorough review with the members.

Right. So I guess my question is, that would be appealed if it goes to Planning Commission and gets denied, then they could appeal it to ZBOA, right? But if the director's permits just approved it, the neighbor wouldn't be able to appeal that approval. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

They could. They could appeal an approval as well to the ZBOA, yes.

Okay. I'm just trying to think of something. Something doesn't fit in here. It's a real issue. The director of permits misses it, thinks it's okay, but a neighbor doesn't. Then what's the remedy, right? And I don't know if it's just not clear enough. You know, I'm just... kind of speaking this out there like how could we make that more protective for a neighbor effectively right because a lot of people don't know what happens here right they're paying attention to it even if they get a letter it goes in the trash right oh whatever they're busy everyone's busy they get an email whatever so my concern is if something didn't fit and the director of permit, I'm not saying Marty would do this, but I'm saying in the future, 50 years from now, somebody just rams something through, what's the process of remedying that if it doesn't fit in here? It's almost like if it doesn't fit in here, I don't know. I just feel like

Do you think some wording that the neighbor would have the ability to appeal?

Yeah, something.

I don't know.

So that language lives in the Zoning Board of Appeals part of the code where any aggrieved person can appeal that.

I'm paraphrasing. The challenge is anything that gets that administrative level of review, there are no notices sent out. Unfortunately, That agreed person wouldn't know about it until it's too late anyway. So that gets to be the balance here of where do we facilitate business but also protect the neighbors as well.

Correct. Yeah, that's my concern. Okay. I don't want to beat this to death here. I just want to bring it up and I feel like that might need some investigation, I guess. maybe even how other places are handling those situations in their zoning code.

We could take a closer look at that text and think about some scenarios, like you mentioned, and see if there's a better way to write that. Right. Yeah.

That's just my concern, because I could see something happening where someone doesn't even know that it happens in that scenario. Right.

And you have the 30-day window on the appeal. Right.

Okay.

That starts from... From a procedural standpoint, I don't know how that would necessarily even function as far as those determinations issued because we obviously don't send out notices to every resident or even in a particular area unless it's appearing before a board. Yeah. If it's something that's just an administrative authority, I don't know that that's something that would even be remedied by a change in this code without some sort of notice being sent to everybody regardless of situation. Right. So I don't necessarily know that a change in this legislation as written would solve that problem, just given that it's more of a procedural and timing thing. Generally, those larger projects, especially things that may be outside of the scope of the law, are going to appear before you guys anyways, which would be the time to say, maybe it's a zoning designation in and of itself. Yeah, you're applying for... and B, but you really belong in a GBA, so we might go with that designation, or that doesn't fit, and we address it from there. As far as the code itself, I don't necessarily know that we can solve that with this.

Yeah. Okay.

And I appreciate the question about the scheduled uses, because those are tough in any zoning code. Yeah.

Well, I don't want to run down through some of them, because it is tough.

You can't really cover every possible use, but there are ones that conform more closely with that. The intent of the code and then those that don't.

Yeah. So I just want to run down some of those I have highlighted here just real quickly. So Mr. Serra brought up the multifamily residential, the UF, so upper floor. And I've always wondered this about even in Main Street districts. I love the intent of having the mixed use. Love it. Great idea. My question when it comes to the multifamily is like, what about a brownstone type unit? So you could have a multifamily, but you had her on the first floor and it's two floors or it's three floors. Currently that just says upper floor only. So that would be, they would have to go to BZOA on that. Should that be like upper floor, but slash conditional if you want it on the first floor?

I can give you, I guess my personal opinion on that and then invite everybody else. I think that is a very good idea. I mean, I can just tell you, maybe this is a foreshadowing of things we might bring to you in the future. I've talked to a lot of developers and I'll use main street as an example. everyone says, wow, that's a great intent to have mixed use. I'll never build just apartments on the upper floor because they just can't make the numbers work. They'll say, well, I'm limited to seven units and why would I, you know, so they'll, they'll tell me I'm just going to do retail on main street. And then they'll say, which is a good point. And I think this is where it's maybe applicable to what you're saying here, Eric, and maybe we improve it here and then, consider doing it on Main Street, they'll say, well, why can't I just have horizontal mixed use? Like, what's the difference if there's a standalone brownstone building right next to the laundromat? Why does your code only, it forces me to either build apartments above it or not have them at all. And I have to admit, I think that's a very compelling argument. And I think, again, this is my personal opinion that, I think the city would be just as well served by having an apartment next door to a retail business as it would, even though it maybe looks cooler or is more ideal to have it upstairs. So, yeah, I mean, from my personal standpoint, I think having provision, if they say, can I have first floor retail right here? Can't there at least be a process to allow that?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. This just denies it, you know, having something in there that allows that. Because someone could, you know, I just think of other cities similar where they have houses downtown, city grows, retail and other things grow. Nobody wants a single family next to a downtown core usually. But a lot of people want to live in a multi-unit in a downtown core, right? And those might be, like you said, sometimes it's hard to do the retail on the first floor. Sometimes it works better to buy three of those houses, create brownstones. They're for sale. It's not an apartment. Now you have three units. You know what I'm saying. I mean, it just gives you more options, I guess. So that's one of them. Should that be conditional for the first floor instead of just not permitted? Yeah. The same with live work units. I mean, if we're saying we want commercial on the first floor, maybe that's conditional as well. Like you could have a live work unit that enters on the first floor. You walk in, office is on the first floor, residential on the second floor. It's a live work unit.

And maybe particularly, I know we don't have anything zoned that yet, but in those neighborhoods, Right. Business districts where you're already closer to residential and, yeah.

Yeah. Are you trying to do that in the GBA and GBP?

I don't know. That's up for debate. I'm saying it seems like it would make sense. The multifamily could make sense in all of them. The live work might only make sense in NB, right? Yeah. I think we'd have to just use it as discretion about when you think about it, I guess, and walk through the scenarios. And then in office and professional service, we have experimental testing and research facilities. And then the two items down for that, research and testing laboratory. I guess I don't see the difference between those two. Someone could say a testing facility is a lab just as easily. I don't know if I'm not sure. It probably was carryover from other stuff, but I just don't see the difference, but they do have different permissive. So experimental testing and research facility is not permitted in any, but a research and testing lab is permitted in GBB and LI. I would punt that designation to Marty.

Yeah, I was going to say, there's got to be something in the code that he knows of that we don't.

That was a carryover from one of those previous codes.

Okay. I mean, I can see those being conditional, I guess, on the two bigger uses. I don't know. I feel like those should just be combined because I can't determine it. Just like maybe the word lab has nothing to do with it.

Yeah, we could research farther where that came from, Eric, to your point. And I guess just on... As I sit here now, not remembering all the backstory, my inclination would be to recommend to definitely combine those.

And that makes a lot of sense. Well, and I think, you know, when you start saying experimental testing, okay, what is that? Like, what's a drone facility? You could have a small drone company that fits in and be four guys in a small office, right? So do you want to say not permitted for that, or do you want to say conditional to give somebody a chance? Like, hey, I'd like to put this here. I can't go by 20,000 square feet up the road. I've got to start somewhere. So just, you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Hospital and associated medical offices, and then we have offices including administrative, medical, business, and professional. So I kind of understand the intent is to say, Okay, if you're building a hospital and all the associated offices, but then down below we say medical offices again, that's kind of confusing because most hospitals build a hospital and then they take a separate parcel and they make offices. So if our intent is to try to corral that into one line with permitted, not permitted, they could easily say, oh no, we're down here. This is a separate medical office.

I think the difference in that is more like for the hospital's sake, inpatient versus the smaller outpatient care versus your general practitioners and dentists. Two very different types of places that are both still medical offices. So I think that that would be more of a director of permits planning commission designation of depending on what type of facility they're seeking would change how we would want to classify that.

And it is a good question, because to build on what Liam said, my sense is it was also to do with scale. But you're right. Nothing really says that. And I could see how that is confusing. And I think that's another one we could look at and see if we can shore that up a little and make it more...

I'm looking at it as someone trying to get around to get in the less permissive area.

I think that's a good way to, I mean, that's what people will do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Correct. So then next would be essential services. So I'm not sure what the definition of this is. I believe it's meant to be public utility and like civic infrastructure, but And that's permitted across the, well, it's permitted. And then strangely, it's not permitted in LI, which I would think it would be permitted there because we're already in an industrial space. But example, a substation, would a substation want to be right? Like if you're allowing a substation in NB, that could be literally sitting next to somebody's house.

There are substations. Yeah.

Well, I'm saying. now but do we want to avoid that moving forward i don't know i just i i'm just curious on the definition of essential services where that starts and stops um but the same thing for like yeah i don't i guess currently i know that civic infrastructure infrastructure and our current care is all permitted pretty much anywhere um but maybe just defining that clearer i guess um drive-through facility so previously that said in association with use um should that be still shown on there that way or are we saying just any drive-through facility because before it was kind of like oh if you have this use you're allowed to have a drive-through and then you'd be permitted or not permitted with the drive-thru, like the drive-thru would be permitted or not permitted.

I know we've gone down this weird path in the past. I think with drive-thru, that's more of a business type. And Marty, I don't know if you can add any color. In my mind, drive-thru facility is anything from like a drive-thru convenience store to a valvoline type business versus just a restaurant that has a pickup window.

And then down library or museum, currently you have that not permitted in NB. I guess I was thinking of a situation of someone's house, they turn it into a museum later. I don't know. you know, a public figure, right? Historical house. So I just thought maybe that might be conditional, might be more appropriate for the NB. Because I could see a house becoming NB because a lot next to residential, but then, you know, I'm not promoted. I guess it would be tough then. Someone would have to go through a lot of process, I guess, to get that reversed. Yeah. And then dance studios and schools is permitted in NB. I guess I was thinking that might be conditional just from the traffic standpoint next to a residential spot. And then child daycare center you had is not permitted. A lot of people have daycares in their homes. I don't know if that should be a conditional situation or not. Because I could see, again, a house being in the NB district easily. And then gasoline station, we have not permitted in GBB and LI. I guess I just wondered why, for accessory and conditional in A, I mean, I guess light industrial use needs a gas station that isn't too far off of what they already are. I believe that's another carryover type situation.

Okay. All right.

Can you go back one second? Where was essential services?

when you were talking about the utility infrastructure substation and stuff. Yeah, essential services. I just don't understand the definition. I guess maybe we should define the definition of essential services or split it into two different things, like public utilities versus civic infrastructure. But we were asking just where was it? Oh, that's it under retail services. Okay. We were having trouble. Yeah, third one down. Got it. I see it now.

Yeah.

And that might go better in... one or the other. I think that's one reason I had trouble finding it, because I thought it might be in one of the other categories. It might go better in one of the other categories. I don't know, but yes.

I did have a second to do a little bit of research about, that we talked about earlier, the difference between experimental testing and research versus a research and testing laboratory. So the experimental can be much more R&D, where those things could kind of get a little bit dicier than traditional. So a laboratory is going to be a relatively contained usage versus something where, you know, to your example of drone facility of what size drone, what type of drone, and actually involves experimental testing and research is more, can include more production type uses rather than the research and testing is more built for like quality control type.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I would just say probably look at what's permitted versus conditional in those situations or not permitted versus conditional. I think that's all I have on the table. The only other thing on the table, and I know it's a dirty word, but data centers. There's nothing in here on that. And I would prefer, as a community member, that that be conditional across the board. I agree. If you're not going to, you know, I understand people want to come out and outright ban it, whatever. That's up to the administration. Regardless, it should be reviewed.

I feel like it should be reviewed on every level. And I'd be just interested in your reactions. What if we... Did not permit it in any of these except for the limited industrial and then we made it conditional.

Yeah, whatever. I just feel like it needs to be somewhere between not permitted and get reviewed.

Because I was trying to think of our actual districts in practice, like would it make sense to have a data center at Washington Square? I would argue no. Sure. maybe a small one could make sense next to Diebold, back behind Whitwer or something like that.

There's limited places where people can go.

Yeah, there's limited places in our community. I'm just afraid someone could try to slip it in through some other, oh, it's a research and testing facility. Wink, wink. Uh-huh.

They're getting smaller, but, I mean, you'd have to have a decent-sized plaza or something like the Hoover District or something like that to really make it work. Not really. There's one on Fulton Road. You never know who's there. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, my point is they generally don't go in high rent places. They usually would go in something that is a little more dense. So something if it was smaller, they would try to build up. So maybe like an office building with a few floors or something like that. Oh, I'm sorry. I'd like it to be reviewed. Honestly, I think that would be that way. People can present their case either way.

And I was just going to add, I know it's all in the eye of the beholder, but there's maybe data centers with a small d that have been around for a long time that, like Tom said, no one would ever know was there. And then there's data centers that are being discussed now that are behemoths, and I totally understand people's concerns about those.

Yeah, I just feel like it should be reviewed. There should be a spot for it so that it's clear this is the process.

Yeah, because I don't think we want to imply because they're not mentioned... that they could go almost anywhere.

So this would be the time to mention that. To that point, if it's a use not listed, I think that that comes down to when they go to submit their plans. If it looks like a data center which is outside of the uses, they're going to put that to you guys, which would be a broader discussion of things outside the schedule of permitted uses rather than conditional leaves that are a bit more discretionary to a director of permits. If you wanted to keep that with the planning as a default, having it deliberately not listed in the schedule puts it before you anyways.

Well, there could be a situation, and this has happened in other municipalities, where they've approved it internally, and then they find out at the last minute.

Because it's specifically not listed. Correct. I totally agree. I think it's hard to list it and make it conditional. I don't see any downside to doing that. No, that's what I'm saying.

There's no downside. Yeah.

That was that email we got today. Literally had someone that was concerned that it would be done without any discussion. Really? Yeah. That's what they're worried about. Leaders would just approve it.

Unfortunately, that's happened in other areas. It's kind of been too late in the process. That's all I have.

See, I beat you. The only one I have on here would be category of the restaurant it's it's not permitted in the li oh okay yeah right i mean that could happen yeah that could happen for sure maybe make it conditional i think when we uh marty can uh correct me if i'm wrong because you may remember

better. But I think when we did this, we were looking at our existing ally. Yeah, like, you know, no, no one would maybe want to put a restaurant there. But yeah, maybe we revisit that. Well, so like, one point they were looking at doing that.

Yeah, so yeah, yeah, it could fit that somewhere it could fit, it probably just needs review. And You don't want to say no right now.

So just as an accessory or conditional use.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. If there's nothing else from the commission members, I would open it up to anyone in the public for comment at this time.

Okay.

Go right ahead. You can state your name.

I was coming because your dad said it. That's why I'm here. This is my first time I've ever been to this kind of...

If you could state your name and address, that would be great.

Sure. Should I stand or...

If you can, if you'd like.

My name is Lydia Goddress. So I live at 11046 Billingham Avenue in Uniontown. But my kids... We're like in the very northern neighborhood of North Canton School District. So are Texas. But there was... for this meeting today, or I should say more concerns with a group of us that's like, why did they, is this going to affect the data centers at all? And I liked what you had said that, because I had wondered, I'm like, I don't see anything about data centers and it's so, it's cutting edge and it's something, it's like we're planning for the future that this would be specifically addressed. And my husband works in a data center in Hudson, and it's a small, tiny, small D data center. It's one building. It's, you know, no one would know that it's there. But then, like you said, these monstrosities that are being built, that's what people are afraid of. And it's something that this group, it sounds like you're on board, like nobody wants that in their backyard. And you worry about property values, but you worry 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, who's coming after you and we've all heard these stories where the city council or the county commissioners, they make these deals behind the scenes and then it's like surprise on the public. So that's what people are really afraid of. So I just, I personally liked what I'm hearing that you are planning to personally specifically address it so people can't like wink wink It's research and development. It's not a data center. And that it's being something that's conditional so that it can be reviewed and that the public can have a say in something like that. I'm assuming that that's how it would work.

Thank you. Thank you for coming. Come back anytime.

Anyone else?

I would love to see that in there as well, because it is hot on everyone's minds. I've been asked by constituents already about it. And so I said, hey, I'll ask the question tonight. I like the idea of even restricting it as much as we can to NP in those certain categories and leaving it as conditional where you want to. But yeah, I didn't see it in the version that we're repealing. And then I didn't see it in this new edit. And I was like, we probably need to start being ready for that conversation. Mr. Starr, you had some great things that you pulled out. You must have spent hours going through this. The flagpole thing kind of doesn't sit well with me either. And so, and I know we're seeing that some of these things may not impact existing buildings, structures, parcels, whatever. So we've got like the brand new middle school being built. They're gonna put a big flagpole in the front yard, right? I hope that they do. So I'm assuming it won't impact something like that, but was there a reason why we cut it off so short?

I'm not sure why it is that way in these districts. Probably from the past, I would say. It was always in there.

Was it? Maybe it just carried over? Yeah.

Okay. I think the opportunity now is to change it. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess if we could review it and see what's appropriate or tie it to building height even, really.

Right, yeah.

So, yeah, it was probably just carry over from old codes and just in his car.

More businesses come to town now, right? They're putting their Patriot in the wrong display, which is fantastic. So I just want to make sure we're not obstructing that in any way. Is there anything else in here that would impact, like, our upcoming North Canton Main Street stuff? Are we mindful of that as we're filling this out? Or would we come back and make adjustments if needed, or... I might think you're way too far out.

So there's the distinction between the Main Street code and the rest of the commercial codes. That would be a change for the Main Street district regulations rather than the commercial districts. This is everything that wouldn't be on Main Street. Anything that's on Main Street and I think a couple areas along Maple are into the Main Street designations and then everything else is more in the fringes.

And like we touched on, I appreciate that question, Holly, because There are changes here that might make sense on Main Street. Everything from the vape smoke shops to what we were talking about a little bit with mixed use and how that's conceptualized. And I'd also encourage you or any other member of council or anybody from the public, if you have things on Main Street to the extent you're aware of what the code says there that you say, why is this? Because I do think we will we will take a we'll review Main Street again on the heels of this. There's a couple tweaks we can do for sure. Yeah, so this is the perfect time to think about that.

There was such an overhaul that Tom, you referred to, remember we called it second century zoning? That's what we referred to it as. When we came up with all the different Main Street districts. You want to read it? No, I'm good.

Okay.

Anyone else? Yeah, I do. So, Jeff Stocker, also City Council at large. So, Andy, you're going to have to speak later, too. That's okay. I'll have the last question. My question is relating also to the data center, and we have specifically codified out cannabis smoke shop such and such. That was through Ordinance 513. Do we need to do the same with data centers, or are we allowed to have our planning commission or zoning speak to that? Does it have to be specified through ordinance or not?

So specifically with cannabis and cannabis-related businesses, that was more of a criminal code. So the 500 chapters of the criminal codes, so it's prohibited code of conduct just because it's specifically related to cannabis and the sale thereof. For the data centers, it would be better served in this chapter. I think the conditional in LI is probably the way to go. It keeps it relatively reined in anyway, just because the scale of property and the intended use is built for a larger set of properties of which we don't have many, if any, other than the existing ones. And with that, Another point I wanted to make is this draft was written well before it became part of the public consciousness. So knowing that, I would say we can definitely take those considerations back as we reach the added process.

That's a very good question, because just to add to that, Liam and I were side barring here. We were talking about how we started working on this a year ago. And I don't think I'd ever read a newspaper article about a data center a year ago. So it is timely in what you're asking, Jeff. It does kind of get into a philosophical question of do you consider banning the use outright or do you provide a small area to perhaps confine that use where there, if it were a conditional use, for example, where there's still a lot of Process to whether it would be allowed at all. Um, I mean, that's definitely a good question. I think for city council to take off as well as all of us, but so go, go on. You're going to say something.

Well, to that end. Would a data center fit within one of the currently existing categories or. Is it its own category? In other words, would a data center have to be spelled out specifically through our zoning and codes? Do we feel?

I mean, I'd argue that it doesn't really fit in our code at all. I don't want to put words in Eric's mouth, but people that are proposing uses are often pretty good at it. You know, arguing it's a use in the schedule, a use or may perhaps even misrepresented to some degree, maybe something for us to think about at the city council level, especially in just our ordinances is we probably need a good. legal definition of what a data center is. I was just going to say that. I think that's something swirling. Yeah, go ahead.

My answer would be it depends because if you have a small data center, it's totally different than a large data center and it's all over the place. I think the first step is we have it go through as conditional where it gets reviewed.

There's always more teeth we can add to things later. Maybe for data center, in terms of schedule use, it's confined to limited industrial and has a conditional use, but maybe we need language somewhere in our codes about what a data center is, or data centers in excess of 25,000 feet or power.

I mean, there's so many ways to review them and so many things that happen and you categorize.

Now, with that, I would ask Marty for his input. I would imagine definitionally we're relegated to whatever's in either revised code or in the Ohio Planning Zoning Code. I would venture to say that they have some sort of working destination if they are being constructed within the state.

Defined by power consumption. Yeah. I personally would not want to see that coming to the Planning Commission. I think that's something that needs to be an ordinance that goes directly to City Council.

Okay. Anyone else in the public? Are you all done? Good. Okay.

So Andrew Pratt, also council member at large for the city. Just a couple quick to run down that I think so. Hypothetically, the Uber company comes back and wants to start making sweepers again, go full industrial. Is that no longer going to be an option in that area?

No, I believe it would still be, because the Hoover District's its own zoning designation, right?

The Hoover District's actually in a number of different, so some of it's main street center, and then some of it is limited industrial, so I brought the zoning map. I know you can't see it from here, but we could look at it afterward, but Most of the Hoover District that's off of Main Street is limited industrial, and then the frontage on Main Street, oh yeah, it's up on the street, thank you, tends to be Main Street Center.

Well, and I guess to your question, if someone, let's just say someone would come in, like you said, we're going to make whatever at it, turn it back into a manufacturing facility. I would think they would even try to get it rezoned or something else done. If it didn't work, they would make it work, right? They would go to great lengths. And I'm sure the administration, if it was an acceptable use, would, you know... It's not prohibited. Right.

Yeah, I should clarify the West factory itself. Now, it's purely Main Street Center, and so you could not do an industrial use of it currently... It would have to be rezoned. Right.

As far as a substation next to someone's house, I guess that would concern me going forward. I wouldn't want one next to my house for health reasons. Right. And resale value. Water involved, you know, do we include the water department in the going to start looking at any type of data center. I think they should have an input, like flag bowls. Are we really going to infringe on that? And then just data center. I like the idea that whether you're big or small, you go up for review if we're going to allow them at all. creating some type of issue that we can't get out of. And then I guess just in general, what would be the whole logic for why this conversation is happening in the first place? Why don't we just handle these things on an individual basis as they pop up?

That's a good question.

Well, because it's become more popular.

Yeah. One, we have to at least have some guardrails to funnel these things in if they come in, if somebody comes in, you know, to make sure someone's looking at it and it's getting put in the right bucket, I guess, right? There's definitely a delicate balance between regulation and too much regulation right i mean so it's kind of like trying to balance that out so that nothing like you said nothing slips through the cracks effectively right um so and i think the intent from administration side on this specifically is that currently we kind of have you know we have the center of town the main street district and then As part of the 21st century kind of zoning, we looked at stepping down from there, stepping up from there, so stepping up from residential, and currently we kind of go from residential, and there's a pretty big step to GBA and GBB. This is trying to bridge that gap a little bit more so that we kind of step up more gradually with uses and heights and distances and you know, use types, so.

Yeah, like to illustrate what you said, Eric, you know, GB, A or B would allow tractor supply, you know, so it's like we kind of go right from. Okay. just a, you know, single-family residential. Right.

So we're trying to avoid some of those, what's that going in my backyard type of situation?

I just know, like, this is going to be very confusing for a lot of people, and they're going to wonder what's really, you know.

Yeah.

You know, is there something bigger going on? We don't understand. Correct. Yeah. This is simply putting, you know, putting this into English for, you know, anyone that's looking at something, you know, quickly. What does this really mean?

Andy, I think you can characterize it honestly and fairly as there's a lot of changes in terms of red lines, but there's actually, there's not too many real changes to the code. It's more reorganizing. with the exception of some of the things that Liam presented about this new regulation on smoke shops. There's some finer points, like we're talking about with the flagpole heights and things like that, but it's not... The code is actually not too different than it is now. It's more housekeeping, I would say.

Yeah, and I would say that as far as the use table goes, what was allowed versus not allowed, there's not a lot of changes there, but there's more of a... there's more uses added so that we can steer those businesses into the right categories.

Yeah, I like it because you're kind of simplifying it. I mean, you're literally going from, you know, five business districts where you had the industrial chapter 1139 and you're eliminating it and you're taking five and you're going to four. instead of two. So I think it really makes a lot of sense. I give you a lot of credit for coming up with this change. And I think for developers and everyone else, it's going to be a lot easier to understand it.

Definitely something we were going for. I appreciate you saying that, Tom, because in practice, generally the people using the code are the people trying to build something. And we did want to think about how easy is it for them to understand?

I want to just ask about, you brought up, Andy, about substations, essential services, right? I mean, I know we're, I know we're home rule. But I think there's some limitations as to what we can do legally as far as we can't say.

Yeah, I'm sure there is.

I just wanted to, yeah. We can say fences, we can say everything, but I don't think of a public utility.

Right. It depends who built it because it's a federal level. Like, we want to put a cut into the post office and they won't allow us. As crazy as that is, they won't allow us to do it because it's the federal guidelines. It's the same way with utilities in some ways. I guess I was thinking more of

you know, a data center is going to need more power. So it's like, if we didn't have the data center, we wouldn't need the power. That's more than I was thinking.

I was just thinking, though, on the We call central services. Do we define them like minor and major? Because minor is just poles and lift stations and major is like.

Yeah, I didn't go back and look at our definition list. So I was just bringing it up for that point of like the definition. What is the definition of it? Do we have it clear?

Yeah.

Or does it need to be like broken into two separate uses? I don't know.

That's where, well, we're above power, so the other item I have on here.

Like cell power?

That's its own. Yeah, we have that as its own.

That's a separate wireless telecommunications section. Yeah. Typically, the essential services is the utilities, transmission, distribution of gas, electricity, water, sewage, whatever.

It can also just be poles.

Right. Utility poles.

Those are minor. And then there's the major.

Sorry. Okay, thank you. Just general questions. No, thank you for your comments. Yeah. Is there anyone else from the public?

Yes. So I was just thinking, you said there's like a small data center already in.

Our community, maybe?

The reason I was asking, I thought, like my husband, we're all safe. They're going to be switching a lot to AI. So their data centers over years to come, their capacity, like their electric needs, their water needs are going to increase. Their location may not change, but it's going to be here. So I just wondered, the other thing I would worry is if Like, it's a small data center as a group, so they get in, but then 10 years down the road, they're switching to AI at this point, but they're already in our community. And then it's going to, like, how, it's just something I was wondering, like, how would that work? Like, since they're here, would they already be like, yeah, that's fine, or they'd have to...

ask for approval to update that's a great question that's a great question yeah i mean there would have to be some mechanisms there is a threshold of when it's redefined by power so if they increased it to x amount of level then i'm sure it'd have to go through additional regulations but it wouldn't hurt for us to do a heavy lift on doing our own code for it it doesn't where the problem I'll give you a brief lecture. So Ohio is a net exporter of energy. So any data centers do provide some sort of drain on our grid. However, you know, we currently don't have one around here in this area, Stark County. There are some places in Stark County that have water usage issues. We are not one of them. But we also don't have the space for one. So we're not at a high risk for any of that happening. I think for now, covering it is as needed and reviewed. you know, puts any worries to rest temporarily. But I do think we need to define it. And there's some places that will come in and say, you know, we do have a strain on our electric. You're going to have to drill a substation. And we do have a strain on our water supply. You're going to have to put a recycling unit in. And, you know, noise. There's all sorts of different things that need to be regulated on that. So.

Yeah, I could say with a straight face, given our zoning and land use and available land, I think the odds of a massive data center in the city of North Canada are extremely low. But it's a good thing to be proactive about and think about. So it's a good discussion.

So yeah, in the immediate, the conditional designation in LI would be the way to go. More broadly on... Establishing our own definitions and regulations thereof is a broader legal question for you.

Yeah, definitely. I'm sorry. What was your first name again? Lydia. Lydia. And your address was in? 11046 Billingham, Northwest. Okay. So I'm so glad you're here. And that's wonderful. I also want to encourage you, Yarn Lake Township. that you might want to show at the Lake Township trustee meetings, too, because one in your backyard would be them. It would not be us. And there is more land up there.

We're a lot more landlocked in Uniontown.

Definitely shoved there, too.

Okay. If there's no other comments from the public, nothing else from the administration or planning commission?

I think the intent of these changes is good, exclusive of anything regarding regulation of data centers, that this is a draft document that needs to be tabled versus approved part and parcel, that just needs to be fine-tuned and re-presented. Okay. Is that a motion, Mr. Malhousie?

That would be a motion. Okay.

Do we have a second for that?

We have a motion and a second to table this for review slash edits and then to bring it back forward.

Okay. So procedurally speaking, since this is a council item, this would be submit with comments, approve with comments that council will then consider and they would have to make the amendments. Thank you, Bob. So it would be that this will still get a public hearing and then go to council for three more readings, at which point they could make those edits. So as to not restart us all over again, it would be, you know, you could move it forward, let council, I mean, three of them are in the room. We can take those comments and put them forward for future edits, let council debate that, or alternatively vote it down and we can send it back to council and restart and resubmit it to planning commission, rather than tabling here. Sure. You can either send it back to council for review and resubmittal or advance it and let them edit it as they see moving forward.

Okay. So your choices are either vote now or vote yes with comments.

Would you like to rescind the motion or how would you like to... Would it go back to council with the clarifications on the modifications?

If you guys would like to see it again, I would say... to just send it back to council for comments and resubmittal. That's what I would propose. Okay.

Okay. So it would go to council and it would be edited and it would come back to planning commission. Okay. Is that the motion, Mr. Milhousen? Yes. Okay. Mr. Serra? I'll pull my second. I can pull your second. Okay. I will second that The document be edited, reviewed and edited, and then brought back to Planning Commission. We'll do a roll call vote.

Mr. LePage?

Yes.

Mr. Serra?

Yes.

Mr. Milhousen?

Yes.

Mr. Daupez?

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much for everyone for their comments and discussion on that. I believe that is it for this evening. If there are no other comments, questions, I would have them. Entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll motion to adjourn. I will second.