Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call this evening's meeting of the planning commission to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Mr. Prescott here. Mr. Wagner here. Mrs. Trepoto here. Mr. Basic here. Mr. Duliaak

here. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the January 27th, 2026 meeting PC012726. I'll make a motion to approve meeting minutes from January 27th. Oh, there's a spider. Sorry. PCO12726. There's a spider on me.

I second. It's been moved and second and we approve the meeting minutes from PC 12726. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Zack, any old business? No, sir. On to the new business.

Thank you. Uh this is PC26-2. Um this is just for a study item. So this is just to get feedback uh from plan commission on a concept plan. You guys aren't voting on this. Just have a discussion, have feedback on the plan. Um this is at 2845 Graham Row. There are two parcels with this. The total area is about 4.7 acres and zones R3. So, the project is for an apartment complex which would consist of 10 triplexes and two duplexes. Uh, 34 units in total. Um, we haven't done, you know, an in-depth review on this. This hasn't been forwarded to fire department or engineering yet. Um yeah, and part of our one of the new requirements is for new devel. They provide community garden, community pavilion at the rear of the property. It's just for residents to enjoy. Um again, there's open space including this plan. Um then couple renderings. There's another um version of the rendering than the packet that was sent to you is very minor difference. So, this is just one of the four plans and renderings included. It'll be twotory. Um the applicant can explain further about what they're proposing with all this, but looks like two-bedroom um dining and living area. Uh first one bedroom on the first floor, two on the second, twocar garage from each each facility. Um, and this is kind of how that would look on the site. There's an apartment that is just east of it, which is at the bottom of the screen. Um,

for reference, that apartment complex has 64 units on about 8.1 acres. Um, we do have a maximum density of six units per acre that city council put back into the new code. Uh we originally proposed to take that out which which is what planning commission that was the recommendation also you know take that out. It's been inconsistent with existing developments that we have. Um it's also prohibitive for mixed use developments in the future if we get those. Um but city council put that density limit back in. Um this project is I think 7.4 units per acre. So they wouldn't need a variance from that. Um again, and we're starting to look at all the apartments around the city, all the complexes are all almost all of them are over that 60 units per acre. So it what what's in the code now is just inconsistent. And that's something that I mentioned before that we're going to have to come back through and try to fix that whether we take it out or increase that density limit. Um couple other things. Uh we we did a very preliminary review of this plan. Um you know there's certain building design requirements that they ought to meet. Certain percentage of them of the front has to be you know brick or um architectural masonry. Um they need minimum minimum 15% open space. Social gathering area will have to verify uh they meet compliance. Uh there's also tree preservation recreation impact fees that would be associated with this. Um yeah, all in all again this is just to get initial feedback from plan commission. They just want to know if it's going to be generally supported to move forward with more finalized plans. So uh with that happy to take any questions.

How many units could go on this property and be in compliance? So there's no variance.

What was it? 28 4.7 28 28 I just don't understand why you design something that doesn't fit the zoning rules and uh you've got Robin Hood right next door which is fitting the zoning rules. No, no, that that is 7.9 units per acre. Okay. Yeah. You think I think I think I heard you say most of our complexes, apartment complexes exceed the visuals, right? So, it's Yes. Most of them exceed

grandfather into the That's always been a requirement. Six units per acre. Oh, we've always We've always had it. always. So there's there there there's either been Yeah. And there's there's either been a ton of variances issued for these, you know, exceeding the limit or they're done before that was put in. Um we initially were trying to take that out just to be consistent with existing development. Council put that in though.

I have a question. Um they look more like condos. They difference between an apartment and a condo stylistically design

typically I believe this is apartments for rental correct yeah condos would typically have the footprint would be its own property but if you push that on. State your name and your address. Yes, thank you very much. Uh my name is Paul Began uh from Began Architectural Design Architect. Uh I also have uh Matt and Wayne here. Um uh we're we're we're looking at putting this project. Your address before you start into this? Uh thank you. Um uh my address for my office is at 15703 Madison Avenue in Lakewood, Ohio. Okay. And do you swear what you're about to say is the truth?

I do. Very well. Go ahead.

Um, yes. So, the the um I think you did a great job, Zach, of of presenting the project. Um, and we're Thank you for taking the time to meet us. I know we're the only ones on the agenda tonight. So, we're really looking for some some feedback on on this particular proposal. To answer um the the question, the intent is to have more of town homes. So they're more like a single family home type of of a feel rather than it being an apartment building. So that's why they are uh you know put together in in threes so that they could be more like a town home uh type of a project. So everybody has their own front door, everybody has their own garage, everybody has their own yard uh type of uh thing. The developer is thinking about these being for rental rather than for sale. So these are not going to be condos. We're not looking to split up the lot into a bunch of different parcels for these um at all. It's really looking at uh meeting um which is in a lot of areas, you know, kind of a housing gap. You can buy a house or you can get into an apartment building. This is kind of in that middle piece where okay, can't quite afford my house, but I don't want to necessarily be an apartment building because I have a family or I have a dog or something like that that I need those those kind of things. So that's really the the intent of the units themselves.

So one one question, each one of the units generally like about what I say 38 feet. Um is that is that kind of what the spread is on on each unit? Yeah,

about 38 feet. So almost 40T. Um, I know with with the with another development we had here, there was concerns about the length of the street and no turnaround at the end for buses or fire department coming in and out. Um, just in looking at this, that's going to be a pretty long oneway in and out. Um, h how is that addressing the concerns of not allowing us to have a dead-end one-way street, right? Because that that wasn't that the concern um before my time with with Miller's Landing was the long street and no no bus access in and out and then the fire department having issue with going that far down a oneway street

with potentially blocking the road. Right. that was before my time and maybe you can talk about that. Yeah, so those are there are requirements for that for public streets. Uh this would just be basically a private drive that would serve all the units. Um okay, the fire department, you know, they have a big say in that and how the turnaround is, the length of it. U but as far as zoning, the there is a new uh or I guess a clarified length of street, you know, to prevent those super long ones, public streets. Yeah, again is specific to public streets. So this would just be private access drive. Can you go back to the street?

The way the property ends, that's all wood. I mean, the whole thing. Well, I have two questions. There's houses on this land, isn't there? I believe there are two. Yeah. Or we have one on each property. It would be a purchase of property from Yeah, they're already purchased. Oh, they are? Yeah. And they're already vacant, I believe.

Oh, okay. It's all wooded in the back. Um, so you can't necessarily see from that road top of the screen. You can't see from that. trees back because it's so will it still stay with it.

The intent is to keep as many of the trees as we can uh working in the development also true to uh address some of that when we met with staff. We talked a little bit about so we have a hammerhead which is a fire department terminal you know so that they have the adequate um um space to move around. They also addressed some comments to us to which we update our plans to make sure we have the width even though it is a private street to accommodate the the fire um apparatus. The city actually owns on this plan. There's a little wooded parcel right there next to the park between this. We did have some discussion if if the fire department did want to have an ability to pull through if that parcel gets developed into further park space that we can extend that hammerhead down and through. We also talked about it too with the fire department too is if you know the long street is a long water line too. If they are concerned about having a loop connecting it through uh the city parcel to another water line so that is connected is is something also too that we discuss. Nothing's planned yet. Again, this is really us trying to look at and trying to be accommodating to make sure that we're we're including the possibility of of a pull through if that's what something that the fire department wants to see.

I think it it takes away not that you don't drive on that street, but driving through almost you feel like you're driving into a neighborhood and that kind of takes I think there's an easy solution to that. Cut back to 28 units and don't build all the way back there. Um, and if 28 units is not enough to be profitable, then we probably shouldn't even be looking at it.

I think my other concern ownership. I don't know what the makeup of the city is in terms of rental versus ownership apartment complexes. I mean, you're building right next.

Yep. So the comment you were talking about uh the vacant property that the city owns looking at this uh map is that the one that's directly above Robinwood. So when you pull out of the pickle ball courts, there's woods that lead all the way up to the very first house. The city owns like a fat wedge trunk of it. All that all that light green in the picture, right?

Yeah. Pretty much if you follow where that R3 and down,

I mean, I I kind of like the design personally uh to not have an apartment complex to have it a little more feel like a town home environment. I like that design. I think that like you are right, Jeeoff. If you went to a 28th unit and you took off the two duplexes at the end, you're you're at the requirement. You don't you don't have to ask us for a variance for that. Um, and that gives you some open some additional open space at the back. Um, or stretch them all a little bit. But I know it's always the financial impact of of these decisions or your investment. But I kind I kind of like you're close to the park. High density living is more desirable in today's environment and you're close to the park. You're close to the school. Um go close to handles.

I mean, there's a lot of good things, right? That's what's important. I mean, there's there's there's there's some reasons why you'd want to have this living there. I don't know anything about the uh occupancy rates in any of our apartments, but I know that like I look and see people all the time looking for family environments where they can move with kids that are reasonably priced that they can't buy a house that want to live in Stow that kind of would it would fit this, right? It does. So, you're probably not too far off the mark. found some things to work through if it's I would think.

Yeah. And and really the the when we first met with uh staff about this, we actually had a higher density than this even um what we're looking at. Uh and you're you're spot on about the the reasons for the density. It's not like, oh, we're trying to make as much money as possible building this this road, you know, sewer lines, water lines, fire lines, fire hydrants, um, paving, sidewalks, all of those things. That's a big infrastructure cost. Sure.

Right. Um, and saying, "Oh, we're going to shorten it up a little bit." That cost is still going to be there, right? It's not like, hey, we lose a couple units and well, the road's shorter and it's going to make up it all of those connections really. It is. So, it's it's it is really a dollars and cents thing uh to it. Uh but, you know, the regularity of the the planning that we're we're putting into this to to make more of a neighborhood type of a feel um is also to some of the reasons for putting the density in that we're do we're we're doing here. you know, bringing it a little bit off of the road and putting our storm water retention, you know, towards the front again, a little bit more inviting, uh, into this, uh, this development as well, too. So,

one of the things I'm kind of surprised at, um, generally when I see this type of building, they generally will build over top the garage from a structure standpoint. I like the idea of having the separation between residents with a garage between them. Uh which which makes it really nice if you're not hearing somebody next door to you.

But I wonder what that why did you choose to go that route because that would help change your cost structure instead of having a garage there and not putting u you know a garage I don't know how you would say that in building but where you would build residential over top the garage where it drives in Yes. So the the intent for the unit design themselves, yes, is one to make it a little so they are a little bit more separated. Um and having that separation u and it's also getting to um an an area, right? We have two and threebedroom options to that. We don't really need more

square footage, right? second floor space. Yes, we could take that up and put another couple bedrooms up there for sure. I mean, the space of a garage is 400 square feet. So, I mean, you we could do that. We've kind of accommodated uh a couple different options within the footprint that we have. Um, and again, I think part of it is is a little bit on the design side to give it that separation. um and have the more of a you know single family feel even though it's it's a rental type of product. Uh also too um with the with your full packet there are a couple different options as well too um of doing a um first floor primary suite um and or having the three bedrooms up on the second floor. Um the intent of that too is again looking at different market conditions, right? There's a lot of um you're hitting a different dynam or a different demographic when you have a first floor bedroom suite, right? Uh where you could be looking at people are looking to move out of their house into a place where uh mobility may be an issue. Also too, we're also seeing a lot I haven't done the demographics here in Stow, but we do a lot of stuff across Northeast Ohio, the um um you know, just the of having multi-generational living as well too, right?

Parents, you know, need need a place to go and the cost of of um putting someone uh you know, into a senior living facility is too expensive. Let's have them move in with us. Um, so there are options for that in here. We haven't broken down exactly how many of those units are going to be, and we'll we'll get that more, but there is some variation in in the way that the the plans are put together and designs to give those types of options.

The storm water, are there alternatives to the location of the storm water? Not going to say anything about, but road. I think the people who go on there are accustomed to seeing things like right up against the road. I think it'd be more appealing for a rather than like curve to look at. Is is there an option to potentially move that storm water back so that we preserve put some distance in between that back that road to the west and the units like have that storm water service kind of buffer and maintain some of the some of the tree coverage around it.

Yeah, I mean I think there there's options for that. We even look, all right, do we move the the the the community space up to the front as well too to maybe do something with that? The the way and and we could have Matt Nef talk to us. He's our civil engineer on this. Um the site does slope from the back to the front a little bit. There actually is a uh a creek that runs through here that we're going to have to do some storm water mitigation for to bring it through the site uh when that gets covered. So ideally, right, the storm water moving towards the front, uh we did look at options of putting, you know, putting some units right up on the front and then moving the that storm water retention a little bit farther back. But, you know, kind of in line with the apartment complex next door, it's kind of its own little thing back behind. So, we kind of twofold. One, utility-wise, it works better for us to have it there, but also planning wise, too, to have again having a little bit more of an entrance that kind of gets you back away from the the road um and into the development. Any other questions?

Any any other recommendations or any potential design changes from planning commission just so they have as much information as they can moving forward.

The only thing that I have against it I've already said is too many units. um the proper number of units. I think that's great. And at the back where the city owns that property um is right next to the uh uh new courts that were supposed to have a bathroom and I don't see the bathroom and it's been going on two years now, but we do have a portaotty there. Um, so I mean that could tie in. They could actually put the bathroom in and it's great access for the people in the apartment over to the park and they will see on a Saturday morning. It's covered with children. Um, and so I think I think it's a nice idea as long as we stay within the zoning requirements. Other than that, it's good. I like like the way it looks.

But just to clarify, even considering that the density, you know, we we'll have to come back and amend that to be consistent with existing development until that would happen. Okay. Just it just that's me. I I'm not talking for anybody else. That's me. I I hear you. Can How about this with It's not really a vote, but kind of

uh you know, a nod or something. This is saying, "Hey, would is a variance something that would be uh you know, something that would be palatable because I I you know, I already explained the reasons why, right? We have to go back to, right, the the developer themselves and and kind of say, okay, here's where we think that we might end up." So, And they may say, "We don't want to do that." Right. And and they may say, "We can do that." Yeah.

Um I think it'll be a nice addition, but the picture of So the the ride to the garage. You put a car there or two car there.

Uh it's set up so that you could put a car there. Um it's not the intent for it to be parking. That's why we did twocar garages. We actually did look at well do we just do a onecar garage option, but we wanted to make sure again we could do this as town homes and put a big surface parking lot there too. And I don't think that would be in service of of y what the the intent here too, right? building covered parking is is an expense uh piece of it and it would be easy to do that. So, people have guests over, right? I have a 19-year-old daughter and her boyfriend comes and parks in our driver to come pick her up or you know

Yeah. or that or that as well too. Now, I guess my concern is even if you have July 4th or some holiday Yeah. you're going to have people come visit there pretty soon that going to get cars and then those people go and there's there's 30 units right there guest.

Now the the intent to and we talked about this with um the fire department with their comments as well too. The street is wide enough to accommodate uh what the fire department needs. Uh and they directed that if we're going to do any on street parking, it would be on one side of the street, you know, opposite of where the fire hydrants are as well too. We haven't shown that, but I think there is a potential to right there there might be some uh street parking that would be available as well too. What's the price point?

That's outside of um my scope. I don't know if if if Wayne or Matt have anything into that. Really, what we're um at this point in the development process, right, is estimating for our infrastructure costs, estimating for our build costs, and and kind of going from there. want to keep it keep rents within what's reasonable, right? They're these are not intended to be super high-end, super luxury um by any means. So, um not trying to evade your question. I don't think we've gotten to that number yet.

All right. I thank you. Thanks. Mhm. And do we have emails? We do. Would you like me to read them all? I would, please. Thank you.

I have two of them. Good morning. I am writing to provide feedback about the study item relating to application PC26-2, a 34 unit complex across the street from my residence. I have concerns about the impact to traffic, power grid, water, sewer system, aesthetics, as well as the impact on my privacy. The proposed driveway will directly impact traffic and my ability to exit my driveway without hassle. The proposed ponds will likely increase the amount of mosquitoes and geese in the area. Mosquitoes bring disease and are a nuisance, and geese are incredibly loud and destructive and leave feces everywhere. I also have concerns over the impact to the quiet setting we experience now in and around my property. There are already several large housing complexes nearby and this new addition would result in my property almost entirely surrounded by large complexes. It is already often problematic with the turnover of surrounding residences and introducing another property of this type makes it feel as though myself and the other single family homeowners in the area will be pushed out to make way for more complexes. This is not in line with the STO that my family and I have built roots in and I am strongly against this proposal. Thank you for considering my comments. I hope that the planning commission does its due diligence and the result is a decision that is in the best interest of the community current property owners and environment. Alan Nef to whom it may concern. I am against the proposed apartment complex for 2815 and 2845 Graham Road. I believe this project will have many negative impacts on the environment, the city, and the people who live by this location. The environment will be negatively impacted by the amount of mature trees that will need to be killed in order to make this complex. This will displace our local wildlife and we will lose much of the natural beauty in Stow. The people around will be negatively affected by the long construction process. This will create more traffic on an already busy road. Also, many people work from home

these days and this will greatly disrupt their work days. Lastly, the city as a whole will be negatively impacted as well. Having that many more people on Graham will cause traffic to back up constantly to the residents and commuters who already use this road on a daily basis. There is also a worry of impact on our local power grid with so many more houses and people living in an already densely populated area of the city. This is not what our city needs. Respectfully, I feel this is a terrible proposal and should be rejected. Greg, enough. Thank you. Any comments on that? Go back to the overhead.

Yeah. Go. So, where's the um those people? Yeah. They're right across Graham Road. There's There's single homes all along here. All along the whole the whole way down. Because what you see going in there is the uh the old Ryan uh town home development lake, right? That's the big area coming in. And then from that point on, it's all single family homes all the way. And it's all single family on the side where we're looking at it. Just they were smaller homes with a large amount of property and they were sold.

Gotcha. There's no turn left or right on for getting in and out of here. No one. Yeah. No, there's there's nothing there. Yeah, it it doesn't widen there. No. Um, long term, the city probably at some point needs to do something to Graham Road, but

but I don't know if that's in the budget or the plans or whatever, but yeah, right now if you're if you're driving down Graham, which I do virtually every day, there are people that can't get out. Yeah. Especially around rush hour. Well, in the school. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Because now Well, yes. Yeah. Yep. So,

well, we appreciate you coming and uh hopefully you've learned something from us and then you still have to go through city council after us. So, no, no, this is they can, but this is just a plain commission. Uh, but did the applicant have any other questions or all good? Okay. Okay. Anything else for tonight? No, that's all. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.