Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we will call this meeting to order at 6:00 for the December 9th uh planning commission meeting for the city of Vandelia. Um our first item is attendance. Um we do have Mr. Plant that is not here. He has not let us know anything. So, we'll go ahead and excuse him. Um, do I have a motion to excuse Mr. Plant? We have a motion to excuse. A second. Second.

All those in favor? I. All those opposed? Motion carries four to zero. Maybe that door was him. All right. We'll move on to the meeting minutes from the last meeting, which was November 11th, 2025. Um, if you've had a chance to review those minutes, I will accept a motion or if you have any comments.

Madam Chair, if I could make a quick comment. Um, I try to be as detailed as I can in the minutes without making them a transcription. I try to emphasize the points that are made and the replies and the conversation and the flow of the dialogue on the specifics of the application. But if you're reading through comments that you made or comments that discussion that was had and you find that I may not have quite captured what you were going for or if you find that maybe some of your comments didn't the flavor of what you were trying to get across didn't quite make it into the minutes, please let me know. Uh I'm I'm the one who draw drafts those. So I'm happy to adjust uh revise and amend as needed. uh you can bring that up here or if you shoot me an email when the draft comes out, I can make those corrections prior to the meeting. Um I also wanted to point out that the video of uh the planning commission proceedings starting with this meeting will be posted online. Uh not sure quite how that process will work, but all the recordings will be available online from here on out.

Thank you for that update. I think you do a good job of being succinct with still giving the right details, so I appreciate what you do. Thank you. Anyone else have comments or concerns? All right. I will accept a motion to approve the ME meeting minutes from November 11th. Motion to approve. Second. Awesome.

All right. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries four to zero. All right. We will move on to the swearing in of attendees. Um where's my note? There it is. All right. Uh the planning commission is appointed by the city of Andelia. We hold open meetings as directed by the Ohio Revised Code. All meetings are recorded and written minutes are produced as an official record of these proceedings like we just talked about. Therefore, we require anyone who wishes to speak before the commission to be sworn in. I'll give an oath to which you will apply reply. I do. So, at this time, if you plan to speak, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you give this evening will be true and accurate?

Thank you. All right. Any old business? Mr. Hamus. Madam Chair, there is no old business of which I am aware. Uh I will also point out that we may have one application filed before the end of the year. So they'll have a 25 uh case number. Okay. But there are no other pending cases beyond that potential one we might get by the end of the year. Got it. Thank you. That brings us to uh new business which is PC25-000022 a site plan review at for 3320 Benchwood Road. Mr. Hamus.

Thank you Madam Chair. Um this application comes to us from Benjamin McDaniel on behalf of Arnold Consulting Engineering Services and Take Five Oil Change. Um the property in question is and take five oil change. Um the property in question is on Benchwood Road. Uh you may recall uh earlier this year uh this property was uh part of an application to reszone from RSF2 to highway business. That reszoning was intended to facilitate commercial development. This is the commercial development. Um the take five oil change wants to establish a three bay service center at this location. Uh an aerial photo is provided. Uh it's next to the right pat union on Benchwood Road. Uh the back area is part of the the church and then to the west we have some uh highway business properties that remain uh residential in character. Uh there is a residential structure on this property along with a small shed/g at the back. Those would both be removed. Uh none of the existing structures will be retained as part of this development. Uh the primary structure or the primary site plan that we're reviewing is is displayed on the monitor. There would be one curb cut off of Benchwood Road. would come along the east side of the property, loop around at the back, and then there would be three service lanes, each one feeding into a bay in the structure. Um, take five oil changes is a a fast auto service. It the auto service use doesn't really care about the speed of service, but in this case, it's intended to be fairly quick. Um, so we require a

certain number of stacking spaces for the site and this has them. Um, in general terms for an oil change place of this character, if you stacked more than three cars in front of a bay, they're going down the street or coming back later. Uh, so three stacking spaces per bay is adequate based on the requirements of the code. Um, there's additional parking at the north end of the site for employees or people who are stopping to make a delivery or or whatever. There's no real foot traffic for a business of this kind because if you didn't bring your car, there's not a whole lot of commerce to be conducted. So, almost everything is focused on that drive lane. Uh, as far as traffic flow, everything checks out. Everything's got the adequate room and whatnot. Um, as far as fire access, the building's far enough north that we can get in very easily. Uh, there's nothing at the back end of the site other than the dumpster and the dumpster enclosure that would require fire access or anything like that. So, as far as traffic flow to the site, everything meets our requirements. Um, as far as the structure, uh, we're looking at about 1,700 square ft. which is as far as a building to site ratio actually a little small but it works out for what they're doing. Um and uh they will be having as I said one curb cut. If you look on the aerial there's a very small residential driveway that's going to be removed and replaced with the large driveway at the east end of the site. Um, I should point out that the roadway is a township road. Uh, this stretch of Benchwood, even though

our property fronts onto it, it is Butler Township. Um, so the applicant will want to coordinate with them as far as, you know, rightway approvals and whatnot, but should not be an earth shattering thing, but it's not subject to this process. Uh, I will also note that they will likely be required to connect the sidewalk in front of the and I believe you can see it here. Yeah, they'll need to connect to the sidewalk in front of the bank and just kind of continue that on, which again should not be a huge issue, but that sidewalk is actually in the back of sidewalk is in Butler Township's rideway, so it's also not subject to this review, but it's something that the applicant will probably need to be mindful of. So, so that's the site plan. We have the landscape plan as well or well here, let me let me go back to signage. Uh the site plan features a monument sign and which is really hard to see on that map, but there will be a monument sign along Benchwood Road. The monument sign they're proposing as far as placement and and location meets the requirements of the zoning code. Uh they have not yet submitted a signed permit for that. So, in the absence of any requests for anything unusual, they'll just have to meet the usual zoning requirements. The same with the wall signs. Um, they intend to install wall signs on one or more sides of the sides of the primary structure. They haven't specified which signs would go where, what the sizes are. It looks like what they're proposing, if they put every wall sign on, would be fine. Uh, you can see some of the elevations indicate where signs would be, but they don't actually indicate what the signs are. Again, in the absence of any unusual requirements, they would just have to meet the standards of the sign code. Um, if they have banner or other

non-permanent signs or if they intend to do those, those would fall under the section for temporary signs and those would be time limited. So, they would not have to be able to have permanent banners or anything like that. Uh, I want to say 120 days is the standard, but we'll coordinate with you on that. uh as far as how long those can be up. Uh any signs that are attached to the building on a permanent basis will need to be permanent signs. So, which is again a standard thing. Uh the building design itself would meet the standards of both the highway business district and the Miller Benchwood overlay. Standard brick building. Nothing particularly unusual about that. um the building height, building design, nothing triggers any concerns on that front. So, here we have the landscape plan. Um again, it's it's pretty straightforward. The unusual thing about this property is that it is almost entirely vehicular use area, which might be a problem for some users, but the applicant has graciously provided all of the landscaping we could possibly ask for. uh they have a buffer around the east side of the driveway and then along the the stacking area and along the the parking lot to the north. So all of the landscaping they're obligated to do they're proposing here and as long as they stick with that that's perfectly fine. Um I didn't put the phototric plan in the PowerPoint because it's impossible to read from the screen there. But if you look at the next to last page you have the phototric plan that they submitted. Um, basically all the lights that are in intended for the site will be appropriate fixtures that will limit the bleed of light from this property onto surrounding properties. Um, so which is mainly what the photometric is intended to document. Um,

and the primary concern there is to the west where you have the existing residential properties even though there's zone highway business. Uh the light bleed to the west is the lowest out of any side of the property. So again, no concerns there. And they've they've done their homework on that piece of it. The dumpster enclosure is indicated at the south end of the site. I'm going to go back to the site plan here, and you can see that on a little bump out at the end of the driveway. That's going to make it really easy to service as far as, you know, coming to empty it and remove it. They do have an appropriate enclosure proposed for the dumpster. So again, that's not something we really need to fuss with. Uh they're doing everything properly there. I'm happy to answer any questions at this time. Uh the applicant is present as well if you have any questions for him.

Does commission have any questions for Mr. Hamus? Before we invite the applicant, can you review and maybe you already said this, I'm sorry. That's fine. the surrounding uses. You said to the west we have the residential think what's around there. They're kind of legacy residential properties. They're zoned highway business. They're in the Miller Benchwood overlay, but they're just houses. Um I believe at least one is still occupied, but we anticipate at some point in the future those would also be redeveloped much in the same way this property is. And Vandelia owns all of these parcels up to on the south side of Benchwood. Okay.

We have everything from um we actually go across the highway, but from here we have everything from Miller Lane all the way down to Sheets at Dixie. Got it. Okay. That Sheets is also us. And then we go south to I want to say stop eight. That's right. Okay. So, and that that block of property is kind of what the Miller Benchwood overlay is. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Um, would the applicant like to join us? You can come to the podium. Just state your name. Um, and then if there's anything that Mr. Hamson already indicate, you can elaborate.

Ben, can you make sure there's a green light on the thing?

Here we go. Thank you. Ben McDaniel with Arnold Consulting Engineering. I always feel like I'm yelling into these whenever I speak, so tell me if I'm screaming at y'all. Um, I really don't have much more to elaborate because other than what you covered would just be utilities and storm drainage, and I'm not sure that's what this body gets into. Um, but if you all have questions, I'm here to answer them. Um, with regards to storm drainage, uh, it's not strictly part of the site plan, but this, as with many developments of this type, the city will review storm drainage, make sure everything's done properly. For a property of this size, and even though it's mostly driveway, there's not as much impervious surface as you might think for a highway business use. We don't have any outstanding concerns about it. Generally, this isn't the kind of thing you would require a detention basin for of any significant scale, but we'll we'll review that as the applicant moves through the permit process. Um, and the other thing you said was what was the other thing?

Utilities and things, which I believe goes through the county. So, I don't water, sewer south of 70 is McGomery County, so they can handle that. uh everything else as far as electric and things, those services are available and connecting to those should not be a problem. But as far as a site plan goes, uh I think you pretty well covered everything. Will you have underground storage tanks for any oil or fuel or anything like that or will it all be above ground? Well, so we'll have the interceptor itself. Nothing will go straight into the storm system or the sanitary sewer system without being filtered first. Okay.

And then all of that will be collected into above ground tanks that are stored on site that get picked up by a truck at some point. Perfect. Okay. And and to clarify, those tanks are internal to the building. They're not like an out building that's just got a bunch of stuff in it. Those those are going to be kept separate. Yes. Typically, there's an attic kind of like more of a mezzanine, not a full attic space above uh the service area, and that's where they store those. And as long as that's allowed by building code, they'll do that. Otherwise, they would seek maybe doing an enclosure outside of the building to whatever the city standard would be for that.

Okay. I had one other question if you guys don't mind. Um, so Driven Brands looks like it's from Charlotte, North Carolina. Are there any other Driven Brands um businesses locally or is this kind of their they're kind of dipping their toe into the Ohio market? I don't know if they've done anything maybe in Dayton. Uh we haven't. This is the first one I would say in the Dayton area that we've done for them, but I've done three now looking at a fourth in Columbus. I've got one in Lancaster right now. We're in Toledo, Strongsville. We're we're all over Ohio. And it's all the Take Five oil.

Yeah, they used to do car washes, but they have gotten out of the business of that. Okay, I think that covers my questions. Anybody else? [laughter] Bob, did you have any? Okay. All right. I think that covers it. Thank you so much. Thank you all for your time.

Um, there are a couple review criteria we need to go through. All right, let me just update our list here. All right. Um, so due to this property's location within the Miller Benwood Overlay District, site plan review by the planning commission is required. So there are four items that we'll go through. Um, and we'll take a roll call on each if you agree or disagree with a staff comment. So um, pursuant to code 1214, um, we should approve shall not approve an application for site plan review unless it finds the following. Number one, that the proposed development is consistent with this code and other re related codes and ordinances enforced by the city. Staff comment staff feels the proposed development is consistent with the code. So, we'll start with Miss Back.

Miss Cox, I approve. Uh, Mr. Hong, uh, Mr. O'Brien. Um, commission agrees four to zero. All right. Number two, the proposed development complies with the applicable zoning district regulations. Staff feels proposed development will comply with chapter 1226, the general development standards, and chapter 1228, architectural standards. Um, we'll start with Miss Cox. I would agree. Mr. Hassang, Mr. O'Brien, Miss Beck, agree.

Commission agrees. Four to zero. Number three, proposed development adequately provides for emergency vehicle access and circulation. Staff feels this development will adequate adequately provide emergency vehicles access and circulation as shown. Mr. Hassang, Mr. O'Brien, Miss Bach, I agree. Miss Cox, I agree as well. Last one. Number four. If the project is to be carried out in successive phases, each stage of the proposed development shall comply with the foregoing criteria. Staff feels this criterion does not apply. This is not anticipated to be a multi-phase project. We'll start with Mr. O'Brien. Miss Beck,

I agree.

Miss Cox, I agree. And Mr. Hong Commission agrees four to zero on N item number four. That brings us to our recommendation. Staff recommends planning commission approve the site plan for 3320 Bench Road as proposed with the following condition. All landscaping and screening shall be installed in quantities and varieties compliant with chapter 1232 of the Vandelia zoning code. Madam Chair, I point out that that's a standard criteria we put on almost all site plans mainly so that if there's a substitution of some of the breeds that are in the landscape plan, whatever you all substitute it with, you don't need to come back here and get us get approval on changing the breed of a tree, as long as the new tree that you're putting in satisfies all the re relevant criteria. So, I apologize.

Oh, thank you. All right. I will entertain a motion. I'll make a motion and I'll second that. Wonderful. We have a motion and a second. So, all those in favor of approval of PC 20 PC25-0022, the site plan review for 3320 Benchwood Road. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries four to zero. And Mr. Hemis, can you advise when this will be going to council? Um, this will not be going to council. This is a site plan review. So, so y'all just approved it.

Congratulations. I will send you a copy of your decision letter tomorrow and uh I will notify the relevant departments that you are cleared to proceed with your building package and signs and all that. If you could send me drafts of your signs when you have them uh so we can get that process rolling as well. Uh, I think that's the only outstanding thing. Other than that, congratulations and I think I speak for everybody when I say we look forward to having you. Thank you. All right, that brings us to number seven on our agenda, which is communications and the 2026 meeting schedule, which was included in our packet. Um, does Commission or Mr. Hamus have anything else to add to this?

I will reference the schedule because we we had a couple changes from the last time we discussed it. Um, I will point out that on Labor Day, uh, city council would normally meet on the 7th of September, but because that's Labor Day, they meet on the 8th because the 1st is the first Tuesday, the 8th is the 2nd, which means we would normally also be in this room at the same time, which could grow awkward. So, on the advice of the law director and the city manager, we moved that meeting to September 15th. which makes it weird a different way because we also have a meeting the following week. If we have applications that are pending in that time span, I'm going to coordinate with the applicants and kind of see if we can't all agree on one of those two meetings to have rather than having two meetings one week after the other. The other way to do that would have been bumping forward to the first, which is weird in a much different way because we have a meeting the week before that. So, there's no real winners here. Everybody is going to have to deal with it a bit, but I'll try to consolidate those two meetings when we get to September as long as I remember to do that. Um, the other question was uh the week of Veterans Day. Veterans Day is a holiday next year, so we will have a meeting the night before that. We will not be impacted by the holiday directly. BCA has to deal with that one, and I'm going to let them handle that. But those are the only two meetings where uh there was any chance of an adjustment. We made one and we skipped the other. I will also note that as is long-term practice for the planning commission, we do not have a meeting scheduled for the second meeting in November or the second meeting in December because those are holiday weeks and that would similarly be weird. So if something comes up that would fall on those weeks, we'll work with the applicants, but those aren't on

the schedule. So that'll just get bumped to the following uh meeting in the following month. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them, but that's kind of what we laid out. Um since we're sticking with the second and fourth Tuesday, there's no action from the commission that needs to be made. But if as we go through the year, if a meeting needs to be rescheduled ahead of time, we know we're not going to have a quorum or what have you, the commission can vote to adjust their meetings as needed. So on a procedural basis, that's how that would work.

Great. Thank you. Um any other communications from the rest of commission? All right. Before adjournment, I would just wish you all a very magical holiday season and we will see you back here in January. Um ideally if we have a a item, which it sounds like we might. So we will probably have one application. I just don't know when it's going to come in. Okay. So as soon as I know you will. TBD. All right. I will accept a motion for adjournment. Journ a second. Second. Awesome. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned at 6:25.