BLLUP OUTREACH PROJECT – INTERVIEWS SUMMARY
As of 11/17/11
CINCINNATI AREA
WMAO Contacts
Joel Thrash, JFNew Engineers, contact at WMAO, 11/17/10
 Joel suggested I call regarding contacts in the Cincinnati area. He has some ideas for case studies he
would like to see done. He suggested we talk to OKI about partnering in technical assistance and
education.
Bruce Koehler, environmental planner, OKI, contact at WMAO, 11/17/10
 Bruce suggested I talk with Travis Miller, OKI Regional Planning Manager, 513-621-6300,
tmiller@oki.org; Emi Randall, land Use Planner, (same no.), and himself (tel. 513-619-7675) re:
contacts, meeting, logistics of BLLUP implementation in OKI area.
 most of OKI’s work is based in Ohio, the Kentucky/Indiana parts are suburbs of Cincinnati and there
is less growth pressure.
Constance White, ODNR watershed coordinator program, contact at WMAO, 11/17/10
 She suggested I contact Rebecca McClatchey of Little Miami East Fork watershed group, based at
Clermont SWCD, balanced growth program participator. She said the BGI participation has
“elevated” the watershed group.
City of Cincinnati, 2/17/11
Attending: Charles Graves, City Director of Planning/Community Development; Margaret Wuerstle, City
Senior Planner; Sean Suder, City Land Use Counsel; Cheri Rakow, City Transportation Dept, on loan to
manage HUD sustainable communities project; Mary Lynn Lodor, Metropolitan Sewer District; Dustin
Lester, MSD on embedded in City Planning Dept.
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Overview. The City and MSD and other partners are involved in several major projects right now
related to planning and sustainability: 1) Citywide Comprehensive Plan; 2) HUD sustainable
communities challenge grant (Category 2, implementation) for a Unified Development Code that
implements sustainable practices. They are also giving input to OKI on their regional plan effort.
There is a lot going on and a lot of silos being broken down. More detail follows.
Citywide Comprehensive Plan. Funded by a capital budget outlay of $500,000 over 2 years, are in
the second year. Will have Land Use, Urban Design, Environment, Transportation, Housing
elements. Are using consultants for economic development, housing, plus staff time. Partnering
with MSD, all city agencies, city parks. Has a 40-person steering committee, includes nonprofits,
environmental orgs, business leaders too. There are working groups for each element, much citizen
involvement.
HUD grant is for $2.4 million over 3 years, recognizes alignment with the six “livability principles” of
the sustainable communities program. Project focuses on development of a Unified Development
Code. Chari is manager. innovative approaches: how to define the carrying capacity of districts,
work this into zoning; also the idea of redefining zoning districts based on watersheds. In Cinci, have
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52 neighborhoods, very strong identities, this would be a way to get neighborhoods to work
together at a little larger scale. Eventually the zoning code that results will be mandatory in the City.
The MSD is focused on solving CSO problems at the subwatershed level. Looking at each
subwatershed anew, tailoring combination of daylighting, storage, piping, alternative practices. Is
using USEPA funding, FEMA grants to study. Will work this into zoning through unified development
code in the long run. Lick Run is seen as a model, they are working there first, in conversation with
Ohio EPA and others, to see if they can establish a method and example for other watersheds.
Presenting this (especially the daylighting) as an economic development opportunity as well,
encouraging reinvestment in older neighborhoods. They are at the 30% design stage for the Lick
Run proposal. Recognizes that in many neighborhoods there are steep slopes, other unbuildable
areas that remain wooded and natural, have almost rural runoff characteristics, looking for ways to
capitalize on these and create more on a subwatershed level. Also looking for ways to incorporate
TDR into the miox. The CSO problem is a 2 billion gallon problem.
Status of stream setbacks: Hamilton County has a code that affects unincorporated areas; in Cinci
the concern is takings/property owners. We talked about need to support with health and safety
purposes, focus on flooding impacts rather than water quality. Referred Sean to CRWP and Amy
Brennan, CRWP web site for technical support, feedback. They see industrial property
redevelopment as a barrier to setbacks; riverfront properties are too valuable to be able to give up
land; we talked about need for mainstem standards that take a different approach than standard
setbacks.
Homebuilders: haven’t been major stakeholders in planning efforts. Are more focused on zoning.
HUD Unified Development Code project is just getting started, will involve homebuilders over time.
HBA is more focused on greenfields, less on infill.
Major roadblocks: competing/conflicting regulations (region includes 8 counties, 3 states, very
complex jurisdictionally); need for streamlined review/permitting processes; need to develop tools.
How we could help: offering feedback/input on comprehensive planning and HUD projects. Training
for local officials, engineers. Offering input on implementation of TDR. Help to broker partnerships
through training opportunities – get people working together. Find a way to address 3 state
situation by encouraging jurisdictions to work together, find examples that cross boundaries.
Cincinnati HBA, 2/17/11, Dan Dressman, executive director
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Overview: This was a very cordial meeting, Dan was very interested in seeing us involved in future
conversations with his membership and with others. He said with any practice, the main questions
are to convince the builders of three things: 1) will communities adopt/allow it? 2) Will it reduce
their costs or increase their revenues? 3) will it have consumer appeal? He noted that they will pay
extra for practices if the consumer will pay extra to support the cost.
Compact development: they have had some great successes lately with their Citirama
infill/redevelopment projects. Last year’s project sold out all 35 lots., incorporated green features.
They are re-evaluating their home show business model, would like to do a demonstration similar to
Celebration in Florida. There is a recognition that the new wave of buyers – younger families- are
interested in less home, less footprint, more compact neighborhoods sense of place – but with
green and key amenities in the home.
Conservation development: doesn’t know about projects, he hasn’t been here long enough.
Greenfields projects are stopped because no one can get financing, even the guys who always
managed their financing well.
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LID: he is aware of the Sanitation District #1 project in Kentucky, Ft. Wright. Mark Worshmidt was
the head engineer. Was done as a demonstration project with pervious pavers, green roof,
bioswales, etc. I will follow up with them to see if they have done any cost-benefit analysis on the
practices. Dan noted that Kentucky examples are relevant in the whole Cinci region – people really
think of the KY-IN-OH area as one region.
Example projects: Compact Development: North side of City of Cinci, Rockford Woods, was the
Citirama project 2010, In Line Development/Dave Wittekind. Bond Hill, Villages of Daybreak,
Northpoint Development group, Jeff Hebler is point person. Town Properties is a developer who
does lots of compact development, Brian Bortz is point person.
Who is good to work with: his members seem to have good rappoire with City of Cincinnati staff,
who seem dedicated to reducing red tape and streamlining reviews. Also County planning staff. He
is less familiar with MPO staff, seems like they are not involved in specific projects/development
issues.
The two biggest builders in the area are based in Kentucky: GreatTraditions, Nancy Young, Tom
Humes; and Fisher and Drees.
Dan asked if I would be willing to do a workshop focused on the homebuilders, “How to do Compact
Development”, perhaps involve some developers from elsewhere (Zaremba, Cleveland?) with
experience. It would be good to time it after the Density Guide comes out so we can give them a
tool to use in talking with local officials. Also it would be good for me to come down in the
meantime for one of their Ohio Valley Development Council meetings, talk and get input on the
status of development in the area. In the meantime, I will send him info on the March 10 workshop
and he will see if he can get someone there to participate, if not more than one.
OKI, 2/17/11
Attendees: Jane Wittke, planner; Travis Miller; Emi Randall. Travis and Emi are both landscape
architects and planners and do a lot of work with local governments.
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Overview. OKI is the MPO for the region, includes 8 counties in 3 states. Indiana is similar to Ohio,
but Kentucky requires comprehensive planning to be updated every 5 years – and
zoning/subdivision regs to be aligned with comprehensive plan. There are 190 local governments,
100 of them in Ohio. OKI did a strategic regional policy plan that was adopted in 2005, now is
working on updating it; it included a fiscal impact analysis model that is available to communities for
their planning and is heavily used. OKI’s most innovative policy is that they tie transportation
funding to local comprehensive planning – transportation projects in communities with
comprehensive plans, that align with the plans, get up to 10% extra points, a huge competitive
advantage. So all communities are now doing comprehensive plans. In the case of townships, a
countywide plan is acceptable.
OKI has been “promoting” the best practices, especially comprehensive planning, with their member
communities since 1997. However they don’t get much involved in zoning implementation;
planning seems to be enough. Gains have been incremental. The policy plan of 2005 had goals and
policies in 28 arewas, with action steps, they have been involved in helping communities
incorporate the pol,icies as they do their own comprehensive plans.
They are in the middle of a consultation process with the professional planners in their counties,
plus soil and water conservation districts; have met with all of them, pulling data together to
integrate transportation policy with local conservation priorities. Their goal is to create a summary
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and mapping of key priorities for consedrvation in each county, and then use this as they update
their long range transportation plan for the region in 2011-2012.
The HBA has been sporadic in their involvement; their real opposition is to “growth management”,
need to ensure that concept is not involved in any policy. HBA would like to see compact
development, allow more density, verticality, mixed use.
Status of practices: they didn’t know of examples of implementation. Suggested we meet with
SWCDs, county planners who are focused on implementation. They thought Butler and Warren
Counties have riparian setbacks.
What we can do: strong vote for economic information: what is cost effective practice; what are
examples of the economics of the recommended practices; what does it take to build/maintain
them. Information on density and example projects. All examples need to be local. Message
development piece was very interesting to them – would appreciate key messages well defined –
they are often just going on gut sense rather than an organized approach. Would like to see state
policy/incentives clarified (I referred them to the BG strategy on line).
Two proposals that didn’t go too far: 1) they applied for a HUD sustainable communities grant to
expand/update the policy plan; were turned down but put on preferred status for the next round;
got some good momentum, intend to keep going and get to work, perhaps with alternative funding.
2) tried to put together a BG partnership for the Dry Fork watershed in western Hamilton County,
but couldn’t get 75% endorsement. Time frame was too short for consensus building, and people
were resistant because it could be the first step toward the area being regulated/sewered. They
intend to try again with a different watershed, if there is another round.
They brought a USEPA technical assistance NOFA that is circulating to my attention: $2.5 million to
organizations providing technical assistance to communities on implementation on a statewide
basis. Deadline is March 31, there will be three awards.
Hamilton County, 2/18/11; Todd Kinskey, Planning Director; Todd Long, County Engineer’s office
 overview: There are 12 townships in the county; this is the primary area of influence/authority for
the County. 4 twps still are under county zoning; the rest have local zoning. The planning
department is a regional planning commission, formed in 1939 with 13 cities, but re-formed in 2000.
Cities are independent now in the planning area. Due to budgetary constraints, the planning dept
has been merged with community development since 2009. Due to reduced staff, everything is
done now through partnerships. The pace of development has slowed substantially; in 2006 there
were ~2000 building permits; now there are 2000 approved lots in the townships alone, 900 platted
and waiting for building permits. Rate is now about 75 per year. Backlog will last a while.
 Training: There is a county-wide “Planning Partnership” association – paid membership, brings in a
total of $50-60,000 per year, provides various APA information subscriptions, training, programs. 33
of 49 communities participate. They do a certified planning/zoning community planner training with
the help of the U. of Cincinnati. This year they are doing a sustainability series. They base their
topics on a survey of communities.There is a possibility that we could do a workshop through their
series.
 There is also a Hamilton County Storm Water District – has 44 of 49 municipalities in the county. All
are required to adopt regulations, but not finished with that process yet. Homeowners/businesses
are charged based on impervious surface.
 Status of comprehensive planning. They provide guidance to townships; almost all do short range 5
year land use plans. Some do comprehensive plans, some don’t. Either use consultants or contract
with planning commission. The RPC has a consistency requirement in their bylaws (zoning must be
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in compliance with land use plan). The last plan countywide was completed in 2003, called the
“Community Compass”, still is relevant, same development approach, just implementing slower.
Plan is online as well as all zoning.
Status of compact development: City of Cinci has form-based codes. There are 44 codes in the
county, some have compact development. There is a compact PUD code in the Countywide zoning
code, but no one has used it; developers say there is not market – although we recognize that the
market is changing. Infill in the County is challenging; a lot of NIMBYism, fear of density. Need:
generate data about percentage of families with kids, without kids – what is the real market in the
county. Also note that kids are not the greatest motivating factor for people in where to live; many
families put their kids in catholic schools, are more concerned with crime, proximity, etc. However,
some good schools (such as Walnut Hills HS) – 25% of students pay tuition to go there, don’t live
there.
MSD: note that they are under a consent decree to fix Combined Sewer Overflows from the USEPA;
will take $3 billion to fix. That is why they are working on models such as the Lick Run watershed
that integrate traditional, LID and economic development practices, daylighting of streams, etc.
They are having trouble getting USEPA policy and regulations on the same page. A “Big dig” is
proposed, MSD is working to come up with an alternative.
Status of Conservation Development: Colerain Twp the only one with a code; largely unsewered,
have built a couple of projects. They have planning staff to manage, are a large townships. Crosby
Twp might also – Todd was not on top of who had what.
Big issue here is hillside preservation, unstable slopes. Developers say that ¼ to ½ of all tracts are
unusable due to unstable soils. There have been some efforts to do hillside regulations, with
pushback from the HBA. City of Cincinnati has hillside regs but it is mostly built out so there is no
controversy. Anderson Twp tried to institute and “got eaten alive”. Delhi Twp has hillside
regulations. REgs usually allow building, just make it difficult, require landslide stability calculations.
Local engineers who are smart avoid the areas because of liability. The biggest challenge is shale –
best thing to do is dig it out. That’s a lot of up-front cost; with the slowdown in financing, we can
expect that major grading projects won’t be feasible anymore, hillsides may well be left alone.That’s
a lot of up-front cost; with the slowdown in financing, we can expect that major grading projects
won’t be feasible anymore, hillsides may well be left alone.
Status of stream setbacks. Storm water district requires that all communities adlopt stream
setbacks, but many have not yet done it. Width in their model code is based on upstream drainage
area, 100 acres minimum drainage area. NOTE: regs have provisions for redevelopment areas as
well as new construction. Any project over 1 acre triggers the regulation. Floodplain regulations are
more typical floodplain regs, no building in the floodway, but in the floodplain building is allowed,
just with com pensation. The planning dept manages floodplain program, has limited building when
appropriate.
Storm water district is working on allocating funds for projects. Twonship association is involved in
deciding who gets funding? They are working together to identify needs and problems,
interjurisdictional problems are seen as espec ially important.
Status of LID: their storm water regulations permit LID. They are slowly seeing more projects.
Stormwater Districts’ impervious surface fee is only $15 per home per year, not enough to inc ent
reducing impervious surface.
Needs: they are just starting a project with Chris Duerksen to evaluate their zoning code and what is
needed. Funded through a grant, hopefully this will be a model, others can be taught how to do
similar analyses. Perhaps there are collaboration opportunities there. Cincinnati state has a
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program to train workers in doing retrofits, generate workers for companies doing that work.He is
not sure if they address storm water in their “green retrofit” program.
How can we help: perhaps with education to help communities out of permit compliance – get
them to adopt codes they haven’t yet. Stormwater District has no full time employees so education
is shorted. Also we could help communicate with community councils (village/city) “this is what you
need to do.” In particular, stream corridor, illicit discharge, earthwork/site development codes are
needed. HBA seems mostly to be asking for consistency, haven’t come out against these codes. A
challenge is that c ommunities get confused, hearing from so many entitites about what they should
be doing. It would be best to be consistent, have people come in together and get one message.
Also there is a need to provide a central identity/message.
Communities could use models: codes, and projects; local is the best.
University of Cincinnati has a sc hool of planning, but most people there are not practical/zoning
minded, less informed about implementation, more up on planning theory. He wouldn’t find them
credible unless for specific projects such as recommending state legislation.
County Engineer’s association has a list serve, provides good information to communities. So does
Ohio APA list serve. the CCAO is seen as too diverse; state RC&D is probably too rural.
Also there is a need to prove the economics of everything, “prove that maintenance is sustainable.”
Check out the sanitary district office in northern Kentucky – cisterns, pervious pavement, green roof,
etc. Good model project, he’s not sure what monitoring they are doing.
David Fehr, Planner, Butler County Planning Dept, 2/18/11
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Overview. Butler County works with townships exclusively, although they do talk with cities. There
are 13 townships, about half have their own zoning, half use countywide zoning. The County has
been proactive and has many codes/provisions in place. They are aware of recommended practices
(although have not been aware of the Balanced Growth program and generally have had support for
implementation. However many of the practices are recently adopted and the economic slowdown
has meant there has been little implementation. They do have a couple of areas where the BGI
could be of use however.
Status of comprehensive planning. The County has prepared comprehensive plans for all townships,
all date to at least 2001. About half have been updated in the last 5 years. There is no countywide
plan but the County takes a regional awareness approach in doing the local plans. There has been a
dignificant reduction of staff in the last two-three years, David is now the only planner; the
economic development staff has been reduced from six to 2; Mike Juengling is in charge of all
planning, economic development, community development, bjilding and zoning. So there is little
staff time now for planning, they are just putting out fires.
Status of development. in 2005 there were 1500 building permits a year;p lat year there were 350.
All permits are in existing approved subidivisions, there is an unused inventory of about 1500 lots so
he would expect there would be no need for new subdivisions for three or four years yet.
Sewer. Besides the cities, there are a few areas in the County where there is sewer: Two in Ross
township, one in Hanover, also West Chester, Liberty, Fairfield. In the latter three, the areas are
already sewered and the county has had little impact. However in Ros and Hanover, they have
taken the innovative approach of saying “the sewer may only serve the drainage area so all sewer
must be gravity to the plant, no lift stations. “ the justification is the increased public cost of
maintaining lift stations. This acts as an effective growth boundary, has been challenged in court
and upheld. Any new sewer would have to be put in by the developer, and the county would set the
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same limits, would add to the developer’s provided capacity as needed to serve the immediate
drainage area, but not permit development/expansion beyond that.
Compact development. In the Ross area, one family had plans approved for a traditional
neighborhood approach on their farm, just before the economy tanked. The next step would have b
een to find a developer. So a code is in place, approvals are in place, if a developer were looking for
a site to do compact development, it is ready for that. County would consider doing similar plans
elsewhere where there is sewer expansion capacity, within the limits in the above paragraph. There
are little burgs with older compact development around the county, but except as noted above,
none of them have sewer, so expansion of compact development there is unlikely.
Storm water. There is a countywide storm water utility district and code. It was managed by the
SWCD but has recently shifted to the County Engineer’s office due to downsizing/staff limitations.
Contact person there is Eric Pottenger. They have a generally “tepid” approach to LID, however
have done some demonstration projects, for pervious pavement, infiltration trench at their offices,
are doing monitoring as well. The SWCD has done a demonstration retrofit detention basin with LID
in the Beckett Ridge subdivision, are monitoring, Kevin Fall is contact person, project looks nice.
Monitoring handled in conjunction with Miami University.
Source Water Protection. There is a very important aquifer in the Trenton area, Miller Brewing is
key user, also drinking water comes from aquifers, so there is a lot of concern. A local Groundwater
Consortium made up of the county and bigger cities meets regularly and stays on top of the
situation. Innovatively, source water protection is handled through zoning: there are TOT zones
around there well heads: in a 1 year zone, the most restrictive, certain businesses are prohibited
(gas stations, dry cleaners, etc) and there are requirements for materioals storage etc., every
business gets visited once a year to review and discuss and remind and teach. 5 and 10 year zones
are progressively less restrictive.
Stream Setbacks. Are handled very matter-of-factly through the floodplain code. All FEMA and blue
line streams have a 75 foot setback from top of bank, nothing can happen (not even landscaping) in
that area. Crossings of roads and utilities are allowed with permits, but otherwise nothing. No
clearing so no storm drainage, no septic, can remove dead/diseased trees. There have been no
issues, everybody complies. This is not zoning, but the countywide floodplain regs.
Conservation Development. The county has PUD regs for both Conservation and regular PUD, but
both require a zone change so they have not been used. However, even their standard
development zoning has been changed to specify density rather than lot size, with a 35% open space
requirement. This has not been used yet, went into place in 2009. There are also criteria for the
open space, but a lot is negotiated. CD and PUD are in Article 13, 13C on line; regular code is article
8 and others. (done by district). Also there is interest in Randall Arendt; they are doing a workshop
series with Randall to plan for the Oxford area, next one is Monday. Trying to get the City and Twp
to work together to plan and consider CD.
Land Trust. There is an active land trust in the region, three valley conservation trust, Larry
Frimerman.
Issues: Arguments with fire officials, others about road/sidewalk standards in conservation
subdivisions. Would like to encourage a less intense approach in CDs, but right now standards are
the same for all subdivisions. Wide streets, huge cul de sacs. Demonstration of best practices that
are recommended and in use and practical would be helpful. Also he is concerned about the value
of planning in general in the region. Planning departments are being removed everywhere,
combined with other departments, there is not a recognition of the value of planning. Economic
studies of planning and its value, as well as best practices, would be helpful. For example,
conservation development is labor int3ensive for good design to happen.
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Review processes. Right now the county has no requirement for developers to review info early
before preliminary plan is complete, but it is strongly encouraged, most engineers know to come in
early. But it could use recommendations/improvement/info about what others are doing. He took
application off the web to force applicants to come in and talk about what they’re up to.
Cincinnati Area – OKI Groundwater Committee
Presentation/facilitated discussion 3/23/11, 10:00 am, K.Date
See attached for list of participants in the organization. About 40 people attended.
A. Of note, at each Committee meeting (they meet quarterly) one or two of the organizations give
everyone else an overview of their agency or a project they are working on. This quarter it was Frank
Bell of the Village of Indian Hill. Summary of their system: They have 9 wells serving a total of 5400
homes, with an average daily capacity of 2 million gallons per day. They have 110 miles of distribution
pipes and 2 million gallons of underground storage. Their emergency source is the greater Cincinnati
Water Works. They do their own lab work except for bacteria, for which they contract with the Greater
Cinci Water Works. They are hoping to have an approved Source Water Protection Plan in the coming
months.
Note: general links on source water protection:
Ohio EPA - http://www.epa.state.oh.us/portals/28/documents/swap/swap_factsheet.pdf
Groundwater Consortium: http://www.gwconsortium.org/
The Groundwater Consortium coordinator is Tim McLelland, tmclelln@ci.hamilton.oh.us, 513-785-2464.
B. After a half hour presentation on the Balanced Growth Program and Best Local Land Use Practices, K.
Date facilitated discussion of questions for the group on Source Water Protection issues. The following
are the responses received:
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2.
How is groundwater used in this area?
Residential and commercial drinking water
Source of geothermal heating – there are more and more of these every year, it is becoming a
big issue. Most are open loop, drawing from groundwater, with discharge to stormwater, and
then to the river. There is concern about contamination of water, and also contribution of heat
to groundwater systems. Drilling methods are also of concern – a local high school is served by
more than 300 vertical wells, which provide many opportunities for contamination of
groundwater. Drillers need to be qualified.
Industrial cooling water is an important use. Quality and quantity need to be ensured, and
sources need to be distant from public water supplies.
Large industries that are water dependent, i.e. Miller Brewing, Kings Island (water features),
Duke Energy (cooling water). All three are active in the committee.
How is source water protection handled in local zoning?
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Most communities use a model regulation developed by the Groundwater Consortium. They
stressed the critical importance of uniform codes among jurisdictions, makes it more workable
for everyone.
Link: http://www.gwconsortium.org/ I have copies of example codes (see Hamilton City, Ross
Township, St. Clair Township).
In general there is most concern for storm water and how it is handled; LID is encouraged; it is
focused on identified sensitive areas rather than the whole community.
What is the status of local Source Water Protection Plans?
A large number of communities have adopted them. Warren County and City of Dayton have
very comprehensive plans. Smaller ones include Hamilton, Fairfield, Twps in Butler County.
The biggest impacts to source water are often outside the role of local zoning and planning:
wastewater facilities, agriculture, septic leachfields. These generate nonpoint source impacts
that are hard to control.
What are key issues/ roadblocks you are facing?
There is a pattern of giving credits on sewer bills for people who are using a lot of water to
water their grass. This is a disincentive to people to control water and water quality which could
impact the groundwater source.
They would like to see us encourage the state to develop source water control measures for
state properties – areas adjacent to watersheds, streams.
Sand and gravel extraction is a huge problem. Butler County is the largest aggregate producer in
the state. A cradle-to-grave plan is needed for aggregate properties, that is done in a real,
financially oriented manner. For example, how is transportation handled? What are the
potential environmental/quality of life impacts of extraction businesses? There is a disincentive
for communities to regulate these businesses because they are big buyers of aggregate for their
projects. Meanwhile many small operations have a big impact in an area where there are
wellfields serving 300,000 people. Scenic Rivers are protected, but not the Great Miami. We
need to understand more about the role of riverbed quality in overall groundwater quality. For
more information speak to Tim McLelland of the Groundwater Consortium.
Salt storage in Springfield and Camden is also an issue.
Chemical storage issues: There is a wide open area near the river in Dayton, other areas such as
Sherwin Williams (storage area caught fire). Result is chemicals getting into the aquifer. Bad
incidents affect everyone, such as the ChemDyn site and the Fernald site. Each community
needs to find an example and use it to educate people, especially leaders, about the importance
of groundwater.
Lack of education of leadership is a big issue. They make decisions every day without realizing
the importance of clean groundwater to health, safety and business. Often they reduce budgets
or choose not to fund infrastructure, or choose not to regulate businesses, when it is critically
needed.
What recommendations would you like to make?
Storm Water Phase II has got a lot of attention but Source Water is just as important and right
now is not as well understood. Perhaps merge the storm water and source water programs. A
financial incentive would be reduced costs.
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Policies are no good if they are not consistent. If communities can be consistent, it will help
businesses and developers, and also discourage developers from moving around to find the
lowest-regulated areas.
Need to find a way to refer to federal and state regulations whenever possible, keep the local
community from being the bad guy, and help with the consistency issue.
Cincinnati Area, Clermont County, 3/23/11
Scot Lahrmer, Assistant County Administrator
Ray Sebastian, Building Inspector
Andy Kuchta, Economic Development Director
Background: The County is participating in the Middle East Fork Little Miami Balanced Growth
watershed plan. All three were part of the BG/BLLUP workshop on March 10 sponsored by the SWCD.
1.
Status of Stormwater and other Water-related Regulations in the County: Regulations apply to
every site. Wetlands and steep slopes etc. are protected. They consider themselves “ahead of the
curve”, and think that the Best Practices are redundant because they already do so much. Regulations
are stringent: require 2 feet of freeboard, have a compensatory fill requirement, cover the floodplain
(not just the floodway). They can’t do a setback because of the terrain; often the setback is larger than
the actual floodplain. They don’t feel they can sell a “no build in the floodplain” regulation. However,
they do not allow public streets or driveways in the floodplain, because these would trap water. (?)
There are two wellfields in the county, but no source water protection code to date. (? check)
2.
Status of conservation development: one township has a code, Pierce Township, used the
Countryside model but made major concessions, penalize density. The approval process was painful
with several public hearings that were contentious. No projects have been built due to the economic
slump.
3.
Development process in the county: There is a pre-application conference; but this does not
usually involve the township or zoning. They do all building permits, including for cities and villages.
4.
Status of compact development: There is no compact development in the county. However,
Batavia could be an opportunity. There is a (planned?) mature adult community, could be an
opportunity. Check with George Brown Sr., developer, Senior Services.
5.
Status of comprehensive planning. No communities have comprehensive planning, the county
doesn’t have a plan, but it is on the wish list. However, some of the townships have land use/growth
plans because OKI gives them extra points on applications if they have them. The county leaders don’t
feel it is the county’s realm to do such a plan, should be township responsibility. They have done
corridor studies in place of regular comprehensive plans.
6.
Clermont County HBA: has their own HBA, includes Mike Greevy (who was at the March 10
workshp), Jim Watson of the Ohio Valley Development Council. They are waiting to see what Becky (Mc
Clatchey) will do about the Balanced Growth Plan. They still feel incentives should be provided. They
asked if I would support density bonuses in the Balanced Growth areas, and I said yes if moderate (10%),
but that those could be done with or without the Plan, there is nothing in the plan that precludes doing
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incentives in zoning. They would also like to see recommendations such as Conservation Devellpment be
by-right as an incentive to developers. I agreed that is a good approach.
7.
Assistance/needs: they would like to see an exercise that shows the savings involved in
infrastructure when implementing balanced growth recommendations. Their Planning Commission has
work sessions once/month, it would be good for me to come down and talk with them, do some
training. They would be receptive, have good attendance usually.
COLUMBUS AREA
WMAO, 11/17/10
Jonathan Ferbrache/Licking County SWCD, and Dave Rutter, MORPC, conversation at WMAO, 11/17/10
 Contact at MORPC re: BLLUP implementation: Andy Taylor, MORPC land use planner. Has done
some township help.
 Contact in Franklin County: Ben Weiner, Franklin County Planning. Has helped townships. Ben has
been working with townships in Franklin County to implement stream setbacks, modeled on the
Darby provisions.
 In Fairfield County, talk to Holly Mattei, Fairfield RPC Planning Director. Fairfield county PC helps
local communities in Fairfield, Licking and Pickaway under contract (for a fee) if they request it.
Includes municipalities. In Fairfield there are three groups: the RPC (works with cities and
townships), the subdivision regulations group (includes cities), and the technical review group
(includes county agencies).
 In Pickaway County, best resource is John Torres, Farm Bureau, based in Circleville. There is no
planning commission?
 Delaware County is an RPC, has its own outreach to cities/twps in the county.
 Dublin and Worthington have their own planners/plans, as does Albany.
 Reynoldsburg needs help, can’t get council to buy into planning.
 They suggested we start with Fairfield County, then reach to Madison, Delaware, licking, pickaway in
that order.
 Re: the HBA, in Fairfield county, the Board of Realtors is the biggest resistance, there is a lot of
crossover, the builders are realtors. there are builders already on the planning commission, a
couple (Zack DeLeon of Gorsuch Co.) are open to ideas.
Scott Sanders, Planning Director, Delaware County, 2/9/11
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Overall planning status. All townships in the County have a comprehensive plan, generally done by
the County, drafted or updated within the last 10 years. All townships except three have their own
zoning; the three exceptions, Radner, Thompson and Marlboro, are all in the northwest
(undeveloped) corner of the county, are under County zoning, and have no water. The rest of the
townships are all pretty savvy about development, have taken steps to manage it. Phil Laurien was
director for 9 years until 2006, was progressive about educating communities and getting them to
consider sustainable ideas. Scott began as staff person in 2001, became director when Phil left in
2006. Of note, all development in the county is in PUDs. Almost no lot splits. Scott thinks this is due
to upscale nature of the market in the county, and the fact that developers have done well with the
PUDs, so have continued to do them.
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Status of sewer. Most communities have central sewer services. There are two plants, with a third
built north of Dublin but never used due to economic slowdown. Half built by developer,
Triangle/Village Communities, very large company. There has been one project in a nonsewered
area with a proposed leachfield/construction wetland, but it is now close to the new plant, and
never got built due to economic slowdown, is requesting extensions repeatedly. At the time it was
approved, Ohio EPA asked that it be maintained by a “public utility”, this was never resolved –
county depts. didn’t want to be responsible, hadn’t found a new entity yet.
Water: in the three twps without water, County has bought land to make a reservoir, Scott has
warned them”water is coming” suggested they do a 3-community plan to prepare, but then with the
economic slowdown no one has taken the next step.
Status of development: very slow. There were no new plats last year (2010). However new building
permits have persisted consistently – using up the backlog. Most developers are continuing to ask
for extensions.
HBA in Columbus (Jim Hilz) is the group that covers their area. He seems cooperative and interested.
MORPC has been involved through the Olentangy BG projects, but not in other ways. Generally not
a factor in development approvals, review, etc.
Status of conservation development: Four townships have CD regulations with at least 40-50% open
space requirements. These are Concord, Trenton, Genoa, and Kingston. Trenton has no sewer.
Genoa is almost built out. Concord, Trenton and Genoa have a floating zone so any new projects are
only an administrative review. Kingston requires a rezoning for each project. Liberty Twp, a fifth
twp, is in the midst of a zoning update and is proposing CD. One question is whether new standards
are always needed – couldn’t we just tweak existing PRD codes? Might be less controversial.
Built Conservation Development projects: there is just one, in Trenton, nonsewered area.
According to the code, dev. could have up to .6 units per acre, but developer is sticking to a more
conservative .4 units per acre to avoid neighbor upset in an area with many 3 and 5 acre lots. It was
not clear how much of the project was built due to economic downturn.
There is another large project that was proposed in Kingston, had 50% open space, went to court
over density issues, has own sewer plant. Kingston’s code is complicated. Judge approved a design
plan that doesn’t meet code strictly. Scott is not sure how that will be resolved.
Status of stream setbacks. None so far, however, there is a new permit along the Olentangy, the
watershed group (Friends of the Olentangy) is sponsoring training and mapping opportunities for
communities. In general the City of Delaware is resistant to the idea due to restrictions on
development/trails/etc along the mainstem. Has become a “mitigation” setback as a result, more
conservative, just needs to compensate with other land at 2:1 or 3:1 ratio (check?). There is general
language in the PUDs about avoiding waterways and slopes over 20%. Porter Township proposed a
setback in their code, but the trustees nixed it due to concerns about existing property owners’
impacts.
Protocol for project review: County planning reviews subdivision regulations/plats. But County
engineer’s office is in charge of road design and storm water issues. (storm water also goes through
SWCD). There is lots of back and forth between the county engineer and township at the
preliminary stage; often by the time County Planning sees it again, it is quite different. The SWCD
often holds maintenance easements for storm water ponds and improvements. The Planning
Commission puts references to LID in their plans, but the sWCD is the main resource/authority
there.
Local governments involved. They are a Regional Planning Commission, serve all townships and
some villages, but the City of Delaware is not a member. Withdrew at one point, they were not
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happy with arrangement, set up their own staff. They do work together through the Olentangy BGP.
The other villages are members of the RPC, but the County has little authority.
Balanced growth. The County is involved in four of the BG plans for the Olentangy. Each one is
different in structure, criteria, etc. Personalities vary. The projects are led by MORPC; the County
RPC is just a stakeholder. People have been working very hard on maps, but Scott is wondering
what will be “in the book” and whether people will be happy with PCAs and PDAs once they find out
what they involve. We talked about the fact that there is no real “book” backing up the maps other
than the mapping criteria; this is not a comprehensive plan, nor a regulatory/policy plan, but just a
designation of PCAs and PDAs, to which incentives will be attached.
Challenges: The biggest challenge is resistance to compact development/traditional neighborhoods
due to the disconnect between land use decisions and costly impacts such as schools.
Communities/school districts resist higher densities because of the perceived increase in school kids
without covering the cost of them. There is a “story” around about the mythical $600,000 house
which would be needed to cover the cost of its services. It would be very interesting to project a
community scenario for compact development with an analysis of the impact on transportation,
schools, emergency services, to show the actual impact vs. the perceived impact. Transportation
costs should go down so maybe that would balance the school situation. ***Note there is a recent
article in Governing Magazine about shared revenue options. Another case study that would be
helpful would be to do a pilot compact development project, and show what it would look like.
Built compact development: Note, there was a compact traditional neighborhood proposed in
Orange Township with a town center, parks, etc, with a pattern book developed. Frank Elmer
worked on the plan. It got close to approval in 2005/6, then the economy tanked. Scott has put the
project in the new Orange Twp plan as an example of what was acceptable to the community,
hoping it could spark some future ideas.
Note, examples/pilot projects from other areas would be interesting/useful,especially if detailed
scenarios are given, but they would be most appreciated if based in the central Ohio area.
Training is not as important to them – he has offered training in the past, people generally are pretty
up to date – except for turnover, new zoning staff/appointees. The last couple of years he has tried
to do two trainings a year, about 30-35 people show up. He would like to continue, but wants to
focus on practical issues such as legal and zoning. There is a hunger on zoning issues among
township people, the OTA conference is a good place to get training.
He would like to understand better what the watershed groups might do/are doing about public
policy. They do TMDLs, WAPs, and then nothing else happens with regard to implementation.
Open space deed restrictions: there is a “stealth” approach to open space in several townships PUD
negotiations (Liberty-Genoa-Orange) – the community requests dedicated “no touch – no build”
areas of open space on the private lots (especially in ravines), almost like conservation easements –
but they are just deed restrictions, are noted on the plat. He is not sure about enforcement – they
have made clear with the twps that they are not “plat police”. He suggested talking with Holly
Foust, zoning inspector of Liberty Twp, about how it works. She says there is a long list of PUDs with
these restrictions.
“Accidental TDR”: they have one project where a developer gave swamp land to a township for a
park. Then came back later and asked to use the development potential as credits against extra
units on other projects. So far they have allowed him to do it, but Scott wonders when it will end.
2/9/11, Holly Mattei, Planning Director, Fairfield County Regional Planning Commission
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Overall planning status: The county did a countywide comprehensive plan in 2002. It was well
developed, emphasis on conservation, farmland preservation, and they still use it heavily today in
guiding planning decisions. One of the consultants involved was Tim DeWitt of Bennett Williams,
used the LESA model to evaluate farmland for preservation. Since then, they have updated with an
active transportation/open space update (2009), and are working currently on an agricultural
economic development/local foods element. The housing piece of the plan could use updating –
not because the policies are out of date, but the data is (foreclosure, projections, etc) – makes the
plan look irrelevant.
Current trends: are for the pace of development to be much slower than before, and what
development does occur is more compact, closer to villages/available infrastructure. Traditionally
the county has lots of lot splits – few PUDs. Many lots in 2000-2006 were in nonsewered areas, with
onsite water and septic. However since downturn, combined with change in health dept rules,
trend is toward sewered areas. (400 lot splits in 2000, 31 in 2009, 89 in 2010). In the
county/townships, there have been no major subdivisions in 2 to 3 years. Some villages and cities
have had plats: Pickerington, Lithopolis, Lancaster. These are standard subdivisions, just smaller
lots. Doesn’t appear to be much interest in PUDs/conservation developments. The three big
developers, Dominion, MI, and Rockford, are still around, are using up existing inventory. Others
have closed up shop.
Sewer service status: Lancaster, Pickerington, all villages have their own plants.
PUDS in nonsewered areas: there were a few in 1998, 1999, in Hocking Township. Utilized
individual leachfields in common open space. County Health Department allowed it. Would be a
tough sell now due to new Health Dept regulations.
Storm water status: the County Planning Commission/Engineers handle major subdivisions. Violet
Township has its own subdivision regulations. Otherwise the SWCD addresses (smaller
subdivisions).
Status of conservation development: Liberty Township has a conservation district, with 50% open
space, hasn’t been used yet, just adopted in 2009-10. Violet Township and many other townships
have standard PUDs with 20% setbacks. In Violet they let developers count front/side yard setbacks
toward the open space requirement. County does not allow this in other townships.
Status of stream setbacks. The County Comp Plan open space element recommends, but it is a
tough sell due to fear of takings. The impact on existing property owners is the greatest problem.
PRDs and PUDs are an opportunity to get the same effect without affecting existing property
owners, is probably the most realistic approach.
Status of compact development: there are no codes right now. Annexation is a big issue in some
townships – the opportunity is for the villages to do compact development.
Challenges: the biggest roadblocks are property rights concerns, and density concerns.
Examples/pilot projects would be helpful. Her wish listwould be to do some support for a pilot TDR
project to show how it could work. Perhaps fund market studies or a case study; or help to get local
zoning revisions in place to facilitate it.
Local Governments Involved: the villages will consult with the county, but the county has no
authority over their decisions.
MORPC is involved in the Walnut Creek BG plan, and also the Shaping Our Future plan which
involves only Violet and Bloom Townships. The County coordinates with MORPC on these efforts,
but it not as close in terms of daily decisions. OSU extension has done some teaching/training,
__________ Civitoli has been the main person.
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Balanced growth: specifically the Walnut Creek plan. Right now she thinks about 80% are skeptical,
20% are on board. It could be very helpful to have a presentation/workshop about the BG plan in
general and help people to understand more about it.
Training: she tries to do two workshops a year for zoning inspectors/board members. She thinks it
would fit in to have us do some training as part of her program on BLLUP.
The HBA is based in Columbus. They do not get involved in conversations about
development/planning, are not “in her face” about policy.
Land Trust. One important outcome of the open space amendment to the countywide
comprehensive plan in 2002 was the recommendation that a land trust be formed to hold ag
easements. The Fairfield County Land Preservation Association is now a 501 ©(3) and holds one
easement of 300 acres, is working on another easement. The land trust board is made up of private
citizens, the County PC and SWCD advise them. There are now 2000 acres preserved in the county
by various parties, including ag easements held by the state.
Holly thinks the greatest opportunity is in getting more of the new small-lot subdivisions to be
compact development in the villages. Either through TDR or standalone. Would require education,
technical assistance, active promotion.
BIA of Greater Columbus, Bill Westbrook (developer), Jim Hilz (executive director), 2/11/11
Overall: Bill and Jim were frank and cordial; I think they were straight with me and gave me some good
insights for going forward. They acknowledged frustration with local processes, including the Darby
conversation, and the BG watershed conversations. Talking specifics with them, they seem willing to
compromise on some issues (see below) and are supportive of Ohio EPA involvement, but are frustrated
with local leaders’ capricious decisions, and some staff’s inexperience.
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Input on the Darby: They see the process as very bogged down by two problems: 1) overly rigid
participation on the part of environmentalists, including national Nature Conservancy, and local
Friends of the Darby. Representatives of both groups live in the Darby, have perhaps more of a
stake than they should. Both groups are unwilling to see the big picture, that over the whole
watershed, fees from developers will fund large areas of untouched open space, so they should
“give” on the specifics of individual projects. It is hard to work out compromises when some will not
give even an inch. 2) lack of true leadership, there is no heavyweight personality/champion with
clout who can nudge all sides to compromise and move forward. The process is wandering around
and there is no likely resolution in sight. At this point they would prefer that the BG process not get
started in the Darby because it will bog things down even further. When I mentioned the “town
center” plan for the Darby, they laughed, said it was an impossible project because the sewer/water
are not there, and there will be no demand for the mixed uses in that more remote location, and the
schools are not as good (the rest of the Darby is in the better Hilliard school district); it was a good
example of what happens when you bring in an “out of town” consultant. Interestingly, they think
the best bet for a resolution on the Darby project is for the Ohio EPA to take a strong role and tell
everyone what needs to happen. They seemed to be relieved at the idea that regulators would set
the tone and the project would get done.
In general, they are very worried about the BG projects because the maps could well be used by
local communities, like the Darby accord, to regulate, cast the PDAs and PCAs in stone. The two I
met with don’t seem to “get” the idea of incentives only designation for the plan. In particular they
are concerned because of the lack of competent/authoritative leadership in the group. They are
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disappointed in MORPC; “no one there knows anything.” Staff are new and all are inexperienced
and naive; the projects call for staff with knowledge of planning and less idealistic ideas about
“smart growth”. I got the distinct feeling that there was no one within the projects that they felt
they could trust to have common sense about the development process. Other comments about
MORPC: “it is a shame, they should be the ones doing these plans, but they are trying to be too
much to everyone, and staff don’t know anything.” They noted that “planning” is not in any of
MORPC’s goals/mission, and seems to be more the goal of staff/particularly Jerry Tinianow than a
true board-driven aim.
Other Input on the Olentangy BG project: They are concerned that there is no recognition that
residential development is a huge stakeholder in this watershed. The BIA has one voice, and there
are ten environmentalist voices. The maps are flawed, and the local communities are not coming to
the meetings – all the discussion is being done with the inexperienced MORPC staff, environmental
input, and a few other technical staff members. They felt much better about how the scenic river
designation process went, as run by the Ohio EPA.
Input on Conservation Development: they see this as a good option for the Darby. They would like
to see the public open space owned/managed by a public entity (which is very different from the
take I usually get from developers). They see the open space a s a public purpose which the public
should maintain/manage. They are working with stakeholders to develop a CD code; this has been
stalled for more than a year. CD needs to happen on Hilliard school district ground, that is where
the demand is. Delaware County has a conservation development code in some townships, a copule
of projects got built – one problem with the Genoa Twp code is that open space adjacency is
required for all lots – this is a problem at the higher densities, winds up fragmenting the open space.
CD will only work in central Ohio with centralized sewer – at the 2-1/2 unit per acre density, a 5unit-per-acre density results in the developed area (with 50/% open space). Fire departments in
townships are out of control, asking for huge cul de sacs, eats up the possible open space.
TDR: also see this as a good option for the Darby, especially since a de facto TDR approach is being
funded via various mechanisms including TIF, CDAs, developer contributions (will generate funds for
open space dedication). However TDR needs legislation in order to do cross-jurisdictional
agreements. They are unhappy with the current TDR legislative language; think it is too broad, too
open to misuse by communities. They would like to see it tightened up with actual density
mandates (“2 times the existing density”) as a way to ensure that true benefits come in the receiving
areas. Also they would like to see increased incentives to sending areas in critical environmental
areas – such as a percentage increase in credits to sell – to encourage landowners in sensitive areas
to conserve land. Also, would like to see an incentive built in that would encourage farmers to
change their farm practices.
They in general have respect for local professional planning staff – at counties and cities. The
appointed officials in zoning and planning commissions, however, often override staff
recommendations. They would prefer to work with township trustees and city councils than the
planning/zoning commissions. They have more of a “big picture” look at both development and
conservation.
Vince Papsidero, City of Columbus, 2/10/11
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Overall status. In general Columbus seems to be doing a good job on all tools. Comprehensive
Planning, completed a policy countywide plan in 1999, still used as a solid foundation, laid the
groundwork for the Darby Accord, other projects. In general all planning is done on the
neighborhood level; there are 40 subareas and they complete about 5 plans per year. Plans are
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consensus-based with lots of public involvement, address urban design, economic development,
walkability, etc. Implementation then happens through zoning. They have commercial overlays in 3
types - all are linear – Urban (0-10 feet setback, parking in rear); community (10-20 feet, no access
drives, parking in rear, landscaping) and regional (auto oriented). Has turned out to be an effective
tool.
Note that they have been very progressive in parking area reductions, might be a good model, in
many cases they have parking ceilings, and have worked out variances where needed, support
parking sharing as well. Many lessons learned here.
City is a big investor in biking, require bike racks on all projects, offstreet bike parking.
Storm water: is handled by the utilitities department, not planning. Utilities dept has an office on
watershed management and protection. They do plan review. Their plans incorporate green
infrastructure, storm water management, flood plain protection. He thinks this program is as strong
as anywhere else in the state, might be a good model. Riparian setbacks are not included per se,
but floodplain and river/stream corridors are protected thru floodplain regs. See all codes on the
web.City has been proactive – rain gardens, green roofs, give credits on annual stormwater fee if
you use LID practices.
Compact development: plan review is handled by 18 historic districts plus university and downtown
area. Review for design. Total 40,000 properties are affected. Noone is using the TND code any
more, no one is doing commercial/mixed use. There are a few scattered projects, but
demand/investment isn’t there. A problem is that those projects appealed to people who lived in
compact Columbus neighborhoods, but worked outside (Dublin/etc), there was no revenue stream
to the home neighborhood to support services.
Balanced Growth needs: could help with outreach and education to the private sectors –
devfelopers (res and commercial), land designers, land planners. Also focus on elected/appointed
officials. Politics is heavy, there is turnover. Training, education, web based information would be
useful. Perhaps match up similar communities (first ring suburbs), go beyond the state listserve.
Work with the Ohio Municipal League, CCFAO, OTA to do training, education. Otherwise doesn’t see
a lot of needs. They are generally on top of things, politics are heavy so new planning is not likely.
Extension of sewer – Vince thinks that the extension of sewer has just about run its course. The
system is just about built to its maximum capacity, doesn’t see a lot of new capacity being granted,
especially with economic downturn, doesn’t see the old expansion getting started again for at least
10 years if ever. Fixing and maintain the existing infrastructure is going to be the big issue.
Columbus’ growth is stagnant and there is little new growth to be expected.
Riverfront development. Wasn’t clear, apparently there is a 180’ setback along the river, not clear
what is in place for streams/creeks.
Note: Dublin has the most balanced growth, watershed friendly code in the area. Very
sophisticated. Code is on the web.
Annexation is really slow. At one time 400 acres per year; 2010 was 34 acres, 2009 20 acres, lowest
since the 1930’s. Focus is becoming infill, densification.
Noted it would be good for us to contact Maureen Lorenz, landscape architect in the Rec/Park Dept,
to find out what the city is doing, there are some interesting plans/projects. Also should talk to John
O’Meara, there is a lot of work being done on bike paths in the City. WE also might want to talk to
John Turner, manager of the land bank, dealing with urban agriculture, foreclosure, community
gardens.
Franklin County Planning Commission, Scott Fulton, 2/10/11
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Overall scenario. The County serves all townships in the County with planning services; will assist
villages for a fee. Jackson, Jefferson, Plain, Prairie, Washington and Perry have their own zoning;
zoning inspectors range from knowing almost nothing, to being sophisticated. The rest of the
townships: Pleasant, Brown, Blendon, Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Mifflin, Norwich,
Sharon, Truro are all under a single countywide zoning code, with county zoning inspectors.
Status of comprehensive planning: County has staff dedicated to doing comprehensive plans. They
are through the backlog and most are updated; the oldest is Hamilton Township, 1998. All are
online.
Status of water/sewer: this is a very big issue. In community surveys, people want to acquire
water/sewer but don’t want to annex. Options for extending water and sewer are: Columbus – but
they require annexation (with rare exceptions). Or County sanitary engineer – but their staff
capacity is limited, have provided in a few areas. Or Ohio American Water, which has developed a
bad reputation due to big rate increases. Just about any new development has to “play the
water/sewer game”, i.e. the casino moving to the West Broad Street area.
Darby Accord area. Plans at the Darby are the closest to a balanced growth ideal – but
implementation has been a difficult process. 1) there is no one leader/convener, no one with
political clout to facilitate compromises. There are four working groups, include a variety of people
(zoning working group, BDAWG Big Darby Accord Working Group, open space advisory committee,
town center group), BDAWG has a hired mediator, but in the end everyone is so worried about
covering all the bases on each provision, raising questions and issues, there is always something else
to research or justify, and no one holds anyone’s nose to getting it done. Scott raised several
questions about Conservation Development, for example, that showed me that they are missing the
overall point, and need someone to “just do it”. 2) economic slowdown – no development pressure
to get codes worked out; 3) town center idea has momentum, smaller lots are selling so something
could happen there, but sewer/water has been the holdup; 4) open space – the concept is to use
the funds from the development to go back into the project, (combination of TIF and impact fee),
but there is disagreement about how that would work, and whether it would be OK to give publicly
raised funds to a private entity (developer) to do project.
Status of compact development. A few areas have water and sewer, would be good targets for
compact development. Municipalities are requiring projects to be condominiums so common
areas/alleys can be paid for/maintained since they are private. Everyone resists alleys. (we talked
about how they are not required for compact development). Smaller lots are still selling, but most
are being done in traditional PUDs – there is an opportunity here to get something more interesting
going. Townships resist density, 2.5 units per acre is where they have to start.
Stormwater. Regulations are in place, managed by the Franklin County Drainage Engineer (under
the County engineer), working with the SWCD. Both drainage engineer and county engineer are
resistant to LID ideas: too expensive, too hard to maintain/monitor. Note Kevin Kirshner of
STantech did a comparison study of conventional and LID stormwater for a site, proved that LID is
more cost effective. Still turned down by Brady Koehler, drainage engineer. Harry Kallipolitis of
Ohio EPA was involved, said it might be required; Koehler promised to talk to County Engineer about
it, hasn’t happened. Note that new permit will be up for the Darby and Harry is working with
communities on drafting new requirements that would raise the bar on site requirements. Identified
as “Darby plus one”.
Status of conservation development. Jefferson twp is the only one with a code and projects right
now. They have worked on a code for the Darby but haven’t got it finalized, too many
disagreements. There is a concern about open space and who manages/owns it. The Nature
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conservancy and the developers both want the land with trail on it to be publicly owned. They have
not considered the legal/market implications of this. Noone seems to want a homeowners
association as owner. No public entity wants to be responsible for the land. They are talking to the
SWCD. I suggested they explore the HOA idea further, find out how to set up a good one that won’t
have problems.
Stream Setbacks status. Franklin County has it in their code as an overlay for the Darby, Brown and
Pleasant Twonships. They are working on it for Prairie Twp. The resistance seems to be the need
for education, existing landowners are worried about “taking of land”. But in the Darby it is an
easier sell because people are more educated about watersheds. (note this makes me think about
Chagrin and their success at getting setbacks in place – perhaps estalibhsed watershed groups are
the best/only place to introduce the idea). They tried to get this going in Blendon Twp, failed.
Homebuilders. Local people involved in the conversation are Bill Westbrook, Malcolm Porter, Kevin
Kirschner, Jim HIlz. Seem to “get it”, interested in the economic benefit of these ideas.
Big issues: water/sewer; getting logistical questions answered (funding, open space); getting public
and agency support. Needs include staff training for county engineers’ office; case studies to show
relative cost effectiveness of proposed ideas; a pilot project through which the details could be
worked out to show how something would work (conservation development, compact
development).
Status of redevelopment: there is some, Mifflin Twp is the one with a comprehensive plan that
addresses reinvestment. There is a commercial overlay in Mifflin, Clinton, Pleasant, Blendon,
Madison.
MORPC 2/10/11, met with Jerry Tinianow, Joe Kitchen, Erin Guchon, Brandi Whetstone.
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Their outreach: Brandi leads outreach to local governments. Right now outreach is focused on
getting partners in the watershed plans, specifically the Olentangy watershed group, up to speed on
various topics. They have done tours of scenic rivers, ag areas, conservation tools. Also have had
public meetings on draft BG maps.”watershed 101” is content – basics. They are not yet focused on
tools, have addressed some like rain gardens, impervious surface, etc.
The group of them attended the smart growth conference this month, came away with a lot of new
ideas, but no examples were in Ohio. They gave a Smart Growth Manual to each community in the
Olentangy to begin to get a dialog going with common vocabulary. Working on a workshop
“Growing Smart Makes Dollars and Sense”. Focused on TND, sewer/water decisions and impacts,
safe and healthy families.
Status of setbacks: Pickerington has one, not sure of any others.
Status of Compact Development: very little. Not a lot of innovation in the area.
Status of conservation development: very little. No specific projects they know of.
Developers: lots of inertia, resistence to change. One developer who “gets it” – Wagenbrenner, did
Harrison West and Weiland Park. Project shows up in the Smart Growth Manual. Also Casto
Organization, commercial developer, did Lenox Shopping Ctr and Graceland Shopping ctr. Pazzutti,
Developer of Mira Nova (condo project). MI Homes, Bobby Schottenstein, does homes with green
features but doesn’t go any farther.
Who is promoting these ideas here: Greater Ohio, ULI chapter, Col.umbus 2050 (platitudes, no
measurable recommendations). Dublin is more smart growth. College towns, Granville, Yellow
Springs, Delaware.
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Needs: demonstrate economic benefit of practices. Provide model codes. Provide an urban/infill
version of compact development, conservation development. Provide a video or canned
presentation that they can use to talk to people (asked them for feedback on our video, will it meet
their needs?) It would be nice to include food concerns in smart growth planning. They have a grant
to have consultant evaluate their codes for conflict with local food production.
3/9/11 Licking County Planning Commission
Jerry Brems, planning director; Brad Mercer and Ryan Edwards, planners; Jim Mickey,
environmental/floodplain planner; Sandy Mapel, LCATS (MPO).
Overview: The County Planning Commission is not regional, serves all townships, and under contract, a
couple of villages. They put very stringent development regulations in place a long time ago (1996),
working with other county agencies and local developers; have stuck to their guns since then when
larger developers came in. They consider themselves very well coordinated within the county, have
close working relationships with County Engineers’ office and SWCD. Their overall goal is “not to be like
Franklin and Delaware Coun ties”, but to “do it right”.
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Go on line to see the two main components of their regulations, Development Regulations and
Floodplain regulations. There are also Access Management regulations. They work together and are
consistent. They will send me a disk of development regs to make sure I get the most up to date
version.
Their floodplain regs are very strict, allow NO development in the floodplain (NOT the floodway).
They are Ohio’s only “CRS Class 7”. (not sure what that means). ALL streams require buffers, not
just FEMA streams with established 100-year floodplains. They walk the site, “if we can see it, it is a
stream”. The burden is on the developer to calculate the 100-year floodplain for that stream and
stay away from it. All buffers are 50 feet no disturb, and 75 feet no impermeable surface. This is
adjusted based on the size of the drainage area. They do give variances if it makes sense. They also
apply their floodplain regulations to ODOT. Jerry was part of the state advisory group that wrote
the Ohio Revised Code on this issue. All calculations are required to be based on the future
condition, assuming the impermeable surface associated with the highest permitted density on
upstream sites. They are working with STantec (Full-Mosbacher-Scott-May) on an impervious
surface project to project future conditions.
Their development regulations require a permanent marker be installed at each property line where
the buffer line is. Beyond this, nothing can be done, no mowing, no landscaping. They also require
management plans from the developer. However there is little funding for monitoring/ongoing
enforcement. They address it if there is a problem or complaint.
Also of note, ag ditches are included as streams IF they are pass-through, on the public ditch
petition, or are a regional ditch. The only ditches that are exempt are site-serving ditches. They
note that they use “common sense”. All new storm water facilities are required to be on the county
ditch system. They are required to be maintained by the HOA, with the County as backup; the
county can assess for maintenance if needed.
They also have a strong access management code. There are strict limits on where
driveways/access points can be built. This limits lot splits. No driveways within 550 feet of an
intersection; spacing of driveways is determined by design speed; all roads are classified as arterials
and collectors (major or minor). See codes. They have a tradition of no flag lots, no shared access
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driveways. They don’t grandfather in access points; they have to be brought into line whenever a
permit is issued. New development is required to put in turning lanes and other traffic
improvements, even on state highways, even if ODOT doesn’t require. They are stricter than ODOT
and the local district office of ODOT is supportive.
Their review process is streamlined and yet strict. Would be worth looking at. Once a month
meetings bring ALL agencies together: “TRC Technical Review Committee”; each project gets an
hour, the rare one gets two; projects come in twice, once for sketch plan, once for preliminary plan.
Engineer office, SWCD, health, planning, everyone is there;ODOT and other state agencies as well,
as needed. This only applies to major subdivisions; single site development only goes through
administrative review at the staff level, only go to the PC if they need a variance and/or there is a
disagreement.
Water and sewer in the County: There is a district in the southern part of the County, but planning
has been done in consultation with the townships. They have been adamant about not expanding
w/s. There is an agreement that service will only be provided within 500-1000 feet of the main
corridors. This is adhered to. The BIA has been OK with this because the previous alternative was
NO water or sewer, so this is an improvement.
Comprehensive Plans: They are almost finished doing updated comprehensive plans on all zoned
townships. There are 20 zoned townships in the county; there is only one left that needs a
comprehensive plan. The 5 unzoned townships are along the eastern edge of the County, really in
Appalachia, foothills; they are very different politically, very strong anti-zoning sentiment, but there
is little development there (development, floodplain and access management regs still apply).
There is no effectively Park District in the County right now, there is a Board, but it has lost two
members, and there is no staff and no budget. Dawes Arboretum is private, self-funded, acts as a
county park, great resource for residents. They expect somne changes coming soon with “new
blood” on the park board.
Status of Conservation Development: There are four townships that they think have adopted it:
Etna Township (most advanced in the counbty); Jersey Township; Union; St. Albans. Check the web,
may not be quite accurate. No projects have happened, this is all very new and the economic slump
prevented. They have been educating people for 10 years, it is a hard sell, hard for people to grasp
difference between net and gross density, NIMBYs don’t understand smaller lots. There is one PUD
hybrid in Harrison Twp, comes close. All of the new comprehensive plans recommend CD in their
policy.
Market in the County. Licking was the fastest growing county in the area; used to have 800-900 lot
splits a year, some PUDs. Now have 3 lot splits per year, nothing else. There is an inventory of
about 300 platted lots including cities/villages. That could last for years unless the market changes
substantially. In some cases, developers have de-platted lots in subdivisions in order to unload the
land; it is easier to sell 20-acre estate lots than smaller ones. The most activity they have right now
is smaller commercial on existing lots. This is challenging to keep to standards.
Storm water. This is handled by the planning commission, county engineer and SWCD working
together. SWCD handles plan review, inspection during construction. PC handles enforcement.
Storm water review/etc is funded by development fees in escrow, 10% of site development
construction cost up front is drawn down, returned if not spent at the end. There is a separate fee
for plan review. Average site is 40-50 lots, so costs are not that huge.
Compact Development. It is recommended in the comprehensive plans they’ve done for villages
and townships where it makes sense. They would like to see it in Buckeye Lake Village and City of
Newark. There is only infrastructure to support it in Etna and Harrison Townships. In Newark, staff
is recommending form based zoning, but Council is not yet on board, there is a lack of trust, there
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has only been a planning dept for the last 6 months. Their codes are very weak, staff/planning
commission/city engineer has no basis for denial. City engineer istrying to adopt road standards,
has no authority, planning commission is mostly politicians, developers, realtors.
Homebuilders: there is a local county group, very small since recession. They are not tied in to the
main central ohio group. Do their own negotiations, have participated in development of codes.
Until 10 years ago homebuilders were all small local enterprises, then the big ones (Ryan, Dominion,
MI) came in. Nothing has happened since the recession.
Feedback on the Walnut Creek MORPC BG watershed plan: seems to be going well. Ryan Edwards
is their representative on the planning group. They feel they have a good working relationship with
MORPC and there seem to be no issues. Their biggest restriction is that they do not have the staff
time and/or budget to work on watershed plans. They see the plan as a positive, will support their
existing regulations and policies. There is no support resolution from the County yet, will be a bit
of a challenge, but they seem to think it is doable easier from the PC than the commissioners.
Needs: they would like to see more economic data on practices, would assist in convincing
townships to move forward. Also education assistance, helping people understand concepts, would
be helpful. Their staff time is extremely limited – they used to have 6 planners, now are down to one
to work on these issues. So they aren’t in a good position to do research or education. Specific
issues: prove the effectiveness of connectivity.(and impact on property values). How should
residential/commercial uses be balanced, from an economic standpoint?
Additional notes: Johnstown Village is adopting Licking County regulatilons; Cit of Pataskala has its
own, is similarly strict, but different.
They would like to see the “big ideas” that come out of these interviews. What are others doing
that would be useful to them? Especially were interested in meadow/natural areas protection for
townships (legality), and Butler County limits on sewer expansion.
Meeting Columbus area HBA: Bill Westbrook, Malcolm Porter, 5/11/11
The Rusty Bucket, Lane Avenue, Columbus
1.
Compact Development: an example project is the Dublin redevelopment project “Bridge Street
Corridor”. The storm water solution requires a regional approach. Will have 30-50 units per acre?
Failed compact development projects include Bexley, Gehanna, and Upper Arlington. (*look into these)
People are not interested, not sure the market is there.
2. Conservation Development: They expect the Darby compact development village area will never
happen because the infrastructure will not be there. There is no basis for extending the infrastructure.
However, they think conservation development has the most potential in the Darby area. 5,000 units
could be built there over time; with all monetary benefits taken into account (developer contribution
$2500/unit, plus CDA five mills, plus TIF) $300 million could be generated, which could go into open
space acquisition. Requirement is for 2-1/2 units per acre gross, with 50% open space.
Market acceptance will be important: South West City Schools – product must be affordable.
In the Darby, storm water recharge requirement is too big. There is a requirement that all open space
must be owned by the same person who is applying for the development application. This means the
area has to be huge.
3. TDR: is the real solution for the Darby. First, the Ohio EPA needs to recognize the large amount of
fees generated by the project requirements, and give the developer credit for the open space purchased
with those fees. This would allow a
“regional approach” to the overall stormwater solution for the watershed, not site-by-site. With
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reduced site requirements developers could afford to create more affordable homes. Bringing sewer to
the area, and getting banks to do the loans, are the other roadblock issues.
4.
A final note on the TDR legislation: Columbus HBA leaders “put themselves on the line” by
getting statewide HBA leadership to the table to discuss the legislation last July. The agreement coming
out of that meeting was that the Ohio EPA would be brought into the discussion to talkabout the
regional stormwater approach idea. They were very surprised to find that MORPC had gone ahead and
inserted TDR into the budget bill without working through the HBA’s concerns. At this point they are
not willing to work with MORPC again. This includes helping to promote the density guide, which is
sponsored by MORPC. They are skeptical of anything MORPC is involved with at this point.
9/21/11 interview questions: Jenny Snapp, Logan-Union-champaign RPC, 937-666-3431
1.
What’s happening in your county?
Their counties haven’t been as affected economically by the downturn, still getting Columbus growth.
Logan/Champaign counties: development null – see as a positive – chance to catch up, do some
planning/farmland preservation. Logan county farmland preservation: landowners applied for ASAs,
AEPPs, writing farm to school plan through Jill Clark, Ohio Highpoint Career center, serves 14 regional
schools, connect to local producers to supply lunch program. working on plan for that. Union county:
still seeing growth: subdivisions, big one going through Jerome village, nationwide project, 1400 acres.
slowly turning in plats to office for pods/phases. SE portion of county, twp there (Jerome Twp) approves
anything that comes through – PUD approved, generally don’t negotiate. Rare for the twp to see
development they don’t like. County has little control. County makes sure twps follow subdivision
regulations, that’s all.
It would be helpful in other twps to do education. There is a strong individual in Jerome, hard to work
with, no opportunities for change or input there. Person has been involved w/MORPC in the upper
Scioto watershed plan, which is encouraging, but that project has been stalled lately, staffing changes
perhaps? Watershed plan has been helpful – with other twps – darby twp strong interest, dover twp
also interested. Other part of problem – MORPC watershed Plan: couple of communities have dropped
out, no strong ties, rely more on county for recommendations on issues. MORPC can be the Columbus
voice, seen as not relevant to rural interests.
2.
What are roadblocks? resistance – the one place development is happening, the community is
the most resistant.
3.
How could BLLUP be of use?
Needs: technical assistance, but problem finding jurisdiction willing to collaborate. Education always
key – some sort of seminar. Will think about it and get back to me.
DAYTON AREA
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Martin Kim, Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, tel. call 9/10
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I called Martin to set up a meeting when I will be in Dayton, to discuss implementation of BLLUP
practices in the Dayton area.
He talked me out of it, saying that he had no one on staff with the skills or expertise to address local
policy. He is more concerned with regionwide policy, including transportation and environmental
issues (section 208 plans). His plan for the region is focused on cooperative communication,
education, developing consensus on where development and conservation should go in a broad
sense – not on local comprehensive plans or zoning. He referred me to county planning
commissions, city planning staffs, and the Miami Valley Conservancy District, as being a “better use
of time”.
Sarah Hippensteel Hall, Miami Valley Conservancy district, meeting 10/4/10, telephone call 10/22/10.
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They would like a watershed partnership to get started in their area, have been in conversation with
EH and GH about it.
They have been promoting low impact practices, including conservation development, stream
setbacks, bioswales/raingardens, conserving vegetation, pervious pavements, etc. (site level
practices). Reducing impervious surface, parking regulations.
They did a large project with Miami County in 2008, goal was to incorporate LID practices in county
subdivision regulations. This went very far, included all stakeholders, homebuilders, county
engineers, county planners, etc. They got to the point of draft regulations, and then the whole thing
was shut down by the county. Nothing has been discussed since. She suspects an older county
engineer, together with one county commissioner, were the acting parties.
Other communities they have worked with include: Brookville City – no changes have been made, a
pilot conservation development of 10 homes was permitted. Riverside City – has made several
presentations, no action yet. Other counties (Warren, Montgomery) have been receptive but no
concrete interest yet. She gives an annual presentation at the Miami Valley Planning Workshop,
(coming up in December), hasn’t had much response but they keep asking her every year to address
LID topics.
Roadblocks she sees: resistance to change, conservative county engineer in Miami,
misunderstandings about what these things look like, how they sell, impact on property values,
maintenance, that they won’t drag the community down. She can usually get the planners on
board, but beyond that, there is resistance to change.
MVCD has funds, but often that doesn’t seem to be enough.
Sarah is only half-time at the MVCD; her other hat is Executive Director of the Greater Dayton
Partners for the Environment, a group of 70 organizations convened by the Dayton Foundation
(they pay half her salary). She is wondering if she would make greater progress as a “neutral party”
if she were wearing that hat instead of the “MVCD” hat.
Walt Hibner, Dayton HBA; Diane Cook, Miami County HBA; Greg Smith, Oberer Land Group, meeting
10/5/10.
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They were very positive and open to discussing options like compact development, conservation
development, stream setbacks. Greg was the least aware, was clear he would want to see benefits
presented before going along with ideas. He agreed to offer input on regulation models as we
progress.
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They felt the best people to give assistance, with whom they have good rappoire, are the county
planning commission staff. While not saying the MVCD was inappropriate, they explained the failed
process in 2008 with Miami County as being “too much too soon”, and emphasized that the counties
were the entities to work with.
Of note, they said that the development situation has not changed that greatly in the Dayton area
due to the economic downturn. They are still proposing and working on projects, perhaps not at the
same pace, but the industry is not dead there. Their assessment of “why” is that there wasn’t as
much demand originally, so there’s not so far to fall; banks may have been more conservative, not
fueling demand beyond what people could afford; and the air force base has kept a constant
turnover of housing and housing needs going. The air force base has also buffered the enonomic
situation in the area, a lot of people still have jobs and are still buying homes.
They asked me what I needed from them (I said nothing right now, except that it would be great to
keep communicating). They offered to work with us on any collaborative projects, and would like to
be kept informed of our progress.
Montgomery County Community Development, City of Dayton, 12/2/10:
Erik Collins, planning and economic development director, Aaron Sorrell, AICP, City of Dayton planner,
Larry Weissman, AICP, Planner
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County covers unincorporated area. City and County work together when appropriate, for example
wellfield protection regulations, but mostly are in silos. In general, the western townships are
agricultural, the eastern are urban.
We talked about the BGI watershed partnerships, they intend to follow through with MVCD because
they think it’s a great idea and would like to get involved. They are very attuned to gaining
advantage, incentives wherever they can.
County has a comprehensive plan, is in hearings, hve sent to local governments, hoping to ratify by
February. All townships have comprehensive plans they have done themselves, following a
countywide plan that was done in 1990; this new plan will integrate all the plans. The County’s plan
has five land use concepts, incorporate much of what we are talking about with BLLUP, they thought
everything was right in line.
Howevwer when it comes to zoning the county is very much hands-off, per direcrtion of the county
commissioners. Townships do their own rewrites and make their own decisions. County
reviews/comments but townships are mostly independent. County could see themselves as
convener, educator, trainer – liked the idea of our providing training so they could offer to help. But
they cannot be in the position of going in and trying to convince twps to do anything. This lines up
with the approach of the Countryside Program – make information available, let them come to you.
There is a big disparity between townships. On one extreme Washington Twonship is urban,
progressive, would likely be an early adlopter. On the other, Jefferson Twonship is the most
impoverished, parts are very rural, others are just poor urban. They could use budget help with
planning, are not motivated to do anything, barely can meet their obligations
Phase II. Administered by the County Water Services Dept (formerly Sanitary Engineer), took over
from the County Engineer. County engineer still involved with subdivision regulation review, and
erosion/sediment control. Person is Terry Dalwhipple. SWCD is more rural/ag activities.
There are 28 jurisdictions in the county.
City of Dayton: redid zoning code in 2006, incorporated state of the art compact development
models, might be a good example for BLLUP. Are available on line. Haven’t yet tackled subdivision
regulations, don’t do many any more, usually can work around them – so there isn’t motivation to
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put the time into them. They are in the process of updating their storm water regulations, are
rethinking for LID. There has been some experimentation, have tried some porous asphalt
pavements but they crumbled, pavers seem to work better. City hall has a green roof. Had some
green parking lots, but grass died because parked cars shaded grass.
Natural areas establishment is a key theme – they are talking about using restoration of antural
areas, even in urban areas, as a possible “brand” for Dayton. Have an Audubon society gbrant to
restore two old industrial brownfields to prairie.
Vacant land is an issue, city has 15,000 vacant properties, demolish about 400 per year. Are working
on a land bank, going to visit Cuyahoga County nexgt week.
Comprehensive plan has a policy to establish native amenities – could the BGI or BLLUP help? Could
use help identifying areas of natural ecosystem in urban areas – for example, where are
undergrounded streams? Perhaps would make a good case study project – “Western Manor” is an
eyesore apartment complex along a natural park along river, could tear it down and restore to
natural area- good case study? Jefferson Twp could also benefit from restoration of rundown
parcels. Miamisburg City is also working aggressively to deal with vacant homes, have a number
along the river, see an opportunity to create new natural area long riverfront.
MVRPC’s Going Places Plan – critique. They are a little cynical about it being able to go anywhere.
Great ideas but local implementation will be challenging. They think mostly staff of various agencies
have been involved, not elected officials, don’t think there is much buy-in. However, all of the
communities have been feeding MVRPC projections for use in the plan – they could see MVRPC
using those projections in making future decisions about transportation dollars, holding people to
their projections and not allowing any more than that. They think the county commissioners in
Montgomery on board but not in other counties.
Message development: could really use backup for idea “scenic amenities enhance growth and
development”. Help in creating the message, backing it up, getting it out.
Another case study idea: the Dayton Mall area is under a JEDD; new JEDD is generating case. Could
be a redevelopment project. Could designation of this as a PDA help to focus redevelopment? Will
talk to MVCD.
Note: Farm Bureau is very important. Will be important to talk to them and get them on board.
Greene County: Interview 12/2/10
Steven Anderson, Director Greene County RPC
Jennifer Abling, Greene RPC
Karol Hendley, Greene RPC
Tamara Ennist, Greene RPC
Cara Kilkenny, Sugar Creek Township Zoning Inspector
Victoria Long, Beaver Creek Township Zoning Inspector
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Looking at the list of six priorities, “Comp Planning, Conservation Development, Compact
Development are easy.” The hard one is stream setbacks. Greene County prosecutor has said
townships can’t do them. Same with Wetland setbacks. Could use a letter from the Attorney
General stating that they are OK.
What they have been doing is working within PUD regulations to negotiate buffers along streams.
But that leaves separate parcels without setbacks. The Army Corps has “not been much help” in
trying to get better stream protection.
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What is considered a stream? Blueline streams. They need help getting the data to determine the
drainage area of a stream. The SWCD says it can’t provide. We discussed that perhaps Greene
County GIS could. They have made a lot of calls about this and so far no luck. We discussed perhaps
ODNR, or OEPA would have data through their watershed program. This is an example of how
people could use help knowing where to go for info – perhaps put an information page on the BG
web site?
Phase II: MS4s are parts of Beavercreek, Bath, Sugarcreek Township, and all the cities.
Administrator for SWMPs and MS4 compliance are the County Sanitary Engineer. They are doing
the minimum due to restricted budget and understaffed. Administrators for Erosion/Sed Control is
the SWCD. SWCD has MOUs with all townships, staff person is Ken Middleton, reviews all
development projects. Only has real authority with major subdivisions, otherwise makes
recommendations but no one has to follow them.
Sugarcreek has had issues with detention basins and retention ponds, in the hands of HOAs, poorly
maintained.
Watersheds are considered valuable, groundwater as well: several watershed groups have formed
and do a lot of work to educate/protect: cleanups, etc. Beavercreek Management and Advisory
Group (BMAG) is very active, working on acquiring land/easements along BCrk wetlands corridor.
Bath Twp has Friends of Hebel Creek – responding to Fairborn flooding. Little Miami Inc. owns
property, holds easements. There are others.
Cosnervation development: Sugarcreek has a code with 50% open space requirement. Can increase
density if do CD. This is new, so far no takers. Beavercreek usually is able to negotiate 30-50%
through their PUD code, negotiations.
Development is very slowed down. Commercial is quite active though. There are about 400 platted
lots in the County that have not been built yet, so there is continuing activity to development them,
slowly. But no new lots/subdivisions in a couple of years at least.
Beavercreek and Sugar Creek are western side of county “Urban townships”. Rural townships want
all large ag lots. Have been told the frontage will get eaten up, don’t seem to care, think that’s what
they want. Ag zoned areas are typically 5 acre lots, but some are 10 acre lots, and the frontages vary
widely. Every township seems to have a different set of standards. Sugar Creek has an “ag
conservation district”, allows 5 acre lots to reduce to 1 acre in exchange for setting aside frontage,
so far only one taker, and that has not gone forward due to economy.
Beavercreek is in the last steps of doing a comprehensive plan. Then they will begin code review.
Typically the County does comprehensive plans for communities, but several have done ti
themselves, either on their own or with a consultant. One community (Miami Twp) did all the work,
then hired a consultant to write it up.
TDR: they have a project which could be considered “stealth TDR”: Nathaniel’s Grove in
Beavercreek, a density swap was arranged between two landowners. Went to court over an
unrelated issue, still unresolved. Twp will hold easement. Land use for op[en space is unrestricted
agriculture – anything will be approvable.
The “elephant in the room” is annexation. Developers threaten annexation to get what they want.
Sugar Creek has experimented with proposing “defensive zoning” to block annexation, but trustees
aren’t interested, wary of setting a precedent.
The HBA was cooperative, but has got more resistant with economic downturn, don’t want anything
to change. Used to invite S.A. to land use meetings, don’t any more. Sugarcreek and Beavercreek
Twp Zoning Inspectors do still go to land use meetings, trying to improve communication. Walt
Hibner is their main contact, covers Greene, Montgomery and Warren Counties.
What would help: Information. Model Codes. Examples.
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They have no real rivers through cities/villages; but there are several creeks. It would be good to ask
the question, what is appropriate for major creek frontage within a city? Are standard setbacks
necessary and/or feasible and/or reasonable? What would the alternative be?
Message development could be usefrul. Ready made info for talking to farmers, developers.
People to involved: county gives deference to progressive townships (Beavercreek, Sugar Creek,
maybe Miami?) Also City of Xenia, Brian Forstner; City of Beavercreek are not interested, more of a
“slash and burn” mentality.
11/17/11 Larry Frimerman, Triv-Valley Conservation Trust (land trust)
1. They have been involved in local government zoning/planning in the past, but arent’ doing as
much right now. There has been an evolution of two factors: 1) the economy has reduced
development pressure; 2) land trust is evolving to get more involved in doing TMDL and other
plans.
2. In the past the Livable Landscape program was like the countryside Program, did local
planning/zoning policy. Based at the local RCD Council, he helped with that.
3. He has become a township trustee for 6 years now, is more ivolved with his local township. He
helped shepherd a comprehensive plan with conservation areas, consevatio development areas,
but have no zoning to back it up. It hasn’t been tested; they have county-wide zoning.
4. Another development is that the planning/zoning director for the County has retired, and his
position has been joined with the Development Diurector. Less capacity results. Dave fehr is
now the only palnning staff in the county.
5. The land trust has become more involed at the state level, leveraging funding from niumerous
sources: Clean Ohio, ODNR, OFP, OEPA. They have become a contractor with Ohio EPA on the
Fernald Natural Resource area. It was a nuclear facility, now closed, has been translated into
wildlife area. There was funding to put into a damage fund for aquifer and stream protection,
land trusts has become in volved in implementing that. Getting appraisals, taking conservation
easements. There are many other programs/ efforts like that they are getting involved in.
6. They don’t see a need to justify their involvement; people see them as helpful/supportive, don’t
have an anti-planning sentiment in their areas. But there is no development pressure, no need
to intervene.
7. Recommends we speak to Eric Russo with the Hillside Trust in Hamilton Co., he thinks they get
involved in local planning/zoning.
8. The land trust’s role in farmland preservation has been to apply for FRPP money, funneling
people to NRCS for whole farm conservation plans protecting all the natural resources of a farm.
This involves grassways, 2-stage ditches, fencing, waste plans. Plans are required for funding
assistance. This leads to organic growth and trust building over tyime with individual
landowners. He has found that the countyies and local govts are applying for these things any
more, no capacity or pressure to do applications. Exception is Fairfield County, has own land
trust for farmland preservation and their own AEPP program.
9. He thinks Cost of Community Services studies become more important in this economic climate.
Would like to see more of them.
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10. Another trend he sees is municipalities annexing land in order to increase tax revenues. Would
like to see some remedies for this. For example, PUD’s are required to annex in order to receive
water/sewer. The city is now out to the edge of the township.
CLEVELAND-AKRON-CANTON AREA (NE OHIO)
3/2/11 Bill Sanderson, Forest City Enterprises, developer
Overview. Bill is a longtime contact in the NE Ohio development community; currently he is at Forest
City, and before that in his own business with Don Barr developing multi-family and mature adult
projects. He focuses on land acquisition and development for residential construction in NE Ohio. He
also serves on two national boards for the National Association of Homebuilders, often writes for Land
Development magazine, and recently has been appointed to the group reviewing/updating the National
Green Building Standards. I met with him to give him an update on what we’re doing, and to get his
“take” on the direction of the residential market in the coming couple of years.
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Bill says that his goal is to “make sure the rules fit the reality”. He is concerned that LEED standards
for neighborhoods put excessive weight on location, which may not meet the market.
He has three criteria which he thinks drives the residential market: “three s’s”: Safety, security,
schools. Also he has seen “four f’s: Fear, financing, ….” Example projects: Eaton Township, south of
Mallard Creek. For the current market, price point must be below $200,000 (Gen Y and mature
adult) in NE Ohio.
Biggest limit is the lack of credit from banks for developers. In the past they were able to get 50%
land cost and 100% development cost credit. Now the land cost credit is zero, and development
cost much lower. Larger firms are the only ones that can still work in this credit market.
He suggests that the Vehicle Miles Traveled rule doesn’t apply as we think it does. Shorter distances
in closer suburbs still create larger emissions because the efficiency of travel is worse (more stops,
idling, etc). So the suburbs come out much better than we would think.
He is interested in “good” LID – projects with non-mechanical solutions, as little installed facilities as
possible. They did a project in Reminderville , “Crossings At Pond Brook”, that took this approach
with wetlands; older project, not up to current standards, but might be interesting to compare.
Contact Eric Cramer of Boehning engineers, was designer on project.
We should check our conservation development approach vs. the National Green Building Standard
(HBA) to see how it compares.
Re: compact development, he is skeptical about what Generation Y will be interested in once they
start having families. May revert to the rural/suburban areas because of good schools.
All compact development projects would be better off with housing. He is not happy with
First/Main (Hudson) and Crocker (Westlake) because housing is more limited, also Legacy Village.
Easton in Columbus, similar issue.
Also recomVince Messerly of the Ohio Wetlands Foundation re: current projects and approaches,
make sure our recommendations dovetail with their approach.
He is working on adapting current projects to the market, is expecting a lot to involve re-platting to
accommodate need for lower price points, smaller homes. The large scale projects of the 90’s and
early 00’s, Ethan’s Green, Eaton Estates, Waterbury, are too big and won’t fly any more, he is
focused on smaller projects.
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Jennifer Zielinski, Biohabitats, 4/13/11
Background:
Jennifer and I have met at several storm water events and finally got a chance to connect. With the
Center for Watershed Protection in Baltimore for 10 years, she has now been back in Cleveland for 6
years, four of it with Biohabitats, who she knew from Baltimore days.
1.
Biohabitats: landscape architecture firm, based in Baltimore, focused on ecological restoration
and green infrastructure-related projects. The do a lot of stream restoration, wetlands, storm water
design work around the country. They have geologists, landscape architects, biologists/botanists, and
environmental and civil engineers on board, about 60 employees in offices in major metro areas around
the country. Recent projects include two stream restoration projects in the NE Ohio area, a salt flat
redevelopment proposal in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a code audit for Montgomery County,
Maryland.
2.
Overall context of storm water regulation in Ohio: The approach is very different from what she
has seen in other states. In most states there is a statewide storm water management regulation which
everyone must comply with. Regulations are handed down to cities and counties to implement.
Maryland’s and California’s are new and are the most progressive, worth having a look at. Maryland’s
state of the art focuses on decentralizing on each site, to the extent that the standard bioswale is not
even accepted any more, in favor of “mini-swales” that have very small drainage areas, effectively
breaking the storm water down into small subareas. In Ohio, what storm regs there are are embedded
in the general construction permit, as a way to avoid regulation. These are minimal and so many
communities either do nothing or very little.
3.
The code audit they did for Montgomery County was required by the state to comply with the
new regulation. It was interesting because it involved looking at all codes in the County, identifying
barriers to implementing the new requirements, as well as opportunities. Focus was on storm water
management and site development. Zoning, Subdivision regulations and building codes were reviewed.
Recommendations were then made about changes to the codes. That project involved extensive public
input and multiple jurisdictions, and cost about $100,000 in consulting fees.
4.
We discussed the idea of doing such a code audit as a case study in Ohio. Such a project could
result in a list of barriers and opportunities found, and recommendations, and could include a checklist
for use by other communities in doing their own audits. She suggested that two or three communities
be examined so a range of levels of sophistication, community sizes, etc could form examples. The
project could involve an audit and a set of recommendations, without requiring endorsement or
adoption. At the minimum, input should include focus groups of community staff (such as service
directors), developers, and consulting engineers working in the locality to offer input on their identified
barriers and opportunities, and to “vet” the recommendations for practicality and feasibility.
City of Cleveland, 6/13/11:
Jim Danek, Planning Commission staff
Andrew Watterson, sustainability manager
1. Much City planning work is focused on implementation of ideas that came up in Reimagining
Cleveland and Sustainable Cleveland 2019. Focus is on vacant property, neighborhood revitalization.
Storm water is also an issue due to CSO consent decree. They need to handle 44 million gallons of
storm water through green infrastructure, they get credit for replacing grey infrastructure with
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
green. *We could help by helping to tell stories of their projects, and helping to show the rural areas
the benefits to them of improving urban areas. (i.e. preserving farmland, helping to keep
development where it is). Other plans are the Citywide 2020 Plan done in 2007 – really doesn’t
address current economic situation, needs updating. Re-imagining Cleveland laid out Ideas, but
didn’t show locations. Their “8 Ideas” booklet begins to address the location issues. Also they would
like to address “Cleveland 2.0” – look at where visibility is important, where land assembly could be
useful, where future nodes could be. Could be a guide for the land banks.
Urban agriculture is the highest and best use for some land. helps to increase greenspace, make city
healthier and more desirable. Is an economic development and community revitalization issue.
Also contributes to improveing storm water quality., puts people to work, without increasing costs
to the city. Any time they can get private efforts to maintain property it is a boon to the city. Ag is
seen as a positive use, whether temporary or permanent. There are many issues which they are
working on resolving, including need for longer term leases, water supply, insurance. If the land is
federally controlled it is especially a problem, changes have to be made all the way up to HUD.
Stream setbacks. MS4 management is under the Dept of Water Pollution Control. They are in the
process of revising their stream protection approach – originally it was set up like design review, but
that took too much time and uncertainty, how they are setting up guidelines but will probably use
the full NOACA model and just exclude the Cuyahoga Mainstem due to need to focus on
redevelopment there. Are interested in solutions for industrial restoration/mainstem areas. Their
original approach identified 3 types of areas, working waterfront, back yards, and public access
areas, based on models, details from Center for Watershed Protection. These were guidelines not
laws. The problem was that this approach required too much coordination among city
departments. Now they are trying to keep it simple. At one time, they had SWCD on retainer to
help with reviews – now are working on improving that approach.
Note that Philadelphia has some good data on the cost of maintenance of urban vacant land,
including storm water facilities.
Need for a housing study. As a city, they could use a better understanding of their housing supply:
what is the match to the population and projected population – what kind of housing do they have,
what do they need, where are the gaps, what can be retrofitted and what can’t? Would make an
interesting project.
Storm Water. They are working with the NEORSD on storm water issues, focusing in a project in the
Kinsman area. Looking at “sewersheds” vs. “watersheds” since that is the issue. They want
greenspace to have multiple functions: buffer, water supply for agriculture, parks.
Needs: how to handle streams setbacks along navigation channel – industry vs. recreation. Web
resource is a good idea, good to have available, but nothing should generate new work. The
Citywide plan focuses on neighborhood nodes, would be great to see some examples of what others
are doing in this area. How does policy adjustment promote viability? Then show HBA that these
are opportunities. They could use some research to understand how money flows in properties – an
urban cost of services study – what properties are generating income, how can city policy align per
place/location. Generate support for policies based on economic information.
Jean Sexton, Executive Director, NorthCoast BIA, 6/8/11.
1.
Projects/Developers. Jean is interested in this topic but has not had too much interest from the
membership to date. Bob Perritt of RJ Perritt in Amherst, has a sustainable development with green
homes, promotes well and is doing well, sells in $300,000 range. Others are lower, $200,000. Pulte is
getting by with the bare minimum; buyers care about cost more than anything else so “green perks” are
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less saleable. However the market in general may be picking up –they are having their first parade of
homes in 3 years this year.
2.
Compact development. Check with Tom LaHEtta, current BIA president – has a project in the
City of Lorain, 28 homes, rental properties. They are decent places
3.
Conservation Development. Sandy Ridge may be a project. Need to look into it.
4.
She attempted a green building seminar two years ago, even had one builder come in to talk to
everyone, but had a very low turnout. People have not been interested with the economic situation
where it is.
5.
We reviewed the basic components of the BLLUP, and she said she would discuss with her board
tonight and get back to me. It is hard for everyone to think beyond economics. We should note that
both the zoning codes and building codes should be addressed, there are limits in both.
Summit County PC and SWCD, 6/14/11
Present:
Cindy Fink, Summit SWCD
Susan DeChant, Summit Co. Comm. Dev.
Nick Lautzenheiser, SCCD
Paul Bravo, SCCD
1.BLLUP. County has online model codes, provides technical assistance to townships. All communities
except Peninsula are MS4s and have storm water management and erosion/sediment control
regulations. Some have their own, some use County engineer’s office plans. County engineer
administers regulations. Things are generally working except for one big loophole they are working on:
commercial development in townships have no regulation requiring storm water management, because
they fall outside subdivision regulations. A standalone code is needed to address all properties. So they
can review plans, but without a regulation there is no construction inspection, followup or monitoring.
2. Stream setbacks. 27 of 31 communities have them, based on the Countty model. Akron doesn’t
officially have it but honors the idea anyway. Example: Goodyear Project – was focus of urban
retrofitting workshop. Twinsburg generally purchases their stream setback areas so doesn’t need
regulation; Fairlawn and Peninsula ignore the idea. All stream setbacks that are in place require
extension to the 100-year flooplain. freeboard is limited, maybe 1 foot. The floodplain regs are
managed by the building dept in the county.
3. Meadow Protection. Metroparks are a good example, see Liberty Park, Stanley Stein. Funded
through Clean Ohio. They have addressed this topic some through their PIPE workshops, encourage
people to leave areas natural, have worked with Bob Keerhees through Ohio Prairie Nursery. Bath Twp
is working on the idea for their nature center, parks. Need to update noxious weed ordinances in
Northfield Center and the City of Stow. Need a low-mow grass requirement at least. Some people
consider rain gardens to be noxious weeds. Education is critical for this approach. Hudson is thinking of
banning lawn care companies. Maybe banning traditional lawn care due to phosphorous.
4. Conservation Development. Almost all communities allow it, but education is needed, it often isn’t
implemented.
5. Compact Development. Testa Homes (Joe Testa) has many good examples in the Akron area, many
still active/viable. Riverside Lofts, Hickory at Cascade Locks, University Park Alliance, Cuyahoga Falls
across from the river (townhomes with offices), University Park Alliance., Washington Homes in
Massilon.
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6. Needs. Educating communities is needed. Need to take from theory to actual application. Training
for them could be useful, perhaps use the Summit SWCD Technical Assistance project as a model for
other communities. Education for landscapers is critical, they singlehandedly can ruin the storm water
scheme of a development by filling in basins and swales, removing rain gardens, etc.
7. Note that Springfield Twp and Bath Twp are working with Wendy Moeller (planner) on zoning
updates. Bath has a steep slope ordinance, needs beefing up.
8. Note that they think the Brandywine watershed could use some attention, interest seems to be
petering out, might help to do a workshop/education session there, focus on implementation, real
world policy that will result.
Stark County and City of Canton, 6/23/11
Present:
Robert Nau, Director, Stark Co. PC, Executive Director, tel. 330-451-7389
Malia Watkins, Stark Co. PC staff, Community Relations Planner
Marilyn Carrick, Perry Twp Road Dept
Cliff Meidlein, Stark Co. PC, Planning Administrator, crmeidlein@co.stark.oh.us
Nick Campanelli, Plain Twp Zoning
Rick Zeyler, City of Canton planning comm..
Chris Barnes, City of Canton storm water coordinator
Jane Poindexter, Jackson Twp zoning
Carolyn Gabric, Stark SWCD
Rachel Lewis, Regional Planning Commission, Regional Planner, ralewis@
Beth Pearson, Regional Planning Commission, Chief of Community Development, bapearson@
Marylin Sponsella, Regional Planning Commission, Enterprise Zone Manager
Brenda Sarsany, Regional Planning Commission, Chief of Planning, bksarsany@
1.
Overall: Regional Planning Commission is both County Planning and Stark County Area
Transportation Study (MPO). Many townships are large, urban townships with their own planning staff
and do their own zoning, decisionmaking. County staff would be open to being a trained resource for
technical assistance to others; it is not clear how much of a role they play in that to most townships
now. Stark County in general has had steady slow-growth sprawl, population steady but spreading out.
Canton has reduced from peak of 120,000 in the 1950s to 80,000 now. There are a lot of vacant lots.
Many PUDs have been down in development pressure since 2000. Many developers have let plans
expire.
2.
Comprehensive Planning. The County has a 2030 plan, done 6 years ago, with a transportation
element. It is very general and worked to integrate existing township plans. Plain, Jackson, Lake,
Lewisville, Canal Fulton all have their own plans.
3. Compact Development. There are a few projects which could be considered innovative. The Summit
Neighborhood inCity of Canton was developed through a nonprofit created by the BIA under Joe Race.
It is about 60-70% builtout, stalled due to economy. There are live-work artist units in both Canton and
Canal Fulton, done in response to demand. Developer is Mike King. In Lake Township there are
unincorporated villages known as Greentown and Uniontown; the township added village residential
and village commercial districts that are compact. For resource contact Steve Lacey in Lake Township
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zoning. These were recommended in the Lake Twp comprehensive plan that was done by a consultant.
All of these projects were done where there was sewe/water.
Any hesitation about compact development comes from largely suburban public who are used to being
in their separate neighborhoods, like things that way, have a hard time visualizing outside what they
know.
4.
PUD-type development. Jackson Twp has R-3 zoning which appears to be somewhat like
conservation development on a lesser level, with incentives for more compact development. If
developer provides detached housing, density is 2.2 units per acre, and they must provide25% open
space. If they do attached units, density is 6 units per acre, and no open space required. This is a sliding
scale in between. There have been two or three projects like this, one is named Huckleberry, but
residents have not been happy with it. Jackson is a fairly affluent twp with many PUDs. The neighbors
historically were unhappy with the R-3 zoning, it used to be permitted use but was changed to
conditional and then to a rezone to accommodate public concern. Two projects went through the
rezone process but have been allowed to expire due to the economy.
5. Conservation Development. A model code was developed through a partnership between the BIA
and the townships, but no one wound up adopting it. Contact person is Brian Ashman, Cooper and
Associates, an engineer who was the BIA representative. City of Canton was involved too. It was driven
by the BIA, who wanted to be ahead of the curve. It seems like the main reason it hasn’t gone forward is
lack of development pressure. No way to know how it would have been received. In general, CD would
have to provide perks for the developer, perhaps flexibility on practices such as swales instead of
curb/gutter, other ways to save money. The public resists anything that would be a permitted use
where they would have no say, would prefer a rezone situation even though that is not the typical
recommendation. Most resistance these days is general public negativity, resistance to government
action in general. People come to meetings just to complain, without even understanding or having a
stake in what is being discussed.
6. Storm water requirements. City of Canton was just audited two weeks ago, Dan Bogoevski evidently
specifically asked them what they were doing about Balanced Growth Best Practices. They encourage
LID in their storm water regulations, and are working on reducing parking requirements. They are
waiting to see what the OEPA requires of them via the audit, will do an update then. They are aware
that you can’t put 2011 concepts in an 1865 city very well, there will be aneed for some give and take. It
all comes down to economics.
7. Stream setbacks. They have an old floodplain ordinance with the only requirement that areas of
buildings that are below flood levels be waterproofed. (They got bogged down figuring out how to
waterproof windows and doors.) They are now working on an update; the whole county has updated
FEMA maps, and ODNR is doing workshops on getting communities up to speed. ODNR evidently has a
model floodplain code? Not sure it includes setbacks. WE talked about the importance of setbacks, and
the appropriateness of including provisions in their floodplain codes, and different ways of calculating
widths- also how variances, grandfathering are handled. They are going to look into it in their
discussions with DNR. There is a new ODNR staff member, Division of Soil and Water, Randy Kites, based
in New Philadelphia, who is very knowledgeable and is charged with being a floodplain resource for the
communities.
8.
Needs: A “Superdatabase” with examples, codes, cases, costs and benefits would be very
useful, everyone needs to understand the economics, and it needs to be Ohio-based. There is not a lot
of political interest in doing anything right now due to low development pressure. The urgency is not
there. The Ohio EPA could make a lot happen by requiring it; otherwise people won’t be interested or
motivated. The issue needs to be framed as “quality of life as a function of economic development.”
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Lorain City, Jan Mackert, Planner, 6/30/11
1.
Background/status of planning. Jan was clear to say that she is not the spokesperson for the
City, but that the former director, Don Romancak has recently left and was unable to attend the
meeting. The Planning Commission staff is decimated due to budget reductions, and essentially they
don’t do planning right now. She herself is busy going after grants, managing those they get, doing
business visitations. The current administration is lame duck, and there is a good possibility that a more
pro-active mayor will take over in January. Much of the planning that does take place is done through
the City’s utility department – Cory Timko is with Arcatis, the City’s Utility. They are working on moving
the water treatment plant upriver, are in the 5th year of a 10-year plan.
2.
Status of codes. The Lorain City codes really need to be revamped, date to the early 1980’s and
are piecemeal. The City itself is sprawling and is not growing, although sections of it are growing
(balanced by others that are shrinking). There is no code for alternative energy, minimal storm water
program, etc.
3.
Overall character of development: they don’t attract much commercial business. 25% of the
county’s population is in Lorain, 2/3 of the Section 8 housing is there. They are weighted heavily toward
social service needs, MHA needs. There is a community action agency, social security office, etc.
4-10 are some interesting projects they are working on.
4.
The Black River restoration and Black River Landing are two examples of projects they showcase.
There will be a Portfest this weekend, and a kayakathon are two examples of programming.
5.
They just received a Clean Ohio $1.6 million brownfields grant to right-size former St. Joseph
hospital. This will be a collaborative project of Hull and Associates, Arcatis, and private entities. It was a
feat to organize it and get the grant.
6.
The former Ford Assembly plant is another good project. IRG, development company, bought it
and assumed the environmental risk, got a $2.96 million grant from the Clean Ohio fund, is getting ready
to condo-ize the site with industrial uses, internet, warehousing.
7.
They have an EPA brownfield revolving loan grant, haven’t found a developer yet, are looking at
the IRG site and others.
8.
They have an infill residential development project, built 20+ homes before the economy
tanked, aimed at low to moderate income. A Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant of $3 million
has been in use to complete rehab on properties. Drake Hopewell is the key contact. They are setting
up a land bank, but it is slow, the County is not as forward as Cuyahoga. Howard Goldberg is working
with Jim Rokakis on this.
9.
The “Bike and Build” project involves college students who bike across the US, build homes via
Habitat for Humanity as they go. A Lorain church has sponsored the group for 8 years, this year they will
stop in Lorain and build 3 houses in one day. Partners include Lorain National Bank, Home Depot. There
will be a community garden as well. The HBA is also active, contracts out rehab/infill work, Home Depot
and Lowe’s are active as well, and Don Molds nursery. Builders provide labor, design, get donations.
10.
The Harborwalk residential project was successful until the economy tanked, right now there
are no plans for future phases, so the retail/mixed use that was planned may not happen.
11.
Roadblocks to implementation. 1) the economy; 2) political will. Lorain is a statutory city with
no charter; laws date to the 1800s. All offices are elected, the council is large and terms are only two
years, the mayor 4 years. This results in a lack of long term vision.
12.
City Plan. There is none. There is an Envision Lorain project with LCCC, started in the spring of
2011, mostly community conversations right now. Some neighborhoods have had plans, but there has
been none Citywide. There was a shoreline master plan done in the early 2000s; moving the water
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treatment plant is critical. The structure of the city needs to be settled, perhaps more will happen once
the administration changes.
13.
Research ideas: look at external effects and costs, example Ford Plan is likely to have 1/10 the
number of employees… how to bring good paying jobs to the area? How to get past generalities on
economic development? What kind of residential is appropriate for Lorain, and what would be a drain
on city services?
9/21/11 interview questions: Todd Peetz, Portage County, …330-297-3613
1.
What’s happening in your county?
Very little. No growth, no residential development, no impetus for more regulation.
However, have started couple key projects: leadership portage county 2010 – critical issues session
found that there is no comp plan, no mission, no econ dev plan for the county – same issues came up at
both beginning and end of leadership class. Decided to move forward on a vision plan – class project
was to put half of project toward vision plan – started January: “Visioning in portage” – leadership
portage county alumni. 130 people signed up to help – 7 subcommittees, big ideas, goals: he is leading
– still community/grass roots project – meeting after hours/lunch time, no money going into it, all
volunteer. Involved: water resources, SWCD, econ dev from kent/ravenna/Streetsboro, AMATS,
NEFCO, co. engineer. Status: have preliminary goals – used 7-8 examples. Over summer went to
county fair etc. events, got many people involved, got input. Final product will probably be ala carte
menu, with overriding goals, measurable. Time frame: end of 2012 probably realistic.
also have contacted regional vision group (sustainable communities) – talking w/Jason segedy of
AMATS, vice chair – want to get aligned. Todd is the representative to the group. Still working on
logistics of board representation, match, etc. They are getting house in order but not involved yet.
He’s been there 2-1/2 years, when he first got there everything was status quo, no one interested in
change. But he’s seeing big changes now, people now interested in change, plugging in, flexible,
volunteering time. Engineer’s office changing, everyone is, waking up to fact to be involved, speak up,
get involved. Big impetus to Change: local govts will have to share resources.
PREP – portage revitalization /economic planning – group getting together to talk, coordinate. Includes
all chambers, econ development folks, all zoning inspectors, all planners, one-stop and
industrial/commercial real estate people, add visitor bureau. Working together to
promote/market/break silos, share info and resources, new director of portage development board, get
plugged in, do econ dev plan.
Development: residential to zero, but Kent: did own master plan – talk to Dan Smith of Kent (econ dev
dir), new projects in downtown Kent. Ravenna too, Brimfield Twp some project – 19 acre building – so
some commercial/industrial picking up.
Zoning changes: renewable energy, home business changes. Working out of house, main priorities. Not
so much land uses/conservation/development overall.
Mantua Village struggling – trying to maintain existing businesses – Mantua not getting new
development/businesses – main street/prospect st/designating as slum and blight to get CDBG dollars.
Political issues, on fiscal watch, holding them back from implementation, no money. To his knowledge
compact development model has not been used.
2.
What are roadblocks?
Slow growth, but really just the opposite - vision plan is best impetus to change, collaboration, economic
development in the long run – county is no longer reactive. so they are doing the best thing. biggest
thing, getting goals and measurable targets in place, need strong implementation. need to celebrate
successes, status of plan, keep momentum. agencies not getting paid, but are involved anyway, taking
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the stance: if we don’t do it, will never get done, need to step up. govt funds slashed, townships
hurting, kent rebuilding, Ravenna hanging on, no one has extra cash – get plan off ground, do it
ourselves. invite people to process, see if can help. not asking for money at this point, but may need
help down line. have started own web site. (for visioning portage county).
3.
How could BLLUP be of use?
needs: Hiram – transfer of development rights – in theory great, but implementation is a challenge –
educational, making deals, real estate involvement. getting people informed prior to buying property,
work deals prior to decisionmaking. In this environment, not a priority. great program, nobody knows
anything about it, too late.
Shalersville, wrapping up comp plan, have interchange, looking at implementation, have 1000 acres
designated for development - industrial land, right next to turnpike, beautiful farms, want to make
sending area for TDR. technical assistance and education to support TDR would be useful.
Ideas for $80,000: their visioning surveys just got back – portage’s park system – very limited. People
want to see more bike routes, oppties for parks – info on how valuable would be helpful –
commissioners missing the point – not funding Chris Craycroft/Portage parks – see as a luxury expense.
New research a good idea.
11/16/11 Bob Owen, Western Reserve Land Conservancy (Land Trust).
1.
2.
Their organization is one of the largest land trusts in the country , covering a wide range in
Northeast Ohio. They have recently had a major growth spurt, have 35 staff now in several
field offices as well as the central office. They are growing beyond strict land consedfvation
to address vacant urban/suburban land through the Thriving Communities initiative, headed
by Jim Rokakis and others. This is a land banking initiative.
There may be some plznning/zoning involvement that comes out of the Thriving
Communities initiative. They also get involved with local park districts in promoting levies
and planning for them. If he ventured a guess he would say that local zoning
education/advocacy would not be the best use of their time. It may be better to focus on
what they do best, land deals. There may be an opportunity though. Suggested talking with
Eddie Dengg of their Akron office, 330-836-2271.
11/16/11 Eddie Dengg, Western Reserve Land Conservancy, Akron office (land trust)
1.
2.
3.
They don’t do a lot of local policy work. They don’t want to get into political issues with
local governments, see it as counterproductive to their mission. They have no formal
program or policy about local planning/zoning. They have 355 local governments within
their geographic area. They do get involved some in watershed and conservation plans for
areas of their region, working with local park districts. Focus on identifying key properties,
how conservation could be done, who could pay for it.
There is a long way to go. For example, George Warnock of their organization, based in
Lake/Ashtabula Counties, has run into anti-planning sentiment lately, anti-Agenda 21. (that
is Tea Party activity). Home rule leads to fragmented land uses, but people don’t trust
government. The land trust would rather be quiet, working with land owners.
Regarding oil/gas drilling issue, they have no policy yet; their board is looking at it. Right
now they are doing it as a case-by-case basis.
SANDUSKY AREA
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Cindy Brookes, Sandusky river watershed specialist, contact at WMAO, 11/17/10
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She noted that the BMPs they are most concerned with involve agricultural practices. Stream
setbacks are mostly of concern in their role to keep ag practices back from streams. (I’m not sure
she understood that I was talking about development). She seems to be much less concerned about
development.
She works mostly with John Willie, Sandusky County Planning Director, on implementation in
communities. Also FEMA mapping is being redone for the county. Ditch maintenance and enforcing
it is an issue.
In Seneca County, the PC Director just left, but they are doing some municipal work.
In Wyandot County, the OSU Extension office provides planning services. (?) Same with Crawford
County. These counties are pretty backward, very limited staff, no concern for watershed issues.
Bucyrus proposed a BGI watershed plan project – but they are split between two watersheds, not
sure if it would be supported by the state (?).
She is no longer funded by ODNR, but is funded by WSOS (wood Seneca Ottawa Sandusky)
Community Action, a nonprofit group with environmental leanings. She is working with the Black
Swamp Conservancy on agricultural BMPs.
Erie County Planning Commission, SWCD and Engineer’s Office, 5/31/11
Present:
Steve Poggiali, ERPC, Director
Tim King, ERPC, Senior Planner
Nicole Liming, ERPC, Associate Planner
Crystal Dymond, Erie SWCD, Storm Water Program Coord.
Breann Hohman, Erie SWCD, FCT watershed program
Ken Fortney, Erie Co. Engineer, drainage manager
1.
County RPC provides services to all cities, villages, townships in the county – all are members.
(confirm Sandusky, planner is Todd Roth). But cities (esp. Vermilion, Huron) don’t ask much. Not a lot of
requests from villages. Do work on a request-basis only.
2.
County-wide comprehensive plan takes all communities into account. Was done in 1995, was a
full plan with outreach surveys. Could use an update. They have also done several individual
communities’ comp plans – 01-07 – including Perkins Twp, Vermilion Twp, Vermilion City. Huron City is
interested, no action yet; Sandusky city is stalled. Huron Twp has done their own plan, provisions were
included in the countywide plan. There is also a countywide long-range transportation plan, done under
the MPO authority. They have a statewide 208 plan but it is vague. The village of Berlin Hgts is planned
to hook up to sewer. There is a lot of septic; they do have major wastewater treatment plant
connections. Most plants are getting updated to provide capacity. There is a CSO discharge under
consent agreement with the Ohio EPA for the Huron-Vermilion-Sandusky area. There is a new public
beach in Sandusky.
3.
Compact Development. They have tried for years, no takers.
4.
Conservation Development. Same with this tool. People need education, development
pressure needs to be there to try something new. There has been one conservation development, Eagle
Crest, in Huron Township. They are now mowing their open space; the RPC did a bus tour there. Dr.
Dreffers was developer. Homeowners were told they owned the open space individually, had to
resurvey the lots, started an uproar. John Blakeman working with Old Woman Creek designed the
38
grassland area. They think Homeowner’s Associations are very fragile, need to be strengthened, were
interested in information about how to do this. *Their wish list includes a regulatory process for HOAs
so they can know who is in them, communicate with them. Very few developments have easements,
there are one or two where there is a water feature, detention pond, small open space.
5.
Storm water. MS4s include: Huron city/twp; vermilion city/twp/; Sandusky; bayview;
margaretta; Perkins; Castalia. All are on one general permit for Phase II except Castalia, which chose to
do it on its own. They are updating their storm water program right now, vermilion has been audited. It
is important to understand that originally there was no storm water infrastructure and there were huge
water/flooding problems in developed areas;, then curb/gutter/storm piping put in place, problems
abated. So everyone is resistant to losing or reducing structures, disconnecting downspouts, etc.
Acceptance will be a long haul of changing history and perceptions. Also the cities (Sandusky, Huron)
are doing infill, and there is little opportunity for new storm water approaches.
6. Stream setbacks: Perkins has expressed interest. Baseline mapping is the issue – need a good
analysis of what the setback will be where, who it will affect. Impervious surface mapping would also be
useful. They have upgraded their storm water manual, but they are powerless unless there is
regulation. The developer says “no, I can’t do that” and there is no clout to do other than give in.
Communities are very concerned about supporting development. Floodplain regulations require 20 feet
on either side of stream, plus 1 to 1-1/2 feet of freeboard. There was a big problem a couple of years
ago, a scenic river designation was proposed for the Vermilion River, it was rescinded amid huge uproar,
now any mention of stream protection raises a fuss. It will take a strategic campaign in a few years,
after the furor has died down to accomplish anything. Their assessment of what happened is that the
Scenic River Coordinator, Tim _____, was not effective in selling the idea, held meetings but no one
came, didn’t go to the public. Very little outreach. They think about 10 years will be needed to wait out
the idea until it could be introduced again.
7. Source water protection. Note that there is a karst area in Groton Township. Not common in N. Ohio
but it is there. Note that the groundwater table is very high, the county is generally unacceptable for
basements. Septic rules have helped, requiring mounds, new rules were accepted. Mounds are more
expensive, has been a deterrent to too much development.
8.
Developers/homebuilders. They really only have small builders, no developers. Focus on
individual lots rather than subdivisions. The RPC and SWCD have good rappoire with them. Working
with developers, they must always focus on cost. Storm water regulations must prove cost benefit.
example: Chevy dealership had dangerous ingress/egress planned, developer said “no” because he
would lose ½ acre. Only ODOT had the clout needed to get him to comply and change the plan.
Communities don’t want to lose even one small development. The engineer’s office is the place to start,
developers focus on maximizing return rather than the best layout. Note that the UNH storm water
center is supposed to have a new report out on storm water economics.
9.
Business connections. The County Commissioners need an economic message in order to be
convinced. There is also an Economic Development Corp., strong active Chambers of Commerce (Erie
Co., Huron, Vermilion).
10, Education. Education among engineers/developers has been difficult. The Coastal Training Program
has held several workshops/seminars for free, at LCCC, but local engineers won’t go – too far to drive.
The County feels they have the infrastructure in place to assist, their Technical Advisory Committee
includes all necessary agencies, will meet with anyone who needs help. The big driver is money though.
Any solution proposed MUST be cheaper or it won’t be considered.
11. Development pace. Right now there is 3 years of inventory of lots in the county. So there is no
pressure to develop more. There is no countywide building inspection, the townships, municipalities
contract with them to provide it as needed. Ohio Rural Water has water lines everywhere at this point.
Upgrades have expanded sewer capacity.
39
12. Ideas/needs: A contractor-developer-engineer day that focuses on cost effective solutions. They
are aware that 75% of the drainage in the county goes right into the lake. All are small watersheds
except the vermilion and huron rivers.
13. Townships: are concerned with loss of tax dollars. Berlin Township lost tax $ to the state due to an
open space dedication, losing 1100 acres to Metroparks and Old Woman Creek. Perkins lost 6600 acres
to NASA. But the vision of the communities is that they don’t want Walmart, they want to keep their
small-town character. So any solutions need to address aesthetics, property value impacts of change.
There is an interesting project in Pipe Creek watershed, based on a HecRAS study, in Perkins Twp. They
are working on some sort of model.
14.
Needs. They are swamped with administering 8-1/2 million in grants, have no staff to do
planning/updates/technical assistance. They could use incentives, economic data about practices. They
are wondering if climate change vulnerability might be a source of funding. Would be open to my
speaking to the RPC, perhaps the HBA could be invited too, meetings are held 4th Thursday at 6:30. The
HBA meets monthly with a speaker, that is another opportunity.
SOUTH EAST/SOUTH CENTRAL OHIO AREA
9/14/11 Southeast/South Central Ohio
Bob Eichenberg, Athens Co., 740-594-6069 (at Ohio University 740-597-9030)consultant.
1.
Status: He is no longer at the County, County haven’t decided if going to replace. Archie
Stanley, 740-593-5514, engineer’s office is good contact. In the meantime, SWCD is doing planning
work, site review is OK but there is no planner.
new e-mail address: eichenbe@ohio.edu
2.
What’s happening in your county? nothing zoning oriented happened. Consdev = no
subdivisions in years. nothing’s happening, but there are opportunities for policy. i.e. subdivision regs
making options available. harder sell when no zoning incentives. most comms unzoned, 3
municipalities have zoning: Athens, Nelsonville, Albany. 7 other villages unzoned, all twps unzoned.
Have several active land trusts, Athens Conservancy very active, Stellar job id’ing key parcels, acquiring
thru clean ohio. come up with local match. staff all volunteer: experienced/OEPA; OU professors,
working on trails, right of way. Had purchase over 100 acres of all old railroad corridors. active
membership supports. commissioners work with them. contact John Knouse key person, Phil Cantino
botanist of OU, Donna Goodman OEPA SE district. 8-10 core, committed people making things happen.
Down here that’s how things get done.
Also Ohio Appalachia Land Trust, just hired full time staff person, based in Lancaster. Brian Blair is key
person, retired OEPA staffer. Helped form land trust and absolute pit bull working with landowners.
Have holdings of several thousand acres. Staff hired to do fundraising.
SWCDs have semi-annual supervisor conferences in columbus. Oppty to present. With shift happening
with cutbacks for planning at local level, SWCDs are not going away. Every county mandated.
3.
access mgmt: heavily dependent on County Engineer being on board, couldn’t get county
engineer interested. OKI promoted, had him talk to RPC, but engineer not interested. but some county
engineers interested. Bill Shaw in Hocking County did his own access mgmt program. Audie Wykle is
planner. may be similar to Ohio model/recommendation. with rural development, a.m. is one of the
good ways to control what’s going on at the road right of way. Can acquire marginal roadway to control
commercial development – can pick locations. without zoning.
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4.
common access drive: in Athens county, do it. No problems. Allow up to 4 units on one private
access easement that doesn’t have to meet public road standards. Do have minimum driveway
standard, 10’wide graveled way. Have a mtce agreement for that. Came up with on their own. In SE
Ohio, with hills, best building sites are 500’ off the road. To require driveway meeting public road stds
just to get back there is inappropriate, too much impact. Lower road reqnts better for families,
developers.
5.
What are roadblocks?
Slow growth. Even no minor lot splits down to nothing.
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How could BLLUP be of use?
Needs: all you can do is education. Keep getting the word out. We are getting bypass around
Nelsonville completed, SWCD should do some activity – even RCDs. Promote as education tool. But
now defunded. John Kellis retired/no longer RCD.
Be sure to talk to Audie Wykle in Hocking County. Only county planner in the area anymore.
Also talk to Regional Development Districts: John Hemmings, Ohio Valley Regional Development
Council, waverly pike county. Buckeye Hills RDD, Misty Casto, based in Marietta. Old ARC money, do
aging programs, few key areas. Interested in regional planning, are doing some of it. A bit like MORPC,
get into ARC type planning.
9/15/11 Interview, Audie Wykle, Hocking Co. PC, 740-380-9634, awykle@co.hocking.oh.us
1.
What’s happening in your county? very slow. just talked to darla Monroe, professor Ohio state,
looking at same issues w/economic slump, were slower last year than since 1980. 2009/2010 both
lower. Little blip in 1980 – interest rates jumped high, short term slump, compare to this slump which is
long term. There are two major subdivisions that are platted and they’re building out, both in city of
logan, both have infrastructure. Both typical subdivision lot sizes zoned R-2, about 10,000 sf. One
typical of in-town subdivision, spec housing, developer moving slow, building maybe 8-10 per year.
Other atypical because annexed to city but considered rural, far removed, services extended to reach it.
He is developer doesn’t build homes on spec, homes aer sitting there – 85 lots total, 6 have been sold,
finished in 09. He has a lot of business interests, is engineer, keeping him afloat, including zip line.
Probably there are 10 years worth of unbuilt lots, if the current slump continues.
consdev – none. several folks including developer interested, came close to getting conservation
developments, met some resistance – didn’t have lending/banking interests on tour (did tour with KD in
2008) and major realtors, developers ran into fear of the unknown… not sure viable method. One
developer ready to do something, not doing anything right now so there is no action.
compact dev – none.
stream sbs/floodplain – none.
sw mgmt – no one doing anything.
One type of action they have seen steady is easement protection on older farms: local land trust –
Appalachia ohio alliance – helping with this, holding easements. May have 25 or 30 properties
protected, most via private easement donations w/tax break, have used clean ohio on a couple of
purchases, owned by land trust.
Lot split situation: rolling terrain with sight distance issues, have implemented large lot rules and
driveway requirements to keep people from doing elaborate flag lot arrangements, carving up property.
Countrytime won’t deal in town any more due to access mgmt requirements.
Common access drives – don’t do yet, but have talked about it. By necessity, have limited access for
driveways, that has protected frontage, that’s why countrytime won’t deal any more. Would arrange
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flag lots eating up road frontage with one driveway area. Was a waste of land, but county through
adoption of driveway requirements due to sight distances, has limited that.
Would like to see more conservation developments – had health dept on board with idea of some type
of shared systems – health dept has min. 80,000 sf lot size requirement for private wastewater/water develop home sites but still save beautiful vistas, meadows, small gorges instead of arbitrarily creating
lines on piece of paper.
source water – a couple of areas have groundwater issues, all focused on problems with quantity –
southwest portion of county, part of two townships, quantity issue, don’t have enough. Originally those
folks collected water with cisterns, have ODNR resource map, biggest part of county have enough, might
need to treat or go fairly deep, but quantity is enough for a household. Louisville area and eastern part
(murray city, Athens) limited quantities. Eastern part – covered by Old Straightsville water association,
get water from Bur Oak, have done a good job making it available. SW part of co is a problem, still a
problem, tried to work with Ross county water, did preliminary study, proposed water line, spoke to
individuals, need is dire. Held a public meeting at a church and people showed up ready to pay tap fee
that night. But political issue, not sure what, Ross co. not interested. Refused to serve. Hocking Co.
planned to do it themselves w/water-sewer district, but Ross wouldn’t sell. Another company working
on new well field in Athens, had capacity, but would have had to travel through well-served area,
couldn’t get interest together. Low water capacity limits development, poor township, tax base low, but
some people paying to have water hauled in to holding tanks. Issue slow with the way things are.
Source water contamination – no real concerns except city of logan, have shallow wells, close to some
industry. Otherwise no issues. Had an old dumping site, when good year was in business, dumped.
Small portion of township, but has been cleaned up.
Pretty much have everything under control.
2.
What are roadblocks?
See above. Prior to slump, conservation development needed a push to get real estate
community/banking past fear of the unknown. Now low development pressure has removed need to
address for now.
3.
How could BLLUP be of use?
No pressing needs, but in the long run, would still like to see
dialogue continue about best practices concepts – hopefully this slump will turn around, would like to be
able to pick up from where they were. Have 33 bypass around Lancaster, working on bypass around
Nelsonville, concern that they will drive growth, accessibility will put dev. pressure on them that much
more. Once things turn around will be pressure. Sometimes a lull is the best time to take action, no
pressing projects. Would like to keep dialogue going and alive. Once a year workshop could get people
exposed.
11/14/11 Brian Blair, Appalachia Ohio Alliance (Land Trust)
1.
2.
3.
They are a land trust covering a broad geographical area, in Southeast Ohio. The majority of
their conservation easements are donated by private owners. Most of them are protected
natural areas and farms. The Land Trust is 9 years old. The counties that they are involved
in include Hocking, Vinton, Athens, and Meigs.
They are currently involved in a strategic planning process, especially focused on seeking
areas to focus their energy and attention. They are headed toward focusing on areas
around parks and state forests, connecting properties and inholdings. Plus they want to
acquire land through grants such as the Clean Ohio Fund.
The Clean Ohio Fund requires a resolution of support from the County Commissioners and
the Township Trustees of the subject property. This is difficult because townships are
hesitant, afraid easement will affect their tax base.
42
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Their local government involvement revolves around education about land trusts and
conservation easements. In Southeast Ohio there is an opposition to zoning, Counties and
Townships don’t have zoning, and new zoning is unlikely. So the land trust doesn’t want to
involve themselves in that fundamental debate when their time is better spent getting
agreement to conservation easements. They have tried to talk with County Planning about
subdivision, particularly finding away to discourage bowling alley lots. They have also
attended County Planning Commission meetings to give input on the County plan; he and
his members participate both as landowners and Appalachia Ohio Alliance representatives.
Their sense is that people want the landscape to stay as is, but don’t want restrictions on
their land. For example, stream protection zones would need to be addressed by nonregulatory measures.
He and the AOA are willing to assist in Technical Assistance and education, but he is
doubtful if they would want to get too involved due to opposition to zoning. Health-based
restrictions will be more successful (for example, septic and road design restrictions).
They don’t expect a lot of change in the next 5 years.
Suggests talking with Washington County, they are more urban and might be more
interested. Also suggests talking with Donna Goodman, president of the Athens
Conservancy. Phone 740-591-2963. She would be a strong partner/participator.
Of interest, he has been noting land trusts’ involvement in creation of park districts.
Planning for parks is less political.
11/16/11 Donna Goodman, President, Athens Conservancy (Land Trust).
1.
They are a small land trust with limited capacity. They get involved mostly through
easements and purchase, but don’t do a lot of outreach – staff is all volunteer. They do
have an Athens City Council member on their board – provides opportunities to introduce
forward-thinking ordinances.
2.
There is also a viewshed protection group outside ALC. They have done some work through
the legislative process, but work is slow. The fracking issue has sidetracked everyone from
any land conservation focus. It is possible that the city could put ordinances in place to
protect viewsheds. The County has no zoning. See example communities in NY – Pittsford,
especially, for scenic protection activity. She will send me a link. There was a study of land
protection and relation to economic development done; they would like to see this
reproduced in Ohio. In Pittsford, an open space ordinance and comprehensive plan policies
were based on a greenprint initiative that quantified the importance of open space through
an evaluation system.
3.
Also note that there was a viewshed protection ordinance done in Napa County, CA in 2006.
4.
Recommends we talk with Chris Fahl, 1-740-589-6325, for more information.
TOLEDO AREA
Tom Lemon, administrator, Toledo-Lucas County Plans Commission, meeting 11/18/10

They are the main contact for zoning/planning support for 11 townships in Lucas County, and the
city of Toledo. They have done comprehensive plans for all 11 twps. Also have helped with zoning
codes.
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He thought a good approach to supporting BLLUP in the area would be to convene a round table of
county planners, city planners, with TMACOG as convener. TMACOG is not the best to give nutsand-bolts support, don’t have expertise, but are great as organizers.
There are 12 villages/cities in the County over which he has no control. Many are resistant to new
ideas. He was not sure how to address them; perhaps individual convincing to join the roundtable,
and then educate from there.
I have more on the history of planning in the area/city, will fill in later.
Molly Maguire, his planning staff person who was involved in the Toledo proposal for stream
setbacks (which failed) came in at the end. After discussion, the conclusion was that it made no
sense to implement stream setbacks as designed for low-level streams, on main stem rivers with key
development potential and industrial redevelopment issues. the main resistance was the potential
to reduce development potential along the Maumee. She thought a new, different code addressing
urban river situations would be a much better approach.
Both Tom and Molly felt that the key roadblock to BLLUPs in their area was resistance to anything
that could be perceived to “reduce development potential”. Anything we could propose should
demonstrate that it’s OK for development. They like the idea of developing some local case studies
that would illustrate key points.
Cindy westfall, HBA of Greater Toledo area, meeting 11/18/10
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Cindy is new but is very supportive of “green” policy. She offered to help with outreach to her
members, including a roundtable with her Government Affairs group, and then a “lunch and learn”
in jan-feb with the general membership.
Cindy said she thought Vince Squillace was becoming more open to best practices and green policies
because he has to – membership is becoming more interested
Cindy is from the Columbus area in recent years, has contacts with engineers, especially Doug
Romer, EMHT. They have evidently done some case studies of Best Practices, comparing
cost/feasilibity etc., she thought he would be willing to share.
There are few pure developers left in her area, key are Kurt Miller, Steve Mitchell, Dick Moses (a
legend).
She thought her membership would be interested in the six practices, it would be best if we could
demonstrate proven benefit to the builder and developer.
Another contact: Troy Sonner, Poggemeyer Design group. She is also in touch with Brenda
Callahan, new Exec Director of the Cleveland area HBA.
The Central HBA director is Jim Hilz, he is also very green friendly, has instituted a green council in
their organization in central ohio.
NWOP Conference Contacts, 11/12/10
Dave Steiner, Director, Wood County Planning, contact at NWOP conference, 11/12/10.
 Dave is not the main person involved with technical assistance to local governments on storm
water management issues – I should talk with Jason Sisco. Dave has offered to get involved in
this capacity but has not been supported by the commissioners. Tim Brown is a new
commissioner who is more ‘green” savvy – would be good for me to be in touch with him as
well.
44

What Dave is working on: community development grants, new FEMA mapping of the
floodplain, neighborhood stabilization grants. He is waiting to hear about funds (from the
County) to update the subdivision regulations, last updated 1989, he should hear in December.
This would be a good opportunity to incorporate some new practices. They have three
townships with MS4 status – Middleton, Perrysburg; ?
Information of interest gained at the NWOP conference, 11/12/10:
 TMACOG/ODOT presentations on transportation: role of Toledo area in freight logistics in the
great lakes region. Role of the great lakes as one of 10 megaregions in the US. Emphasis at
ODOT on intermodal connectivity, “complete streets” program.
 Panel on Zoning, included municipal (Bowling Green) and township (Monclova/Sylvania). Issues
include “easy things” – rain gardens, green roofs, green space in PUDs; infill redevelopment,
even in townships. Monclova is headed for a zoning code rewrite, as are Perrysburg Twp and
Center Twp.
 Tim DeWitt of Sylvania Twp did a presentation on the basics of TDR, and status of the legislation.
 Ford Weber of the Lucas County Improvement corp. did an overview of economic development
priorities in the Toledo area.
 Wade Kapszukiewicz of the Lucas County Land Bank talked about the land bank and its priorities
in Toledo, status of projects and how funds will be used.
Diane Reamer-Evans, transportation engineer, TMACOG, contact at NWOP, 11/12/10
 There isnt’ really anyone at TMACOG who has local government planning/zoning knowledge.
TMACOG did a Growth Strategies plan in 2000-05, had land use planners on staff, did a regional
map for land use. Use transportation dollars, but the effort was shut down by ODOT. Since
then there has been no mandate or funding stream for that type of staff. She thought the
membership might be convinced to dedicate some general membership funds for staff, but they
would have to decide to do this.
 In the mid-90’s there were some community forums, an “Area Development Plan”
was drafted. It devolved into an economic development strategy.
 She recommended I talk to Kurt Erichsen, Matt Horvat, Elaine Moebius. Also check the web site
for info on past Growth Strategies plan.
Katie Swartz, American Rivers, contacts at both the NWOP conference (11/12/10) and the WMAO
conference (11/17/10) in Columbus.
 She had a grant to do some work on local policy LID practices with local governments in the Toledo
area. That money has been expended so she is not as involved in that work these days. One of the
things they did was to take local officials on tours of BMPs in Chicago and Milwaukee.
TMACOG, 1/13/11
Attendees:
K. Date, CSU
M. Horvat, TMACOG
A. Hensley, TMACOG, Environmental Planning
K. Erichsen, TMACOG, Environmental Planning
E. Moebius, TMACOG, Ottawa-Portage River Watershed Coord.
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1. We went over the BLLUP recommended practices, with emphasis on the “six priorities”.
2. What are the big issues/roadblocks to adopting the practices?
 Getting everyone simply to change. Township officials in particular are resistant. Worries
include reducing development (no awareness of economic benefits of improved practices). It
will take more than powerpoints – real on the ground local projects.
 Not enough examples at the local level. “If it’s not local, it may as well be on Mars”.
 City officials (Toledo) also are worried about anything that could impede development. That
was the primary reason for the inability to pass a riparian setback. However, a minimum was
put in place to protect against flooding as required by FEMA.
 Need to get developers on board, with economic data needed and real projects to support
economic benefit idea. We talked about the idea of finding even small parts of local existing
projects to showcase, get the ball rolling.
 Need to get the “right people” on board, such as Steve Serchek, recently retired from Plan
Commission, developer/realtor – only if the “right people” are cultivated can anything be done.
TMACOG staff have no connections to the “right people”. People who do: Pete Gerckens, but
he is “D” and many of the “right people” are “R”. However, Pete chaired the Swan Creek project
and was able to accomplish support without ever attending a meeting. Another “mover/shaker”
is Ford Weber, executive director of the Lucas County Improvement Corp, economic
development organization. Also “The Collaborative”, a local landsc. arch./planning firm, is very
visionary, seems to have positive reputation, could help promote new ideas with economic
basis.
 The public must be convinced. Very little has been done here, and “movers/shakers” and
elected officials are unwilling if not sure if public will support.
 More data is needed, and real projects, to support economic benefits of the practices.
3.
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What are likely strategies that would work?
Recognize that now that things have been slow for a while, many of the old players and
assumptions are gone. There is an opportunity when the development starts up again , not to
start up with the same rhetoric, but to take a new tack with new language, focus on a new set of
players, projects. We talked about the need to stop talking “environmental benefit” and
reinforce all arguments based on economics, tourism, commerce, family health, flooding, health
and safety, improved property values.
“How these things are done around here”: organize a campaign using a PR firm. Funk Luetke
Skunda has been instrumental in getting high quality projects accomplished via a PR campaign.
A campaign would emphasize being strategic, building champions, controlling the message. It
was noted that anybody who has a less-than-high-quality project tends to use people like
George Oravecz, an engineer, to “push” projects through with a hard sell.
Recognized a need to be strategic, not just going out and making contacts, pulling groups
together as was done previously, but to gather a group of five or so agencies/organizations who
are working on these ideas and work out exactly the who, what, when, where. A statewide
message could be useful, but local messages need to be strategized as well.
It is time to get past powerpoints and studies and show real projects on the ground that can be
good examples. Acknowledged that data is important – everything presented needs to be
backed up with facts about economic benefits. But real projects could accomplish a lot, a
“stealth” approach that would get practices in place project by project, sidestepping individual
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resisters like township officials, setting code change on the back burner for now and working on
getting practices incorporated into specific projects. Then those can be showcased, with
analysis of economic benefit, to convince local officials that codes make sense.
4.
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What are some possible projects that could incorporate some of these ideas?
Ottawa County – Elaine predicts will boom when development starts up again. Wood, Ottawa,
Sandusky park districts are primed, looking for new approaches, ready to take on a project with
progressive ideas.
USEPA Region 5 has a project getting started to “green up” inner city/brownfield area. Lucas
county improvement Corp. is involved, could be a good opportunity to get some real practices in
the ground. Project involves redevelopment of the Door Street Corridor, Dolar Jarvis Plant #1,
from UofT (on the west) to Fernwood (on the east). community development groups are
involved.
City of Toledo has been doing some demonstration projects, Reynolds Road, Maywood –
pervious pavement, bioswales. These could be supported and showcased. The Concrete
Association is supportive and on board.
Swan Creek group is looking at a possible JEDD project as a next step, providing incentives to
plan for oak openings/airport area (AOOA). Airport, townships (Monclova and Swanton),
Cleveland-Lucas County Port Authority are involved. Might yield green infrastructure examples
to be promoted elsewhere.
Matt is working with a group just getting started, loosely “Toledo area watershed concerns”,
Maumee, Portage Rivers, Swan Creek, 10-mile Creek; right now about 12 people have met, don’t
have a real focus. Would be great to involve them in identifying possible case study/project
they could work on.
There is a possibility of a Corps of Engineers hydraulic model to address where green
infrastructure could be useful in reducing flood hazards. Matching funds and a “memorandum
of cooperation” would be needed. Wasn’t clear what group would be the initiator – TMACOG?
5.
What do they think of the idea of convening a group of key players in the region to work
together on implementation of Best Practices, perhaps use a small amount of funding to get some case
studies done, generate economic benefit data, etc?
 Has a lot of potential, especially given the need to be strategic. However it seemed in
conversation like there would be quite a big group to involve – Lucas, Wood, Ottawa counties –
SWCDs, PCs; Portage River watershed groups; Swan Creek Group; “movers and shakers”; Toledo
City; TMACOG; Matt’s Maumee River group.
6.
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Additional notes:
Molly at the Lucas county Plan commission, who worked on the riparian setback project, in in
the Reserves and was deployed to Iraq, left today, probably for a year.
Tourism is big in Ottawa County, the Black Swamp bird group is very active, anything we do
there should capitalize on the benefit to tourism, eco-tourism. Key proponent is Melinda
Huntley of Sea Grant who has done a lot of work on value of eco-tourism along the lake. Note
that Ottawa County is largely unzoned. Crystal Diamond is a new storm water coordinator
based at the SWCD, has a tough job, people are very protective. Selling points: recreation,
tourism, property values.
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Jason Sisco, Wood Co. Engineer’s office, 419-354-9060, 9/14/11
1.
What’s happening in your county?
consdev: no projects right now. superdead for 3 or 4 years. are seeing a little progress in homes, but
mostly filling in previously platted. 2 or 3 or 4 plats in 3-4 years. All have been subsequent phases of
existing subdivisions. when something does come want to make it easy to move. no new in last 4 years.
PC director (Dave Steiner) in process of updating subdivision regs, has consultant on board, open to
including consdev in new regs, now that actually underway. No jurisdictions objectionable, having
difficult time finding right project. Goal has been to get something started so can show a local project.
2.
What are roadblocks? no growth, nobody wants to do much.
3.
How could BLLUP be of use?
training is most useful. haven’t seen a lot of results, but biggest
problem is disconnect between planning world and LID concepts. Training is necessary. More wood
county jurisdictions are familiar, but need outside experts to debunk rumors/myths. Need local
examples , mythbusters. More workshops in the spring would be welcome.
Jeff Grabarkiewicz in lucas county doing smaller scale low impact developments…
9/15/11 Interview, Jeff Grabarkiewicz, Lucas Co. SWCD, 419-893-1966
1.
What’s happening in your county?
Development pressure down to zero. Just saw first plan all year. Redevelopment of an existing parcel.
New restaurant. Under 1 acre so no storm water review. Bill Decker (developer) says by far the worst
he’s seen it in his 40-year career. Pace in county is 4-5 houses a month, no new subdivisions.
swmgmt – no real LID happening.
2.
What are roadblocks? slow growth. Lack of political will, especially now to do anything that
will affect development. Any development is good development, little criticism of anything. Couple of
years ago subdivision totally on septic – nobody even raised the question – 22 acres. Lot of sarcasm. 1
acre lots, not sure if got built.
Have a riparian setback in county building regulations – keeps building footprint away, not pavements.
Variances have made it into agenda, all have been given by county commissioners. Have a new
commissioner, she voted against recent one, didn’t like precedent.
opportunity: market will look very different. What people want right now is nothing like they wanted
before: creek is an amenity, nobody else has this. Millstream Development: Ryan and Doug Wamsher.
(Don’t use Jeff’s name.) Tim DeWitt, zoning manager, Sylvania Twp, twp not crazy about development,
building in floodplain. Working on one project w/developer, in pipeline for 5 years, will have a large
streamside conservation easement, hasn’t got township approval. Has been in the works for a long
time, is in final stages, no final approval. 15 of the 42 acres easement, one of reasons is that unbuildable
floodway. No lot benefits – has a product that doesn’t have competition – no lots with a creek easement
– is an amenity – gives competitive advantage, tax benefits. Project Rivertree in Sylvania Twp. Other
issues with project, access issues, alignment with northern street, will be roundabout, timing issues with
funding/design. Remaining parcel acreage is 100-year-flood plain. Spot so broad, cons easement is nice
and wide, 300 feet to creek edge, most is floodway.
failing septic systems – upstream contamination – presented at a number of meetings. high spikes are
upstream – bacterial input – agriculture. not coming from overflows.
3.
How could BLLUP be of use?
Focus on green infrastructure/economic issues. They have been
working on green infrastructure: sponsoring a workshop in October: green infrastructure, doing the
math: this is the economic benefit. Roundabouts, financial benefit, reduced pavement. Large capital
improvement project done on William’s Ditch by city of Toledo – contaminated urban ditch – flooding
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problems – did 2-stage ditch rather than pipe – was half the cost. Limited space so second stage not as
wide as hoped for. Frank Mortali, City drainage engineer, just retired. Scott Sibley, administrator at city
of Toledo engineering services should know. Rest will be sustainability focused – triple bottom line –
Jennifer Olson from Tetratech – Milwaukee – did triple bottom line analysis – plus some folks from Ann
Arbor.
11/16/11 Kevin Joyce, Black Swamp Conservancy (land trust).
1.
The BSC has not got involved in local government policy. They have a large service area and
very low capacity. They focus on what they do best, making land deals. He recognizes that there is a
great need. For example, for the Agricultural Easement Protection Program, a basic requirement is that
there be a comprehensive plan less than 7 years old. Many communities in his area can’t meet this.
Communities and counties need adequate comprehensive plans.
YOUNGSTOWN AREA
Trumbull County Planning Commission, 5/19/11
Present: Bill Miller, Director; Trish Nuskiewicz, floodplain manager/planner; David Dubiaga, planner/GIS
manager.
1.
Status of comprehensive planning. They do comprehensive plans in the townships, villages, and
small cities in the county. There are several recent plans, including Warren, which they just finished.
Their wish list is to do a county-wide comprehensive plan, the current one was done in 1964.
They are working with the County engineer’s office to update the transportation plan, which ultimately
will be multi-modal, with access management standards. Funding is an issue in order to do it right;
Eastgate might be a source. The old tendency was for communities with major thoroughfares to
establish large commercial zones – now they are trying to ground plans in reality, be data-based. They
are continuing to provide advice to any who need it, even if there is little budget.
2.
Compact Development. There has been none in the county, but they are establishing policy
whenever they do plans. This involves “build to” lines, should have design guidelines as well. Examples
are Kinsburg, Bristol townships.
3.
Storm water. There are 16 communities that are MS4s. Warren is an exception, has only Phase
I required. (?) The county has an umbrella regulation and plan that support the communities involved. It
goes through the SWCD. A utility was proposed, but voted down by the commissioners. It was passed,
then recalled. So the work is unfunded. The communities piece out contracts for the minimum work
required to the SWCDs. There is a technical committee made up of the PC, the County Engineer, SWCD,
Housing. Erosion and sediment control regulations were adopted too. The SWCD does a lot of the
work, assisted by Trish. The commissioner’s approach is, “you’re doing a good job now, why do you
need to be funded?” Niles created a utility for capital improvements only. Warren has their own utility,
is large. It is a simple regulation, not complex, no credit system, just maximum amounts on residential
development.
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4.
Note that they are interested in the recommendations in the BLLUP document. They would like
to attach the BLLUP document to their Mosquito Creek BG plan, and asked that we send them a link
when the revisions are done.
5.
Floodplain/stream regulations. The townships have floodplain regulations. Cities of Gerard and
Youngstown have regulations that Trish helped to write. The regulation is a county resolution covering
all townships, then they are helping each city and village develop regs via model regulations. The
building department participates as well. Their regulation is on the PC web sites. There are no special
regulations, just a “no rise” certification that must be signed by the developer. The maps are too huge
to post, so they are available through the County auditor.
There are stream setback requirements in the subdivision regulations. All streams with a defined bed
and bank are covered; width is 25 feet for ½ square mile drainage area, then 65 feet in the 100 year
floodplain. This was established in 2003 with the SWCD. They have wetland setbacks as well, see the
regulations, Subdivision regulations were updated in 2003, would like to update them again.
6.
Conservation Development. There are no regulations in the county. Only a couple of townships
have had PUDs built, although a lot have codes in place that haven’t been used. The perception is that
the approval process is too complex/expensive for the developer. Check Howland and Bezetta
Townships online (zoning/comp plans?) for examples. The commissioners may support updating the
subdivision regulations for conservation development. Common access drives may/may not be
supported; they would need to see examples to consider.
7.
Homebuilder relationships. They have had little contact with the local homebuilders, are not
sure even who the representative is. There is not a lot of HBA resistance to actions in the planning
commission or township zoning.
8.
Needs. The most important thing for them is support for the education process of local officials.
They need to be shown the dollar and cent benefits of the recommended tools. They do an annual
planning and zoning workshop for local officials with Lake and Geauga counties that is well attended.
The zoning commission members in the county have no background on these issues. They even need to
convince people that zoning is worth doing. *they would like to see a study comparing the
costs/benefits of doing deed restrictions vs. zoning. Also planning staff could use training on the
technical nuts and bolts of the tools. The subdivision regulations don’t accommodate conservation
development, would need to be updated.
Josh Aikens, Executive Director, Mahoning Valley HBA, 5/20/11.
1.
In general, the HBA membership takes a lot of responsibility in this area, serving on planning and
zoning commissions themselves. The HBA association is much less involved in local government
decisions than it is in marketing, home-a-rama, etc. Members who are active in local governments: Joe
Sylvester, Andy Profanshek, Gary Asaski, Bruce Lev, Rich Salata. The HBA and its members have good
relationships with the SWCDs. In Trumbull County, Mike Wilson was former executive director of the
HBA. In Mahoning County, Kathy Vrable-Brian is a good person to work with.
2.
Conservation Development: was proposed in Canfield Township, voted down 2 years ago. He
was interested in the common access drive idea, would need to understand more about it.
3.
Hot spots for development: Howland (Trumbull County), Canfield, Poland (Mahoning County),
Austintown. Appropriateness for today’s depressed market is important. In 2004, there were 540
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houses built in Mahoning County; in 2010 there were 93. Yet the numbers are starting to go up. In
Austintown there were 0 in 2009; 7 to 8 in 2010. 25 in 2010 were in Canfield. In Trumbull there were 35
in 2009, 53 in 2010.
Their membership are mostly custom homebuilders. There are no “big guys”
here. There are still lots left in Poland, Canfield, Howland; none left in Boardman. Boardman and Niles
shopping areas drew development around them.
4.
Compact development. There are only a couple of examples; Chuck Whitman, not a member,
did the Westford neighborhood in Canfield, (turn left on 224 from route 11), the Panera’Wendy’s is on
the right). Has a golf course, residential area, PUD with compact/mixed use. In downtown Youngstown
there is a project, WICK neighbors involved, called Smoky Hollow, near the university. Rundown, homes
were razed, want to do a redevelopment project. Andy Profancek is on the board (of the Wich
neighborhood ?)
5.
Trusted engineer around here is Hank Grover, Western Reserve Land Consultants. Does all the
developments around here. Is an “awesome dude”, not a member of the HBA but very good
communication. tel. 330-965-2337.
Bill D’Avignon, City of Youngstown Planning Director; later in meeting, Karen Perkins, zoning analyst
joined in, 5/20/11
1.
Current status: they are just getting started with a new zoning ordinance. Seen as a tool to
implement Youngstown 2010, the plan that was completed a couple of years ago. The original zoning
code was done in 1969 with some amendments since then. They want to “flip everything upside down”
and look at vacant land, etc. They have a $200,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Housing and
Finance. Consultants will be Clarion Associates out of Denver, partnered with McBride-Dale-Clarion,
ACP (Chicago), Global Green. They have a technical advisory committee that includes Tom Finnerty and
John Bralich (YSU), Bill Davignon, Karen Perkins, Walker Wells (global Green). Goals: to be liberal with
land uses, and to codify urban greenspace uses such as urban agriculture.
By “liberal land uses” he means repurposing areas appropriately. They want to write an “industrial
green” code that would address light industrial and manufacturing, distribution, would be sensitive to
some environmental needs. Example is Salt Springs Industrial Road Develpoment, that deal was
negotiated. Repurposing will look at moving from heavy to light industrial, with priority commercial
districts in nodes. Tie to economic development incentives. Rezone the rest for repurposing. An
example is Market sTreet, goals are to remove blight, landscape in green fashion, keep commercial but
reduce its expanse to what can be supported. The update project should be drafted by the end of 2011.
community meetings will be held in July.
2.
Stream setbacks: industrial redevelopment in the Mahoning Valley is important. All
redevelopment is handled through the office of economic development, there is a minimal zoning
ordinance with no setback requirements. In general the floodplain is respected. Not sure about level of
restriction that is appropriate in an industrial redevelopment area.
3.
Example of repurposing case study: select priority neighborhoods as modesl. Example is Idora
neighborhood, a project of YSU and OSU Masters classes. A class did a plan in 2008-9, Ian Bennison was
professor?), the neighborhood rallied around it. Got $200,000 CDBS funds to support implementation.
Demollshed 48 abandoned homes with NSP funds, reclaimed 128 lots, landscaping, community garden,
side lots, storm water, demolitions. It was a model for the rest of the city, the other neighborhoods
want similar projects. But funding is limited.
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4.
There is little or no infill housing happening. the city has 40000 vacant units, 23,000 vacant
parcels, 2500 demolitions so far. The land bank is growing, has 600 parcels. They got a legislative
change to allow a regional land bank.
5. Interesteing project: the Clean Ohio fund provided an open space preservation grant, city used it to
acquire 200 acres along a watercourse near Lake McCelvey. Will incorporate a hiking trail, parks.
Hopeing to do more similar in the future.
6.
Meadow protection has a role to play in protection of large vacant lands. Example along 422
across from V+M steel. V+M is matching city demolition costs, vacant land will be convertged to
meadowlands. Lean Forward is going to do the project.
7. Wetlands: YSU did a study (paid for by City) of feasibility of creating an urban wetland mitigation
bank. Land platted in the 40’s on ghost streets, no taxes paid, 25 xs 90 foot lots, some hydric soils. The
city is now quietly acquiring land. Implementation will be a challenge, finding the expertise to do it.
8. Many good results are coming from all the work on vacant land and the Youngstown 2010 plan.
Organizations are springing up, including nonprofits, 30 new neighborhood associations (total is 50
now), an urban agriculture group, a tree group “Grow Youngstown”, the Mahoning Valley Organizing
Collaborative (supported by the Wien Foundation), the Youngstown Neighborhdoo Development Corp.
(city/Wien partnership). An issue is that 7 councils/wards compete for funds, it is hard to duplicate the
Idora experience everywhere.
9. Urban agriculture. Global Green has a project, a 2 acre urban farm, also there is an organization
converting an old restaurant into a kitchen incubator to serve the city. There is the possibility of linking
2 prisons in the city to this project.
10.
They applied and received a USEPA grant to explore waste diversion for demolition projects.
Having some issues with council supporting due to the cost of doing this - $2400 per demolition.
Working with GreatLakeReuse.com, perhaps share materials.
11.
Needs. Really needs are funding-based. Would like to keep us informed, perhaps there will be
overlap, perhaps we can participate in zoning update meetings.
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