LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP ZONING COMMISSION

Special Meeting for General Business

6776 Wedgewood Road, Medina, Ohio

January 15, 2009 @ 7:00 p.m.

(Note: Immediately prior to the meeting the reappointed member and new member of the Zoning Commission were sworn in by Trustee Don Butler. Introductions were made later.)

Zoning Commission Chair Karen Schoonover called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Roll call indicated five members of the Zoning Commission were present: Dianne Wenslow, Karen Schoonover, Sherri Meinke, Russ Green and Mike Biskup. Also present was Matthew Strehle (newly appointed alternate). Peggy Folk (alternate) was absent. Others present included: Trustee Don Butler, Mike Cavey (Medina Country Club, 5588 Wedgewood Road), Ray Hanley (Medina Country Club), David Lewis (Lewis Land Professionals, Wadsworth), Tony Wenslow (5750 Chippewa Road), Lisa Takach (6822 Ryan Road), David Jenkins (5346 Chippewa Road), and Zoning Inspector Alliss Strogin.

Minutes

The December 2, 2008, meeting minutes and the January 6, 2009, meeting minutes will be considered at the next regular meeting.

Correspondence

The secretary distributed a listing of the 2009 Lafayette Township Roster as well as a listing of the 2009 Zoning Commission members with the pertinent data including email addressed. Also distributed was a listing of the 2008 Zoning Permits prepared by the Zoning Inspector.

Old Business

An Application for Site Plan Review and Preliminary Plan for Wedgewood Villas PUD Subdivision was reviewed at the December 2, 2008, regular meeting and was tabled subject to the approval of the Medina County Planning Commission, which met Wednesday, December 3, 2008. At the MCPC meeting on December 3, 2008, the matter was tabled to their January 7, 2009, meeting to allow the applicants to get additional information.

Tonight the updated (revised) Preliminary Plan and Site Plan for the Country Club Villas PUD Subdivision (previously reviewed as Wedgewood Villas PUD Subdivision), which includes the landscaping plan, will be reviewed along with The Department of Planning Services Staff Reports (dated 1/7/09) for the Subdivision and the Site Plan.

David Lewis – We revised the plan for a couple reasons. In the earlier meetings with MCPC they recommended the open space follow the school district lines and be blocked in accordance with the tax map configurations so that the different school districts would be easy to identify and could be assessed property for tax purposes. In addition to that change we looked at putting the open space over the environmental sensitive area to include the Chippewa Watershed to Chippewa Lake. In addition, Mr. Cavey felt it was important to make sure the buffer was in place at this time for those residents who back up to the golf course area so that facilitated the open space back in that area as well. As we discussed previously the open space will be open space in perpetuity and it can’t be changed so we positioned the open space such as if there is ever any continuation of the street or anything like that, that the open space would not impede the ability to do that. For all those reasons the open space was chosen where it is on the revised plan. Another issue with Medina County is that they wanted to make sure the buildings up front here were not in the open space because the open space is taxed at a much lower rate so that kept the tax rate up higher.

Chair Schoonover – One of the things I noticed different from the prior plan is there is a block to the east that is now not included in the subdivision. What is the reasoning behind that?

Lewis – That’s correct, there is a parcel over here that’s labeled not part of the subdivision. It does meet the zoning requirements for a back lot parcel. At present there is no intention of developing it but it does have legal road frontage so it is a legal parcel. The intent was if there were any other development that would take place adjacent to this, we felt that was buildable ground and we didn’t want to lock it into open space for perpetuity.

Chair Schoonover – Is that parcel underneath the golf course PUD? How many acres is it?

Lewis – It’s part of the golf course. The overall development is still the 94 acres.

Cavey – It is still part of the PUD but it’s not defined as open space.

Hanley - Twenty some acres.

Cavey – It’s the same amount of acreage in open space as it was before. The residents in this area were concerned so this is locked up and puts a whole buffer of open space around the development. It accommodates the County Planning people for what they wanted and we thought it accommodated the concerns of the residents and our concerns.

Chair Schoonover – You couldn’t develop this under the PUD but you could develop it under the RR zoning.

Zoning Inspector – He’s talking about a rear lot, which is 5 acres with a 40’ front.

Lewis – We just felt that it was land that we didn’t want to put into that designation of open space for perpetuity at this time.

Chair Schoonover – Okay, but when you first had to do the plan for County Planning one of the preliminaries we saw showed another leg, very similar to this, that came around and went out so we are aware that if things would go ahead and work out in the future that you could possibly come down to the other side also.

Lewis – That’s correct and at that time it may very well be presented to the Board as open space for perpetuity.

Chair Schoonover – It has to be contiguous so if you are going to put that other leg down there sometime in the future you would need to have the acreage, the way it is written currently – it just struck me as strange.

Hanley – In order to develop that property more land would have to be purchased to do the golf course and extend the golf course out anyhow.

Chair Schoonover – To keep the holes, you’re right.

Lewis – That was part of it and I think we did work out a conceptual golf holes plan and those holes over there would have to be reconfigured somehow because we always have to play out and back. There was a question too if we can reconfigure golf holes. I know it can be used for golf course so we did identify that there had to be some golf holes reconfigured possibly in the future over there and that was another reason for not having it in open space.

Zoning Inspector – You can reconfigure the golf holes but it has to be in the golf course area.

Hanley – Either golf course or fallow land.

Zoning Inspector – Yes, we would like to see that language.

Cavey – Obviously we won’t get any further until you see it. Again we proposed it that way and the County wanted it changed. As long as we had to move it we tried to make more people happy and it allows us to go this way and do something in the future.

Chair Schoonover – I’m just trying to understand. I don’t have a crystal ball to see out in the future. We all know our Board is responsible for doing what’s best for Lafayette Township. We have been working on this project and hashing it around for a long time and I just want to make sure that before any type of approval leaves here that we look at things and ask all the pertinent questions. I’m asking because I think the residents of the township are due a quality project. We all know that in the comprehensive plan revision discussion that the Medina County Club was mentioned as something people value and I want to make sure that as we go forward and as you develop this that it continues to be of value to the community.

Hanley – Your statements are well taken. That’s why we had to reconfigure it so that it does maintain its value. We’ve had to reconfigure it to protect the value of the facility both now and in the future.

Lewis – We still have 94 acres and out of that the sublots (9.49 acres) and the street (3.31 acres) total 12.8 acres. That’s 12.8 acres out of 94 acres so approximately 82 acres is open space for perpetuity – 82 acres is open space or golf course.

Hanley – We spent a lot of money with engineering and design to perfect our financial position on this facility. We have to watch that also.

Lewis – For the future if we knew where the street continuation could go then we probably could have identified other areas that we could have dedicated as open space but we don’t know.

Chair Schoonover – But we don’t know that – and you have to leave that option open – I understand that. I just want to make sure that everything that needs to be said in the township’s interest is said, is put out before the Board, is answered and then we go forward. Any feedback from the Board?

Green – I think these guys are doing a real thorough job at satisfying not only this Board but also the township and residents of the township as well as working with the Medina County Planning Commission. I can understand from a developer point of view that it’s been a challenge but I do still believe that we are going in the right direction.

Zoning Inspector – What’s the calculation on the dimension between the development and the parking lot?

Lewis – The question is between the existing parking lot and the subdivision boundary, the dimension is not shown. We did check it; it is 50’. I will add the dimension to the plan copies brought before the Board. (Note: The dimension was added to the plans and initialed by Lewis at this meeting.)

Wenslow – Which sublot is that?

Lewis – It’s to the rear of sublot 45 and 44 and there’s just a corner point.

Cavey – To be honest with you I think that corner is cart path. We just tied it in to the asphalt.

Lisa Takach – Can I look at the change and what was considered open space before. Are there different school districts?

(Note: The initial plan and the revised/updated plan were reviewed and the differences in the location of the open space, blocks, distances etc. were pointed out.)

Chair Schoonover – County Planning had issues with the blocks and the taxing and wanted to split it up for the school districts. There are two school districts – Medina and Cloverleaf.

Takach – So they are actually extending the open space down further?

Chair Schoonover – Like they said, it follows McCabe Creek much more.

Zoning Inspector – They can’t sewer the bottom half so that’s another reason why they put the open space in the bottom half of the golf course.

Takach – My whole thing was that I never really objected to there being construction up by SR162, my concern was always that it would leak down somehow to Chippewa because I know there is some commercial property down there.

Chair Schoonover – That is exactly what they are addressing.

Cavey – This could be extended to come out over here if sewer would become available and 50 years from now that might happen. It wasn’t something that we did, we were told to reconfigure it.

Chair Schoonover – Part of the issue started with County Planning. When you originally started designing everything they kept saying put future stuff on there and then you came to us and showed this leg here. You said you were not doing this now but they told you to draw it on there. I thought that was very confusing.

Cavey – It was confusing to us also. The other point is that it comes down to money. The other way it was advantageous for us to put all of our buildings in open space because our taxes would have lowered. Then County Planning is saying look at what’s happening – we’ve lost taxes because we are losing the largest taxpayer in the township - we can’t approve that.

Chair Schoonover – They back-pedaled.

Cavey – Yes. We initially did a simple block and it was advantageous to us too so now it’s not so advantageous to us but it does allow some flexibility in the future and we felt that as long as we were redoing it we would secure that buffer in the back. We felt it helps protect the residents and we wanted to show that we listened too.

Zoning Inspector – Part of the reason the County Planning Commission gets a little hyper and wants to have future uses on there is that it’s good planning to a point. If a developer ever thinks he is going to do something further down the road, it is prudent upon him and best for him to figure where that stuff could fall so that 10 or 15 years from now he can’t say that he put everything in the wrong place and now he can’t do anything.

Cavey – In defense of all the planning people I think this was the best for everybody. I think it is the best for us and going through the process might be a lot of hoops and everything but not really being developers, we’re just golf course people first, this eventually probably got us to the best position for everybody involved. I think if we take everybody’s input it’s only due process. Ultimately by the time we get to the end it is a really good project. I think it protected the concerns of the area, which is your job to do too, and it’s protected the school districts and taxes. It’s also given us some foresight to better understand what we are doing and how it has to be done in the future. Yes, it took longer that we hoped but I don’t know if that is real bad with what’s going on in the rest of the country right now.

Zoning Inspector – It’s a good process to go through because I think you end up with something that everybody is going to be happy with.

Takach – How many units did you have drawn, that are speculated?

Cavey – 47.

Chair Schoonover – That 47 would be the maximum on this particular piece of property.

Lewis – They only put 94 acres in the subdivision. There’s multiple reasons for showing only 47. There is a sanitary sewer, 8”, down by the park office building and the sanitary engineer told us they calculated the flow to that point and that sewer would only accommodate this many homes at this time until they upgraded it. So we knew we can’t exceed that number of homes because of the sewer issues at this time. Also, having the single access lane, we can’t exceed 50 homes.

Cavey – And we want to keep 27 holes.

Lewis – He wants to keep the golf course. There are a couple of options for the continuation of the street but sanitary sewer is not available at this time. Also you would have to acquire more property because you can’t exceed the 50 homes on one access.

Cavey – We have our maintenance facilities there. We have several acres with frontage along Lake Road that you could come back through there. The Parks Department would have to agree to that but that could be another way out.

Lewis – I think this is a big advantage to the township. You could have had one or one and one-half acre lots and instead of 12.8 acres in streets and sublots, you could have had 50 acres in streets and sublots and only 40 acres in open space. With this plan you only have 12.8 acres in streets and sublots and approximately 82 acres is in open space so they are getting smaller sublots. They are using up their density on small lots.

Chair Schoonover – We’ll review the landscape plan now.

Lewis – On the site plan we included the landscaping up here and details on the island and boulevard.

The landscaping plan was reviewed and there was some discussion about the type of bushes/shrubs, etc. Cavey indicated that about 10 years ago he had planted some trees by the parking lot (now about 20’ tall) and he was going to try to keep them. There will be landscaping with bushes or mounds, etc. and it will be aesthetically fit for a golf course concept.

Zoning Inspector – For the benefit of the group, I just convinced them to take this landscaping and continue it down a little further on the west side by 162. It can be made part of the motion. Landscaping gives the illusion of privacy and inclusion and people pay for that concept.

Cavey – The property is improved by the landscaping. This is going to be our main flagship property. It’s going to be beautiful landscaping. In all our places the contractors are using our facilities and the landscaping in their advertising.

Wenslow – Well it has to be nice because people judge what it is going to be like by the landscaping. I’ve always felt that Medina Country Club landscaping itself is very nice. It’s clean, meticulous and very attractive.

Zoning Inspector – It is and in order to make sure it stays that way it will be set out in the D & Cs (aka Homeowners Association aka HOA) documents. The D & Cs are going to say that the landscaping is maintained by the golf course. If something dies, you replace it with something equal or better. If it’s fallow land then it’s up to the Homeowners Association. The D & Cs have to be approved by the Prosecutor’s Office and the township at the time of final plan approval. This is just the preliminary plan.

There was discussion on how to proceed and with the wording to add the additional landscaping as agreed to by the developer tonight. There is a preliminary site plan and a preliminary subdivision plan so two motions would be needed.

Chair Schoonover – I personally feel that my questions were answered.

Biskup – I feel that you guys have went out of your way to try to meet everything that we have requested, that County Planning has requested, going back and forth, and I know we changed your time line around a lot but I appreciate what you did. I appreciate that you guys stuck with it and I think you have a good thing going here.

There was no further questions or comments by the Board members or the audience.

Mike Biskup made a motion to approve the Country Club Villas Golf Community Planned Unit Development Preliminary Site Plan as presented conditioned that the landscaping is extended west in Block B as much as is feasible, that all other comments from the Department of Planning Services Staff Report are addressed and subject to approval of the Homeowners Association (HOA) documents.

Sherri Meinke seconded the motion.

Roll call vote: Dianne Wenslow - yes

Karen Schoonover - yes

Sherri Meinke - yes

Russ Green - yes

Mike Biskup - yes

The motion was passed.

Sherri Meinke made a motion to approve the Country Club Villas Golf Community Planned Unit Development Preliminary Subdivision Plan as presented conditioned that all other comments from the Department of Planning Services Staff Report are addressed and subject to approval of the Homeowners Association (HOA) documents.

Russ Green seconded the motion.

Roll call vote: Dianne Wenslow - yes

Karen Schoonover - yes

Sherri Meinke - yes

Russ Green - yes

Mike Biskup - yes

The motion was passed.

The preliminary plans for the Country Club Villas GCPUD were stamped as approved and signed by the Chair Karen Schoonover. These plans will be presented to the Lafayette Township Trustees for their review and consideration of approval.

Organization

The organizational meeting had been tabled at the January 6, 2009, meeting awaiting the township trustees reappointment and/or appointment of members to the board. The organizational meeting was called to order. Nominations for the office of Chair were opened. Russ Green nominated Karen Schoonover, seconded by Sherri Meinke. Dianne Wenslow nominated Sherri Meinke but the motion died for lack of a second. The Board proceeded to vote for the nomination of Karen Schoonover for Chair for 2009. The vote was unanimous and the motion passed.

Nominations for the office of Vice Chair were opened. Sherri Meinke nominated Dianne Wenslow, seconded by Russ Green. There were no further nominations. The Board proceeded to vote for the nomination of Dianne Wenslow as Vice Chair for 2009. The vote was unanimous and the motion passed.

Karen Schoonover made a motion that the Board continue to hold its regular meetings for 2009 on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the township hall. Sherri Meinke seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous and the motion passed.

New Business

Chair Schoonover indicated that before the next meeting the Board members should review the zoning and look at specific priorities that should be focused on in addition to anything that would normally be handled such as site plans etc.

Nonconforming Lots in Chippewa Lake Area

Chair Schoonover stated that one priority that she would like to work on is in regard to language relative to the nonconforming lots in the Chippewa Lake area. Language is needed for those small lots because now those people have to come in for a variance if they want to do any type of building improvement on their property and it costs them money to come before the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance. There are things that we can do to create more reasonable side/front/rear yard footage specifically for that area – perhaps create a historical district. Right now it’s a commercial area but in fact it is a very blended community of commercial and residential.

The Board members discussed the possibilities and research could be done to see if there are other areas in Ohio with the same type of mixed/blended use, for example: Geneva-on-the-Lake and Valley City. Zoning Inspector Allis Strogin had a blown-up map of the Chippewa Lake area and the areas in question were pointed out. In addition to setbacks most of those lots are lacking required frontage and/or acreage as stated in the zoning code. If a new district were created it could be defined by roads/streets and perhaps a proportional table of lot sizes and setbacks could be established, i.e. if a lot was 50’ wide or less the side/front/rear setback could be 5’, 5’, 10’ and if a lot was 50’-100’ then the setbacks could be proportionately higher, etc.

Comprehensive Plan Revision

Another item on the priority list would be the comprehensive plan revision. It was announced that the steering committee for such revision would be meeting on Thursday, January 29, 2009, at 7 p.m.

Preliminary Plan - Hilton Chippewa Landing Resort and Cottages Subdivision

Zoning Inspector Strogin indicated that she and Chair Schoonover had met with developer Gary Sills relative to the proposed Hilton Chippewa Landing Resort and Cottages. She distributed to the Board copies of the proposed plan and the letter dated January 9, 2009. The concept has changed from individual houses to pretty much commercial. They are covering the property and the different buildings, etc. will be done in phases. The different aspects of the proposed plan were pointed out to the Board members and briefly discussed.

Chair Schoonover indicated that the Preliminary Plan for the Hilton Chippewa Landing Resort and Cottages is on the Medina County Planning Commission agenda for Wednesday, February 4, 2009, at 6:30 p.m. The MCDPS Staff Report for agenda items can normally be found on their website a few days prior to the scheduled meeting date; for this plan it should be available prior to our next regular meeting on Tuesday, February 3. It is anticipated that developer Gary Sills will present this plan to the Board on February 3 and be available to answer any questions. The Board members should review this preliminary plan along with the recent zoning text for the Chippewa Resort Overlay District prior to the next meeting.

There was discussion relative to the Comment Form that was received from MCDPS as it was sent out on 1/13/09 and was to be returned by 1/21/09, which is not adequate time for the Board to thoroughly review the plan and make comments as the regular meeting date is the first Thursday of each month. It was suggested that language be drafted to possibly add to the Board’s guidelines establishing cut-off dates for receipt of plans.

Announcements

- The next regular meeting of the Zoning Commission will be Tuesday, February 3, 2009, at 7 p.m. at the town hall.

- MCDPS Zoning Workshop on the “Basics of Zoning” will be Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 6:30 p.m. at the University of Akron, Medina County Campus, 6300 Technology Lane, Room 309 in Lafayette Township.

Adjournment

Upon motion by Karen Schoonover, duly seconded by Mike Biskup, it was unanimous that the meeting be adjourned. Adjourned at 9:02 p.m.

Marlene L. Oiler, Certified PP, PLS

Lafayette Township Zoning Commission Secretary

(Note: Minutes approved on 2/3/09.)