PLANNING COMMISSION JOINT MEETING

WITH CITY COUNCIL

MINUTES OF MEETING JUNE 26, 2006

 

CALL TO ORDER:

 

The Chairman called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.   

 

PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Ken Kraus, Alan Seymour, Don Bergwall, Pete Griffin, John Cunningham.  Roger Yoder – absent.  1 vacancy.

 

COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Mark Reams, Leah Sellers, John Marshall, Dan Fogt, Ed Pleasant, Dave Burke, John Gore

 

OTHERS PRESENT:

 

Phil Roush

 

DISCUSSION ITEMS:

 

Mr. Gore stated he would like to start the meeting by making two additional recommendations to appoint two additional members to the Design Review Board.  He stated the first one he would like to nominate would be David Kluge.  David is retired from Nestles and was part of the team that designed the current Nestles facility.  He had contacted David Burke and stated he is now retired and would like to be involved in the community.  We had contact with him and sent him and outline of what is to be expected of that group and he is more than willing to serve.  Mr. Gore stated Larry George who is employed by the City of Dublin is the other recommendation.  Larry was a project engineer at Wheeling Pittsburg Steel, project inspector of the installation of water and sewer lines in Jefferson County Ohio, was a project engineer overseeing and inspecting the construction of the Honda of Marysville building and is also a resident of Marysville and very interested in serving his community. 

 

Mrs. Sellers made a motion to appoint Mr. Kluge and Mr. George to the Design Review Board.  Voice vote was unanimous. 

 

Mr. John Cunningham stated tonight’s agenda is storm water and drainage.  Mr. Roush is going to provide information talking about what is going on now and what’s happening with Adena Pointe and South Park.

 

Mr. Roush stated he is going to start by passing out a letter that he had sent to Planning Commission back in February of 2003.  It talks about floodways, the impact of developments on floodways and it mentions chapter 1313 of the codified ordinance.  This is the controlling rule.  It is a requirement of FEMA that we have a flood plain prevention ordinance.  The basis of this chapter is that the developer has to do a study of the area that they are going to impact in any development and it is done in accordance with MORPC guidelines.  It is then my role to make sure that the study is proper and in the best interest of the City, done the right way and implemented properly. 

 

Mr. Roush stated when he started work for the City of Marysville under Steve Lowe, he told me we have a problem with the Town Run drainage system, it’s been an issue and we want to study it.  We did a Town Run Ditch Capacity Study.  In the first map it shows the entire Town Run drainage system.  It is the only drainage system in town that we have had studied.  What we wanted to do was to study the entire system and find out where the problem areas were and how hydraulics work and come up with a list of recommended projects to make improvements. 

 

Mr. Roush stated the Town Run System takes care of the southern portion of the City up through the downtown area.  It includes some of our most problematic drainage areas;  South Park, the old Bishop Ditch and the downtown area.  As a result of the study, we identified about $6 million worth of projects that should be done.  Some of them are highlighted in the summary.  On the last map it shows that if you were to put a detention facility in the area close to the airport, just south of Eljer Park, and hold the water, it would keep downtown from flooding.  We could also do another sewer pattern that would go up by the hospital and take the water to the same basin.  After that was built we can do a storm sewer along London Ave. and intercept the water that comes across London Ave into South Park, bring it up to this basin and bypass Bishop Ditch. 

 

He stated as a result of this study it is nice that we identified these projects but we don’t have any money to do any of them.  So we created the storm water utility.  We had a storm water rate study done.  From there we came up with some proposed budgets and recommended a monthly rate for equivalent residential units (ERU) to do these projects.  We started through the process of getting this implemented and ran into a few snags and the rate we ended up with was not as much as the study had recommended.  The study recommended we start with $4.13 per ERU and we got $2.50 per ERU. 

 

Mr. Roush stated this is a copy of the current 5 year plan that the Finance Director keeps updated.  It lists some equipment the storm water workers would like to have, it includes a project to enclose the Town Run Ditch between 4^th and 5^th Streets and it has the airport park retention basin as a project.  One of the reasons we are not able to do the larger projects is because our storm water utility income is not enough to borrow money to do the larger projects.  From this year’s budget, I copied the storm water assessment fund sheet and you can see that our storm water fees have been growing. In the first year, 2004, we received $345,000 which was just a partial year.  In 2005 we collected $428,000 and it estimated this year that we will collect $461,000. The original budget amount we were looking for back with the storm water study was $790,000.  For 2006 we were predicting $756,000, so we are still less than what the storm water study stated we needed to produce.

 

Mr. Roush stated as you may have noticed as part of the street repaving work all of the catch basins and manholes are getting rebuilt and that is being paid for out of the storm water budget.  He stated in the May budget report about $380,000 for stormwater, so we are accumulating some money.  The thing you have to be careful of is some of the items on the project list are dependent on other projects. 

 

Mr. Roush stated we do have the FEMA maps, the one of Marysville was done in 1986 and the one for Union County was done in 1991.  The danger with relying on the maps too much is when the maps were done it was based on the current conditions and did not factor in potential growth. 

 

Mr. Gore asked who’s responsibility it was to update this study.  Mr. Roush stated if you wait long enough FEMA will get around to updating it, but if you really want it updated and the City doesn’t mind paying 100% of the cost it can be done.

 

Mr. Roush stated with the Town Run Study we identified projects that would help out with the flooding in the south part of the Town Run water shed.  Mr. Roush showed a map that indicated how the water actually flowed.  He stated when the Adena Pointe development came up, us not being able to fund these other projects; we told the developer that you have to take care of all the water that comes through this basin through your development and perhaps help out or at least not make the current water situation any worse.  The developer looked at this and initially decided that maybe they could do a detention basin in South Park that would help us and help them.  We have come up against potential wetlands that may prevent us from doing something.  When the developer did the drainage study they took into account all of the water that comes through here and completed the study in February 2006.  What they determined was with what they would have in a critical year they would need to provide 12 ½ acre feet of storage for all of their retention.  That would be a 12 ½ acre area one foot deep.  What they are providing on their site is 18.9 acre feet of storage.  They are providing 50% more than what the calculations show they need. 

 

Mr. Marshall asked Mr. Roush what the difference was between detention and retention.  Mr. Roush stated detention slows the water down and retention is a basin that actually holds the water. 

 

Mr. Seymour stated a retention pond also detains.  Mr. Roush stated yes.

 

Mr. Kraus stated the airport ground will not allow retention, because it would attract water fowl.

 

Mr. Roush stated he has had conversation with the airport people and they have some concerns with stormwater.  They stated maybe if they did a detention it would help out and not be that bad, but we don’t have anything funded yet.

 

Mr. Gore stated basically you are saying Adena Pointe is dedicating 1 ½ times the amount of retention than what they are required to do, yet there is a lot of controversy over Adena Pointe.

 

Mr. Roush stated what happened is early on before they looked at South Park their engineer was looking at the area and thought South Park would make a natural detention facility.  They thought if they could put some of their storm water there from this 137 acres before it ever got to Adena Pointe they could make the basins in the subdivision a little smaller.  Unfortunately, they came to us with that idea and were pushing that so we went to the Parks and Rec Commission because it is part of the parks system.  Watcon Engineering came in and said we are going to put a pond in your park and it will be nice and useable.  That was in summer or fall of 2005.  In February, they came back after they had EMH&T look at it and determined that the basin couldn’t go in South Park because it may be wetlands.  That is where all of the controversy started.  Mrs. House and I set down with Beazer and told them that whether or not you are able to put a detention basin in South Park you have committed to doing something in South Park and we are going to hold you to helping us improve it.  Since then we have been trying to determine whether or not it is a wetland and can we do something with it.

 

Mr. Gore asked if the Army Corp of Engineers was the only one that could make that determination.  Mr. Roush stated yes.  Mr. Gore asked if they have to actually visit the site.  Mr. Roush stated we would have to provide them with some data and plans.  Mr. Gore asked if it is a wetland does that mean that technically nothing should have been built on in that area to begin with.  Mr. Roush stated you can build around it.  Mr. Gore stated from what he read if there are wetlands then there is no digging or anything and this has taken place in this area.

 

Mr. Roush stated the other question is when does wet land become a wetland.  He stated the City had John Chaney come over and look at the property.  He stated if you are farming property and growing crops, the Army Corp of Engineers will not make a determination because they don’t care.  Once you stop farming it and if it has the right soils, is usually wet and has the right plant life then it is probably a wetland.

 

Mr. Gore stated then a wetland is basically left alone whatever chooses to live there is there.  Mr. Roush stated yes, but there is a way you can get rid of them.  It is called mitigation which means you go and buy an acre and a half for every acre that you disturb and replace it. 

 

Mr. Kraus asked if you can replace existing tiles that happen to already be in the ground.  Mr. Roush stated he didn’t know that is what he is trying to get a hold of the Corp about. 

 

Mr. Roush stated another thing that is going to help is that we would like to attempt to do some repair but the catch basins are far apart and are hard to get cleaned out.  The other thing that is going to happen is that the tile that is currently running through Bishop Ditch is in really bad shape.  Adena Pointe is going to develop and put in their new storm sewer system, so whatever comes through South Park will drain through the Adena project. 

 

Mr. Griffin asked if it will replace the farm tiles.  Mr. Roush stated it will not replace Bishop Ditch but it will be a storm sewer system that will work instead of the Bishop Ditch.

 

Mr. Griffin asked in essence the movement of water through that property will take place because it will be engineered through that and it will receive water from up stream.

 

Mr. Seymour stated you mentioned there are catch basins in South Park and the tile is underneath South Park.  The tile that Adena Pointe puts in will be at the same level as the existing.  Mr. Roush stated it will be deep enough to take care of it.  Mr. Seymour stated the Timberview water goes under the road and over the ground into the catch basins, so if it is tiled properly Adena Pointe will take the water away.  Mr. Roush stated yes.

 

Mr. Kraus stated the tile in South Park is probably full of silt because the water had no where to run. 

 

Mr. Roush stated in the earlier handout that had the potential projects listed you see that before the airport detention basin is built they would need a storm sewer that would come up Greenwood Blvd. and another up London Ave. to tie into the basin. 

 

Mr. Roush stated with the last major rain we had just a couple of weeks ago I did not hear of any major flooding.  One thing that has helped in the Barhaven area is ORW cleaned out the detention basin and put it back to its original capacity. 

 

Mr. Marshall stated in regards to South Park, the assumption is whatever tile that has been put in there is either a) 100 years old and is collapsed, b) full of silt because it hasn’t been able to drain properly or c) the Corp of Engineers comes in and says it is officially a wetland.  In both options a) and b) we basically have to put new tile in to drain it and with c) we have to keep water out of there somehow.  Mr. Roush stated he is not sure if all of that is correct.  That is why I want to talk to someone there to find out what our real options are.  The real question is that there is a tile in there now, are we going to get in trouble if we fix it?

 

Mr. Bergwall asked if Mr. Roush was aware of the activity the State of Michigan took with the Supreme Court in the past few weeks.  The Supreme Court made a ruling as to what is a wetland and the way it was written said it had to be close to a major body of water. 

 

Mr. Griffin stated he wanted to make sure that are we are talking about all development in this area, from Greenwood Colony and east, it would include Keystone Crossing, Chestnut Park and the Weinlein Property.  As we talk about this development can we safely say that this will have no negative impact?  Mr. Roush stated yes.

 

Mr. Roush stated we can do our best efforts to take care of the flooding.  We can look at the rain fall records, do our designs and try to make sure that as engineers we anticipate the worst conditions.  If we get 7 inches of rainfall over two days, whatever we design it isn’t going to work.  There is always the risk that something is going to happen that we haven’t anticipated. 

 

Mr. Gore stated the bottom line here is that there was commitment by the developer to design and or incorporate South Park in this development that would make everyone happy.  Now that it is possibly being designated a wetland, the developer is coming back and saying I can’t do that. The people that said okay to that are now upset because nothing is going to be done.  So let’s say it is a wetland, the concern I hear from the people that live in that area is the concern of everything that will live in there.  How do we hold the developer responsible for doing something that is going to satisfy everyone?  Granted we are beyond telling them they can’t develop.  So how do we hold them accountable? 

 

Mr. Roush stated we went to the Park and Rec meeting in June and we told them it is not our intention to create a habitat for the kinds of things that you don’t want.  Worse case scenario is that South Park would stay the way it is now.  We also told the residents that we told the developer if this does turn out to be a wetland that they can not do anything with, we expect them to build a trail system around the area.

 

Mr. Seymour stated that there were a couple of points that came out of the meeting.  It appears that the city is going to make every effort to make that a dry area, so that makes the wildlife concern null and void.  Then it becomes a more developable area around the 3 acres we can’t touch.  Mr. Roush stated he is not sure if it is going to be continued to be mowed. 

 

Mr. Marshall stated the major issue here is one the engineering of taking the water from A to B and two from the City’s point of view after this builds out South Park may be the closest piece of green space for 5 miles.  If we can use that area as a means of controlling water without going in and having to redo tiles and it is the intermediate part of it.  No matter what type of tile you put in there, if we have a heavy rain you are going to have water that is going to go in and sit. 

 

Mr. Bergwall stated you pointed out all of these areas that are going to develop in this watershed and we are always talking about them individually, but when they all are accumulative, what happens when that goes into the Town Run.  Mr. Roush stated the way the developments are progressing, nothing will happen down stream.  We need to have the airport detention facility built. 

 

Mr. Cunningham asked if the detention is 1.1 million gal. would retention be the same?  Mr. Roush stated yes.

 

Mrs. Sellers stated what she is hearing then is until the airport detention facility is done it is going to flood.  Mr. Roush stated until it is done there is the greater potential of flooding in the downtown area.  The one reason we started this whole study is because in the late 90’s there was the major flooding downtown. 

 

Mr. Griffin stated he was on Parks and Rec a while back when South Park was first discussed and it was decided that they wanted it to remain a passive park. 

 

Mr. Reams stated the comprehensive plan shows South Park being a passive natural park.

 

(Too many people talking at once could not make out conversation on the recording.)

 

Mr. Gore stated he wants to go back and discuss the impact Adena Pointe has on South Park and the impact the Weinlein project has with Adena Pointe. 

 

Mr. Roush stated the Weinlein people have some ideas that they think they are going to do but they have not received the approval of the City Engineer or the Planning Commission. 

 

Mr. Griffin stated they are going to have to deal with nature the way it is.  If they are going to impact people in a negative way they will need to rectify it.  Mr. Roush stated it is our job to make sure they do not impact it in a negative way. 

 

Mrs. Sellers stated it seems like we have a first come first serve kind of policy.  The first phase of Adena Pointe is already going forward yet we don’t have this entire area mapped out as far as what we are going to do with this water. 

 

Mr. Roush stated we do.  We make sure that who ever is going to develop in this area takes care of all the water that naturally comes through as a developed area.  They have to look at this not as it exists, but as if this area was to fully develop and determine if they have enough storage to accommodate it.

 

Mr. Gore asked did Adena Pointe change the flow of water.  Mr. Roush stated no.  Mr. Gore stated then the only proposal is Weinlein to change the natural flow of water.  So if we take the position as council and commission that you don’t mess with Mother Nature, then what does that do for future development?

 

Mr. Marshall stated we should take the entire area and look at it as one development.  But this is not a perfect world.  He asked with Adena Pointe, is the idea that they have the ability to hold, store and reduce flow so that after a rain what is released from this development really isn’t much higher as a result of the development.  Mr. Roush stated yes. 

 

Mr. Marshall asked if we got 3 inches in a 24 hr. period, how much hazard is there that there is overland flow.  Is there much potential for that?  Mr. Roush stated no.

 

Mrs. Sellers stated back to the downtown flooding.  What are the scenarios that could make that happen?  How is the build out going to affect this?  Mr. Roush stated it won’t affect it.  Right now water stands on property just north of the airport property, stands on the Ahlers property and the Adena Pointe property.  Development would make it better.  The storm water design that Adena Pointe has done is done so they won’t release any more water than what gets released right now.  The whole goal of the airport detention basin is to reduce the flow of water through the Town Run to reduce the possibility of flooding downtown.  What any of the other developments are doing is putting detention in their development so they won’t make flooding any worse than it is now.

 

Mr. Fogt stated when there is a heavy rain, there is flooding everywhere.  There are 1000’s of geese because they like fresh water.  That is why I don’t like putting a detention basin at the end of the runway, because it can cause problems.  Mr. Roush there is water there now. 

 

Mr. Kraus stated the engineer needs to adopt an engineering policy in regards to changing water flow. 

 

Mr. Gore asked if Mr. Roush had heard from the Corp of Engineers.  Mr. Roush stated no. 

 

Mr. Bergwall asked what is the current status with Beazer right now relative to what they are going to do in South Park.  Mr. Roush stated they are in a holding pattern right now.  Mrs. House and I told them we would get back with them and let them know what they are going to do.  Beazer has agreed to make some improvements and what it will probably end up being is part of the pathway system.  We have in mind about $100,000 worth of work to be coming from them.

 

Mr. Bergwall stated it seems that if you go back to the Preliminary Plat, the question should be whether or not they have an area they have to leave alone or an area they are going to develop into a pond.  What I understood from previous meetings is South Park is a wetland and nothing can be done.  Mr. Roush stated they will be doing some improvements; it is just a matter of what. 

 

Mr. Bergwall stated there are questions regarding the Preliminary Plat to make sure they have all the retention required.  They need to review the length of blocks and whether or not they need some cross access at the 900’ long level.  We need verification on the R-4 section because the plat does not show the rear access to garages.  I would also like to know the status of the continuation of Greenwood Blvd.  I said this at the last meeting and I will say again, they are not going to get a yes vote from me without knowing what is happening down the road.

 

Mr. Fogt asked if he understood right that Adena Pointe is not going to be required to do any improvements to South Park until phase 4 or 5.  Mr. Roush stated that is when that storm water retention will be built.  Mr. Fogt asked how far that is away.  Mr. Roush stated it could be several years out.  Mr. Fogt asked if there is any way to require that they hook up the tile prior to the building of that phase.  Mr. Roush stated they have to keep hooking up parts of the Bishop ditch they come upon while they are building the current areas. 

 

Mr. Gore stated there are damaged tiles there now.  Is it our responsibility to maintain them?  Mr. Roush stated no the way the ditch laws work is that it is the responsibility of the property owner to keep the tiles in maintenance. 

 

Mr. Gore asked who the property owner is.  Mr. Roush stated it is probably Beazer Homes at this point.  Mr. Gore stated if they are cooperating with us now and they want future development in this community, then someone needs to have a talk with them.  Mr. Roush asked how many thousands of dollars can you put into a project before you start selling houses.  Mr. Gore stated if that is how they want to do it, we just tell them this is what our City attorney tells us and this is what needs to be done.  Mr. Roush stated then you need to sue the rest of the farmers that are there and need to repair their drainage tiles.

 

Mr. Griffin stated he thinks we should take a hard line on this and try to make it happen sooner rather than later.  Mr. Kraus stated Beazer is big enough, they have deep pockets.

 

Mr. Fogt stated they can’t put the trail in until the water issue is resolved.

 

Mrs. Sellers asked in the big picture how much is this going to cost to replace the tile through South Park.  Mr. Roush stated the tile will either need to be replaced or cleaned out and we can’t do anything until we talk to the Corp of Engineers and see what we are allowed to do. 

 

Mr. Sellers stated she thought that no matter what, we know we are either going to have to repair the damaged tile and/or clean out the silt.  Mr. Roush stated if we replace it we may get in trouble with the Corp., we don’t know right now. 

 

Mr. Seymour stated the rest of the story from the June Parks and Rec meeting is that Mr. Blumenschein stood up and said do what is right and fix the tile.  We carried it from there and Steve Connolly spoke up and said there is $75,000 in the South Park budget fund we will repair the tile.  Explain the limits to what that really means.

 

Mr. Roush stated he will do what he can…….

 

Mr. Gore stated before we go further, we were told today that that was not going to happen.  He asked Mr. Marshall to confirm.  Mr. Gore stated Mr. Marshall asked that question and Mrs. House stated that at this time it’s not going to happen that Mr. Roush had taken the position and talked to Mr. Connolly and told him that he could not make that commitment. 

 

Mr. Roush stated he did not say that.  The morning after that meeting I had a meeting with Steve Connolly, Lane Stillings, Tracie Davies and Joe Tracey and we talked about what we can do and what can’t we do.  We talked about a couple of the areas around the catch basins that had the obvious blow outs of the tiles.  Joe, Steve and Lane went down to look at it to see what they could do.  I haven’t heard back from them yet as to what they can do.

 

Mr. Marshall stated he is trying to remember what Mrs. House said whether it was a definite no or not.  Mr. Gore stated he asked the question about the commitment that was made.  Mr. Marshall stated his response was that I was admittedly opposed until we were for sure what the plan was.

 

Mr. Roush stated we agreed with the other departments that if we can stay out of the wetlands then we can make any repairs we want to. 

 

Mr. Kraus stated to do anything in South Park would be a wasted exercise until you have a good outflow.  The first question is does Beazer own the property or is it still in the Joe Call estate.  If Beazer would at least fix the blowouts something might work.

 

Mr. Roush asked Mr. Kraus if he knows if the part of the Bishop Ditch that comes from South Park is 24” or is it smaller.  The reason is, when Adena started installing the force main through the woods they intercepted a 12” line that was coming from that direction.  They rerouted it so it drains into an open ditch and it is draining full time.

 

Mr. Kraus stated he believes the old tile in South Park was about a 6”. 

 

Mr. Griffin stated what needs to happen is to make sure that the land that is being developed is draining properly and then deal with South Park as a separate issue.

 

Mrs. Sellers asked what the alternate route is.  You talked about an alternate route for the storm sewer up SR 38.  Mr. Roush stated when we get the airport detention basin going then we have a proposed storm sewer to come up Greenwood Blvd. and one up London Ave. to Greenwood Blvd. to advert it from South Park.

 

Mr. Gore stated we need to get legislation in place to say that the engineer takes the position that you will need to follow the natural flow of the water for any development in the future.

 

Mr. Seymour stated there is an open issue which is that South Park won’t be dry for 2-5 years.  Mr. Gore stated it won’t be dry through the development.

 

Mr. Roush stated the developers storm sewer system will not get there officially until that point.  However, this tile that they have intercepted is being rerouted and could be the tile coming from South Park. 

 

Mr. Cunningham stated he talked to ODNR and they gave me the name of the person with the Corp of Engineers that you need to talk to. 

 

Mrs. Sellers asked if there are going to be any ODNR issues.  Mr. Roush stated the final determination is the Corp.

 

Mrs. Sellers stated the big issues are what repairs are needed for the water to flow properly and who is going to pay for it.  She stated in the county the way it works with ditches and making repairs to tiles is that the land owners are assessed if they benefit from the repairs.  Mr. Roush stated that is generally done by petition.

 

Mr. Kraus stated with lacking ditch laws in the city would we follow the same ditch laws as the county.  Mrs. Sellers stated we don’t have to. 

 

Mrs. Sellers asked if this storm water study was sufficient enough to start charging storm water impact fees. 

 

Mr. Roush stated we have a storm water utility fee.  Would we do an impact fee separate?

 

Mr. Gore stated we had a real concern with the cost of $4.31 of the utility fees and the impact it would have on some residents.

 

Mrs. Sellers stated she is talking about a front end fee that would be assessed on the developer where we look at the whole area and what is needed and we divide it out.

 

Mr. Kraus stated impact fees are a whole other area when we need to be dealing with roads and traffic at the same time.

 

Mr. Marshall stated the impact right now is basically being picked up by the developer because Mr. Roush and his staff are basically mandating that in order for them to proceed with the project they have to fix the infrastructure. 

 

Mr. Bergwall stated the problem currently be it with storm water or roads or whatever, is the developer is only playing within the lines of their sandbox.  The needs go beyond that.  Going back to the roads, Chestnut and Walnut Streets, after all of this development there are going to be big problems in getting traffic past the point of these developments to Fifth Street.  This is where the impact fee would come into play.  We seem to be able to get a $1000 per lot for parks but we can’t seem to get money for roads or storm water or other issues.

 

Mr. Roush stated he partly agrees with that but I believe that is why we created the storm water utility.  To create a funding mechanism to do these kind of repairs.

 

Mrs. Sellers stated but we don’t want to charge our current residents for the new developments.  The new developments should pay for themselves. 

 

Mr. Kraus stated they are taking care of them selves by building 1 ½ times the detention that they actually need. 

 

Mr. Marshall stated we are doing PUD’s with 100 acres at a time.  What we need to be doing is PUD’s with 600 – 1000 acres, 4 developers, and 8 land owners at a time.

 

Mr. Cunningham asked how you make that happen.

 

Mr. Marshall stated you are Planning Commission; we are the City Council, we do it.  Dublin is doing it.  There is an issue with our processing system because we are playing catch up.  Mr. Roush is doing what he can.  You guys brought up other issues such as traffic and storm water.  I agree that on Chestnut and Walnut you can barely get one car down that road.

 

Mr. Cunningham stated then if there is legislation that can make that happen then let’s sit down and discuss it.  Mr. Marshall agreed.

 

Mr. Seymour stated we are outside the bounds of tonight’s discussion.  What we do have now is enough understanding to be able to deal with the developments as they come in. 

 

Mr. Gore stated as to the action items we need to contact the Corp of Engineers, we need to consider legislation on the engineer’s position that you go with Mother Nature for the flow of water.  We also need to consider some type of approach to Beazer Homes and say by law as the land owner you are responsible to repair this and we would like your cooperation with fixing the South Park issue. 

 

Mr. Bergwall asked what the question is that we are bringing to the Corp of Engineers.

 

Mr. Roush stated we are asking them if we can repair tiles.  Mr. Bergwall stated we are not asking if it is a wetland.  Mr. Kraus stated we don’t want that answer; we just want to repair the tile.  Mr. Bergwall asked why we don’t want to know.

 

Mr. Roush stated we had a hydraulic scientist look at it and he determined there is a 90% probability that it is a wetland.  If we want to push the Corp I’m sure they would be happy to tell it that it is and then we would have to spend more money to do a study to determine the exact boundaries of it.

 

Mr. Kraus stated a couple of items he made notes on were if I understand Mr. Roush correctly, based on the plan right now as it sits with Keystone, Chestnut and Adena and so on, the effect on the uptown area from a flooding standpoint from these developments is neutral.  Mr. Roush stated correct.  Mr. Kraus stated the airport detention would make it better.  He stated Adena Pointe is providing 1 ½ times more retention than what is needed for their area and everything upstream based on a developed status.  Everyone has agreed that there will be no change in the watershed.  South Park will be no worse than it is right now.  It has a possibility of having 3-5 acres of wetland on it.  Beazer has committed to do something to South Park they are just waiting on direction from the Administration.  He stated the Bishop Ditch tile will flow and connect properly for the South Park outlet.  It would be nice to get Beazer to fix the existing blow outs with Phase 1. 

 

Mr. Kraus stated from a Planning Commission perspective we need updates and verifications on everything that was talked about with Adena Pointe before they bring in Phase 2 for Final Plat.

 

Mr. Kraus stated that for the council members just so you are aware, when a developer comes to Planning Commission we don’t just look at the developer’s sandbox, we look at the big box.  The trick is to get the balance between the two of them.

 

Mr. Cunningham stated he would like to know the trick to getting 4 developers in at one time.  We were able to get things done with Dominion and M/I because we were talking about a larger area.

 

ADJOURNMENT:

 

Meeting was adjourned.