North Linden Area Commission Meeting, October 18 2018
- Vacant business seat
- Demolition permits
- Motion to support the thing of empowerment
- Schools
- Zoning
- Post-meeting
I didn't cover the September meeting, but you can download the meeting agenda and meeting minutes from my mirrored copies.
I arrived at today's meeting on 6:56, in the middle of the Columbus Metro Parks presentation about the ballot issue raising the property tax levy, Issue 3 on this November's ballot.
Download the October 18 agenda (754K)
Vacant business seat
Heather FitzGerald was appointed to the vacant business seat at this meeting, for a term that ends in June 2020.
Demolition permits
Tonight's business was quickly concluded.
2464 Azelda
Demolition permit tktk
Deemed unsafe, seconded and approved.
Duplex 2386 & 2388 Linden,
Demolition permit 1808185
Seconded and approved.
Motion to support the thing of empowerment
approved
Schools
The plans for stuff are in flux; Columbus City Schools has discussed losing the linden-McKinley school building.
Zoning
Fire Department zoning variance
The new Station 16 at Oakland Park Avenue is requesting a reduction of setback in several places on Oakland Park avenue and Medina Avenue. They're also requesting a landscaping variation.
The Area Commission's positions on recommending the zoning commisssion allow the variances:
- Reduces setback on Oakland Park Avenue from 30 to 28 feet: approved
- Reduce setback on Medina Avenue from 28 feet to 8 feet: approved
- Reduce parking setback on Oakland Park Avenue from 10 feet to 5 feet: approved
- Reduce parkign setback on Medina Avenue from 10 feet to 8 feet: approved
- Landscaping code requires a green-space island every 10 spaces; these "peninsulas" in the parking lot interfere with the desired layout for parking back there. They'll counter the lack of "interior lot landscaping" with adding green space along Oakland Park Avenue, but really they're just asking to have the requirement lifted. Approved.
Homeport on Cleveland Avenue
Download the zoning application (5.7M)
for a church? Owns at least 80-90 homes in the area, all single-family. They want to bring some multi-family sites to the corner of Eddystone and Cleveland Avenue. They want to merge the parcels into a three-story walk-up apartment building with 45 apartments.
Right now they're seeking variances to the current R4 zoning, but they may seek total rezoning of the land in the future once they've secured funding.
This building would include both housing and counseling. Homeport works with professional property management services.
Similar to the fire department, Homeport wants to avoid having the peninsulas in the parking lot, but they will provide the same number of required trees.
Asking for 4 variances:
- increased number of units on property
- screening variation shorter than required by code
- more parking spaces
- decreased setback
Commissioner question: woud these residents be specific people or is it open to the public?
Answer: open to public.
Q: 45 units but 46 spaces. Are you expecting that people will park on other streets?
Answer: We consulted with other similar developments and found that the car ownership ratio for units was closer to 1:1 than Columbus' requirements. Homeport is also working with a way to get additional parking from Mount Lebanon, the church behind the property, to borrow some of their spaces. And the closeness of CMAX and COTA lines decreases the need for buses. The citywide standard is 1.5 spaces per unit for this area.
Q: All 2-br?
A: A mix of 2 and 1 bedroom.
Q: What's the rent going to be?
A: Affordable market rates; we'd do a market study before setting rent.
Q: Little Caesar's pizza on Eddystone backs up down Eddystone to Cleveland Avenue on Friday nights. How will you handle that traffic jam?
A: We can't really address what Little Caesar's is doing. If Little Caesar's is causing queueing on the public street, they're in violation and the area commission should contact the mayor's office. And if they can fit 8 cars in their drive-through, they're compliant with the city's requirement for stacking spaces.
Q: How will you handle runoff from that parking lot? We already get runoff from the park nearby, which causes problems for the neighborhood.
A: No development can discharge water offsite; Homeport will direct water to stormwater detention chambers onsite. Downspouts, the parking lot, the sidewalks — all this water will be stored under the parking lot. The city doesn't approve constructoin that runs water off of the site. And Homeport and the developer are responsible for any sewer upgrades necessary for the site to handle stormwater and sanitary discharge.
Q from commissioner: How will you address trash in the alley? And drug activity?
A: Homeport's development will address trash on the property and general cleanliness.
Q from commissioner: Height restriction concern. Most buildings in the area are single-family 1- and 2-story homes; the tallest thing in the area is New Salem church. Are we inviting taller buildings into a family neighborhood?
A: We're not asking for a height variance. And this building will be shorter than many existing buildings along the Cleveland Avenue corridor.
Q from commissioner: Is the site layout appropriate? With the green spaces along Cleveland Avenue, would children be apprpriately directed towards the park rather than playing near the street?
A from commissioner: Those are the required setbacks; they can't build up against Cleveland Avenue without a variance.
A from Homeport: We'd have a property manager onsite to tell kids off.
Q from audience: Regarding the church's parking, and the general parking situation, is 1 parking space per unit enough when churches in the area back up onto Cleveland Avenue for parking? Is 1.5 parking spaces per unit enough?
A: Based on what we regularly see parked on site in similar properties, we think the parking utilization is closer to 1:1. If we succeed in the deal with Mount Lebanon, we'd get another 8 spaces. And if necessary, we could mvoe the parking lot closer to the building to get another row of double-stacked spaces closer to the building, for a total of 54 spaces.
Q from audience: How would this affect the Columbia gas building?
A: We work with our utility partners to prevent interruptions.
Q from audience: What's the construction timeline? How long would we have sounds and constructoin?
A: 12-14 month construction period beginning in 2019 when we get funding.
Q from audience member who lives nearby: Will this cast a shadow on my property? I wanted to install solar.
A: We can give you more information about that later.
Q from neighbor of the property: I get huge amounts of runoff from the park nearby; I don't want more parking causing runoff.
Q from same person: I'm not happy with any increase in density in Linden; the Linden revitalization plan determined that we'd want to return to the style of old Linden. I'm not opposed to mutifamily housing; I am opposed to overly dense parking. There's a reason that the zoning limit is 4 units per building.
A from New Salem: There's a reason this is called the "One Linden" plan. it is not the "Old Linden" plan; it is not the "New Linden" plan.
A from commission: Bad tenants still have rights; evictions take time even when the landlord is on the ball.
Q from same person: I don't trust New Salem and New Salem has a history of not maintaining that property.
A: New Salem would own the property, but we'd run it and we'd work with a property manager to keep it clean.
A from New Salem: The apartments have been vacant from the last ten years; the trash issues are not New Salem's problem. We do as best as we can to keep it clean when people call 311.
The commission tabled the variance until November's meeting.
A resident expressed frustration that there was not a decision being made tonight. He was frustrated with New Salem's parking problems on Sundays; he's frustrated with CPD who siezed his home camera system's DVR as evidence when someone died nearby. And he doesn't have the time to come back to register his concerns. He thinks that it's wrong that the owners and managers won't live on the property.
Post-meeting
A post on Facebook by the North Linden Area Commission after the meeting read:
Thank you to those who attended the meeting this evening. We heard from the Columbus Women’s Commission, Metro Parks on Issue 3, voted to recommend zoning variances for the new Station 16 firehouse, and started the discussion regarding the variance request for the Homeport Cleveland Ave. project, which was tabled to November.
Because of the overwhelming interest about the Homeport Project, NLAC is working to host a community forum so neighbors have more time to learn, discuss, share, and be included in our recommendation to the City. We know it may not work in your schedule to attend another meeting, so please take a moment to send us an email (northlindenareacomm@gmail.com) or message so your voice is heard and questions are answered. More details will come soon!
Thank you for being involved and sharing your voice tonight. The variance application can be found in our public google drive.
The variance application is the one I have linked above; here's another download link for it.