North Linden Area Commision Zoning Report, February 2023, and other notes
Zoning Committee Report
The Zoning Committee brought forward one item for the North Linden Area Commission to vote on in their February Meeting
- DEMO for 2425 Linden Avenue, which is owned by Columbus Holding Group, and will be demolished and sold to Homeport.
At the meeting, NLAC voted to approve the request, but noted that they wanted the city to follow up and ensure that the property would be fenced in using something better than chain link fence.
Download the February 2023 report (7.2MB PDF)
Other notes from this meeting
- Recognition of Health and Safety Committee members: Chair Perkins described their efforts this past year: so, so much stuff. TKTK ask Carol for those notes.
Councilmember Remy
Emmanuel Remy is chair of city council's Public Safety, Environment, and Administration committees.
- Re: the public safety campus concept discussed in January: he supports it.
- Old Fire Station 16 will be demolished this year
- He talked with parents of the Kia Boys (and Girls); he says that kids these days can't handle themselves without electronics. This year's budget has a Block Watch grant, for training and funding for them. Catalytic Converter etching to make sure they're identifiable. Club programs. The City Attorney suing Kia and Hyundai for selling insecure cars. But he's focused on the police/fire mentality.
- Alleviating overuse of 911 for non-emergency medical stuff: Columbus is working to add a nurse triage line to 911, and add telemedicine and transport to urgent care and pharmacy. Designed to support folks without good access to standard medical systems.
- Environmental work includes refuse and recycling collection: new weekly recycling pickup this year.
- April 1 scarlet cart thing? Channel 4 is media partner on that.
- Ramp cleanups to come this spring.
Chassidy Barham, Assistant City Attorney, zone initiative
Handles public nuisance abatements actions in CPD Zone 4.
- 1191 Loretta Ave.: drug activity, gunshots, overdoses: court ordered it to be boarded up on Friday the 17th
- Kia lawsuit
- Family Dollar trash settlement entered today, affecting several local Family Dollars: 2732 Cleveland, 675 Hudson, 1449 Oakland Park. They'll be forced to clean up trash and keep their buildings clean.
- Two new police officers are undergoing community immersion training in 2 Precinct (Hudson to Cooke). Their project is educating people on how to deal with trespassers, how to properly fill out trespass documents, and how to finish the process. Also helping create a group chat for "beware of these troublemakers" warnings. Officers Jeffrey Sprow and Jared Helber.
- Barham is leaving Columbus. She's moving to South Carolina, with her husband's job.
Columbus police department liaison
- City and Waserstrom cleaned up a homeless encampment near Wasserstrom, a restaurant supply store on Silver Drive. They also removed a lot of trees and low branches along I-71, to make it less hospitable.
- City crime stats are normal with exception of residential burglaries near Hudson+71, 90% from unlocked doors or windows.
- Two suspects arrested in burglary spree covering South Side and Linden; spree stopped
- Peak burglary time is 11p-1a on Monday nights.
Liaison Scales
- Highlights the 311 Campaign; asks commission to choose their top 5 complaints to focus on. Suggests based on convos: illegal dumping, recycling bins, parking complaints, slow streets.
- New cancer program with support for cancer patients, sponsored by Omega Psi Phi.
Council liaison Sandra Lopez
- Regular budget passed, including $23m additional affordable housing funding
- Capital budget is now in the process; expect to hear from city over next couple months. Public Service maintains a list of budget requests. Operations are off-schedule due to COVID and they're working to get back on schedule.
- Mitch Brown replaces Liz Brown on Council. He will not be allowed to run under the new charter's elections.
- Ward system: councilmembers are now required to live in their districts. 9 members on the new council, seated Jan 2024.
- Downtown speed limit has been dropped to 25; city is looking into expanding that into other areas of the city.
- Councilmember Rob Dorans is making a Community Benefit Agreement Board to force compliance with CBA provisions, which allow tax cuts if businesses meet certain conditions.
- The City of Columbus is updating its contractor identification process updates to expand support for minority-owned, LGBTQ-owned, women-owned.
- Area commissioner training program will come later this year; commissioners to be paid for their time.
Habitat for Humanity
Lisa Jones
Requesting letter of support for new projects. Only doing singles, splitting 80' lots to 40'
- 1495 Arlington
- 1315 Minnesota
Habitat housing applications will open in March.
Housing stuff
- 2425 Linden Avenue: demolition to get rid of a nuisance property owned by a woman now in a nursing home; property will be sold to Homeport to be included in Mulby Place development, possibly as green space.
- Code violation repair funds available to seniors 65+ with code violations as a diversion program to avoid fines, as a way of preventing further court dates.
Homeport
- Hired a resident of one Homeport project to do trash pick-up
- They now have someone on staff at the development across from New Salem every day of the week.
Updates to bylaws
Some technical revisions must come up: they need to put a cap on membership. Motion carried to cap it at 9.
Commissioner Dranichak takes up the Code Enforcement committee chair.
Strategy session on last Saturday is on hold. But branding work continues; met with the donated company from last meeting. GetCR8V presented their concepts to the commission.
Zoning presentation
See link at the top of the page.
Scales: C2P2 could be voted in as an overlay on North Linden
Commission Chair Perkins: Our programs and initiatives are nice, but zoning and code enforcement are what are central to our purpose as an organization.
Public comment
George Lopez, resident:
- NLAC logo options 3 and 4 are good, but these logos don't seem to adapt well for the blind or people who need large print
- Says he doesn't get much opportunity for input, as a resident
- Hasn't heard anything from the NLAC on support for the visually-impaired
- Wants to see coffeeshops, jazz shops, entertainment, affordable housing on Cleveland Avenue
- References 1425 Agler
- Wants a seat or voice at NLAC for himself or for multiple-disability advocates
- Wants to make sure that NLAC documents are in large print, or are in Braille
- He's writing a book on what Cleveland Avenue used to look like.
In reply, Commission Chair Perkins reports her history of work at COTA on paratransit; says that the NLAC is trying to do the work to be better in its communications.
Dr. Katherine Swidarski is collecting signatures to run for the next NLAC election; she's a resident and also a climate action plan implementation manager at Sustainable Columbus.