P&Z: February 1st 2021
PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION
MEETING MINUTES
Mayfield Village
Feb 1, 2021
The Planning & Zoning Commission met in regular session on Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. remotely, via electronic means. Chairman Syracuse presided.
Roll Call
Present: Mr. Vetus Syracuse (Chairman), Dr. Sue McGrath (Chairman Pro Tem), Mr. Allen Meyers (Council Rep), Mr. Paul Fikaris, Mr. Jim Kless, and Mr. Henry DeBaggis
Also Present: Ms. Kathryn Weber (Law Department), Mr. John Marquart (Economic Dev Manager), Mr. John Marrelli (Building Commissioner), Ms. Deborah Garbo (Commission Secretary), and Jeff Thomas (IT Systems Coordinator)
Absent: Mayor Bodnar, Mr. Tom Cappello (Village Engineer), and Ms. Jennifer Jurcisek (Council Alternate)
This meeting has been duly noticed and is being held in accordance with Ohio Revised Code Section 121.22 specific to recent amendments made in light of the current COVID-19 declared emergency (House Bill 197-amended by House Bill 404). Under the orders of Governor DeWine, the Planning & Zoning Commission will be meeting remotely, via electronic means.
The public was invited to view the meeting live and can access the meeting through a link posted on the Mayfield Village website at www.mayfieldvillage.com.
The public was encouraged to view this meeting agenda and offer any comments or questions prior to the meeting to be read into the record and addressed at the meeting. Comments and questions were accepted until 4:00 pm on Mon, Feb 1, 2021 by sending an e-mail to Deborah Garbo at dgarbo@mayfieldvillage.com.
Consideration of Meeting Minutes: Sept 8, 2020
Mr. Kless, seconded by Dr. McGrath made a motion to approve the Minutes of Sept 8, 2020.
ROLL CALL
Ayes: Mr. Syracuse, Dr. McGrath, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Fikaris, Mr. Kless
Abstain: Mr. DeBaggis
Nays: None
Motion Carried. Minutes Approved as Written.
OPEN PORTION:
Chairman Syracuse states, this is a regular meeting of the Mayfield Village Planning & Zoning Commission Mon, Feb 1st, 2021. Because this is our first regular meeting of the year, this is our Organizational Meeting. We will be electing our Chairman, Chairman Pro Tem, Secretary and Planning & Zoning Rep to the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Currently I’m serving as Chairman, Dr. McGrath is serving as the Chair Pro Tem, Debbie Garbo is serving as the Secretary and I’m serving as the Rep to the BZA. We could do these separately or all together in one motion.
ORGANIZATIONAL 2021:
- Election of Chairman
- Election of Chairman Pro Tem
- Election of Secretary
- Election of P&Z Rep to the Board of Zoning Appeals (Vetus Syracuse)
Chairman Syracuse opened the floor to a motion for nominations.
Mr. Fikaris, seconded by Mr. Kless made the motion to return the same slate to our leadership since they did such a great job.
Chairman Syracuse asked if there was any discussion. There was none.
The nominations were closed.
Chairman Syracuse asked for a Roll Call on the nominations.
ROLL CALL:
Ayes: Mr. Syracuse, Dr. McGrath, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Fikaris, Mr. Kless, Mr. DeBaggis
Nays: None
Motion Carried
- Vetus Syracuse to serve as 2021 Chairman.
- Dr. Sue McGrath to serve as 2021 Chair Pro Tem.
- Deborah Garbo to serve as 2021 Secretary.
- Vetus Syracuse to serve as 2021 P & Z Rep to the BZA.
Chairman Syracuse concludes the Organizational portion of the meeting.
PROPOSALS:
- Conditional Use Permit Renewals
New Expiration Date Dec 2022 - P & Z Rep to Community Reinvestment Area Housing Council
(Economic Development)
Conditional Use Permit Renewals
New Expiration Date Dec 2022
Chairman Syracuse said, we have two proposals but we’re going to break this down into three for the voting purpose. We have the conditional use permit renewals we discussed at our workshop meeting. I’m not going to read through all of them. We’ll take all of them together except the first one, Ken’s Auto Body so Al, there’s no conflict of interest for him to vote for all of these, we’re going to take that one separately.
DECISION:
Ken’s Auto Body
Dr. McGrath, seconded by Mr. Fikaris made a motion to approve the Conditional Use Permit renewal for Ken’s Auto Body at 744 SOM Ctr Rd with the new expiration date of Dec 2022.
Chairman Syracuse asked, any discussion? There was none.
ROLL CALL
Ayes: Mr. Syracuse, Dr. McGrath, Mr. Fikaris, Mr. Kless, Mr. DeBaggis
Abstain: Mr. Meyers
Nays: None
Motion Carried. Recommendation to Council.
************************************************************
Chairman Syracuse said, at this time I’ll entertain a motion to approve all the other Conditional Use Permits that expired in Dec of 2020 as listed in the document we looked at for our workshop. I’d like to entertain a motion to approve all of the remainder of those Conditional Use Permits to have a new expiration date of Dec 2022.
DECISION:
Mr. DeBaggis, seconded by Mr. Meyers made a motion to approve the Conditional Use Permit renewals with the new expiration date of Dec 2022.
Chairman Syracuse asked, any discussion? There was none.
ROLL CALL
Ayes: Mr. Syracuse, Dr. McGrath, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Fikaris, Mr. Kless, Mr. DeBaggis
Nays: None
Motion Carried. Recommendation to Council.
**************************************************************
P & Z Representative
Community Reinvestment Area Housing Council
(Economic Development)
Chairman Syracuse said, the other proposal wasn’t originally on our agenda, but I asked John Marquart to be present for this meeting to discuss this. We need to have a P & Z representative to the CRA Housing Council. Jim Farmer was serving in that role. I’m not sure if they actually took any action or had any meetings from last year when we elected him until now. We need to elect someone else since he’s no longer serving on this Commission. John will make a little presentation about this to let everyone know what this is. Then we could have some discussion to see if anyone wants to volunteer. I think they have an item they’re going to be voting on in the near future so we’re hoping that we could get someone to volunteer and make a nomination tonight. It would be great if we can take a vote on that and appoint someone to replace Jim Farmer as to not hold up any action that comes before that Commission. With that being said, John, please go ahead and make your presentation.
- CRA Presentation by John Marquart
Mr. Marquart said, thank you very much Mr. Chairman for having me on short notice tonight. I just have a couple brief slides to explain how we got here and what we’re looking for this evening. This will sound familiar to the most of you, but I think Mr. DeBaggis is new to the Commission so I think it’ll be valuable for him to hear this as well.
About 1 ½ years ago, the State of Ohio approved our application to establish a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) which is basically a geographic area that allows us to offer property tax abatement as an economic development incentive to property owners that are either building new or performing renovations of their property.
We were approved way back in July, 2019. As Chairman said, this committee that we’re discussing tonight never actually had to convene, it’s an ad hoc committee so they just get together as needed and there were no tax abatement deals to review.
We established the program back in July, 2019. As the Chairman mentioned, the reason this is all sort of coming to a head this evening is that we’re getting pretty close to having to review a tax abatement application so we need to get this committee back in order.
Just a brief summary of what the program can do. We can offer up to 15 years of up to 100% tax abatement on the value of the increase in property value. If we offer this tool to a developer or a property owner, they will never pay less in property taxes than they pay right now. We can only abate the increase in value.
Per the program guidelines, it’s also available to residents who are undertaking new construction or significant renovations as well.
It’s important to note too when we established this program back in the summer of 2019, we had a great deal of discussion with the School District. Any project that offers 50% or more property tax abatement, would require the blessing of the schools. We also agreed with a handshake that we would present all deals to the schools even if it’s a 2% abatement as a gesture of good will and partnership. I’m in the midst of doing that now with this next proposal.
It’s called the Housing Council by State Law. It’s essentially a committee that reviews each of these economic development deals and then reviews the developer’s performance annually once a deal is cut.
On the next slide you can see, hopefully it shows up well in red, that’s the area that was established geographically 1 ½ years ago. It’s essentially all of our commercial districts. It had to be contiguous so there’s a little bit of zigs and zags in there. But it’s basically all of our commercial districts as well as the apartments just south of Heinen’s. We thought it was perhaps wise to include that geography as well in the event they ever needed to perform a significant renovation or redevelopment. So, that’s the area we’re talking about where we can offer tax abatement as a tool.
Again, the reason this is all coming to a head, there you see, it should look familiar to you folks on the Commission. The Holiday Inn has been under new ownership for about 1 ½ years. They’ve been pretty much since day one planning a significant renovation to the property. It’s been scaled back a couple of times due to the economics chiefly driven by Covid. They’re still moving forward with about a 2 million dollar renovation. The dollar figure is not set in stone just yet but of that 2 million bucks, about 1.2 million would be eligible for this abatement. This is the deal that’s in the works and the reason we need to convene this committee.
On the very next slide you’ll see the requirements of this committee as established by State Law. It’s a 7 member committee;
1 appointment by P & Z.
As the Chairman had mentioned, this had been Mr. Farmer. I talked to him last week and due to his health concerns, he’s unable to serve on this committee, so we need to refill that seat.
2 appointed by Mayor
2 appointed by Council
Hopefully after tonight’s appointment, those 5 members gather and appoint 2 residents to fill the final 2 seats. Once we convene, each of these members will serve a 3 year term. Again, they meet as needed. There won’t be a regularly scheduled series of meetings. Once a deal comes along, they’ll gather to review it and recommend either approval or disapproval to Village Council. Once we have live applicants in the pipeline, they would convene at least once a year, probably in March or April to review the performance of each developer.
We’re here tonight to solicit one member of the Commission to serve on this committee and I appreciate you hearing me out. I’m happy to answer any questions, take any comments or hear any advice you might have. Thank you.
Chairman Syracuse thanked Mr. Marquart. Does anyone have any questions?
There were none.
Chairman Syracuse asked, is anyone interested in serving on the Housing Council?
Mr. Marquart said, I promise I won’t work you too hard. As you can see, it’s been 1 ½ years and we haven’t had to meet yet. So we’re definitely not talking about a significant work load if that was of concern.
Chairman Syracuse said, it doesn’t sound like it’s that much of a time commitment. I would make a recommendation myself, but all the other Commission Members I feel would be very good serving in this Housing Council. I was hoping someone might want to volunteer.
Mr. DeBaggis said, I’m the new guy so I just want to try to get my feet wet with P & Z now, and I’m doing Civil Service too. It looks like a good project but I just hope to get more acquainted with what I’m doing on this Commission first.
- Planning & Zoning Appointment to the CRA
Dr. McGrath said, I could volunteer.
Chairman Syracuse said, we know you’d do a good job on that. If you’d like to volunteer, then at this time I would entertain a motion, unless someone else wants to volunteer and we have a discussion.
Chairman Syracuse said, I’d entertain a motion to nominate Dr. McGrath as our P & Z rep to the Community Reinvestment Area Housing Council.
Mr. DeBaggis, seconded by Mr. Kless made a motion to nominate Dr. McGrath as Planning & Zoning appointment to the CRA.
Chairman Syracuse asked, any discussion? There was none.
ROLL CALL
Ayes: Mr. Syracuse, Dr. McGrath, Mr. Meyers, Mr. Fikaris, Mr. Kless, Mr. DeBaggis
Nays: None
Motion Carried. Dr. Sue McGrath to serve as P & Z appointment to the CRA Housing Council.
Chairman Syracuse thanked Dr. McGrath for volunteering. I’m looking forward to hearing back on how that goes.
Chairman Syracuse said, that’s everything we have on our agenda. Thank you, Mr. Marquart for presenting tonight. Does anyone have any other business they’d like to discuss? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
ADJOURNMENT:
Mr. Kless, seconded by Mr. Fikaris made a motion to adjourn the meeting.
ROLL CALL
Ayes: All
Nays: None
Motion Carried. Meeting adjourned at 6:15 p.m.