SERVICE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL
CITY HALL, 100
LOCKVILLE ROAD
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2010
REGULAR MEETING
6:30 P.M.
1. ROLL CALL. Mr. Fix
called the meeting to order at 6:30 P.M., with Mr. Fix and Mr. Sauer
present. Mr. Wisniewski arrived at 6:33
P.M. Others present were: Lynda Yartin, Ed Drobina,
Greg Bachman, Lance Schultz,
Susan Crotty, Chet Hopper, Mayor O’Brien, Tony Barletta, Gavin Blair, Jim
Kirchner, Rose Kirchner, Terry Androsac, George Bell, Kathy Smith, Ralph Hicks,
Alan Trickle, Alexa Liebert, Rachel Scofield, and others.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF April 21, 2010, Regular Meeting. Mr.
Sauer moved to approve; Mr. Fix
seconded the motion. Roll
call was taken with Mr. Sauer and Mr. Fix voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 2-0.
3. COMMUNITY COMMENTS: Mr. Fix stated he understood most of the
individuals present this evening would like to address two specific
issues. He stated he would move those
two issues to the front of the agenda so they could be addressed at this
time.
Mr. Fix stated he would
address Item 6.C.(1), Review and request for motion to approve draft ordinance
authorizing the City Manager to execute an agreement with the Board of
Directors of the Villas at Milnor Crossing Condominium Association regarding
utility rates. Mr. George Bell stated at
the last Service Committee meeting the members had requested he meet with Mr.
Drobina and put together a plan on this issue.
Mr. Bell stated Mr. Drobina had provided the Committee with a draft
ordinance and agreement for their review.
Mr. Bell stated the residents of the Villas were quite happy with this
proposed agreement and he would answer any questions the Committee may
have. Mr. Fix stated Mr. Wisniewski was
not at the last meeting when this issue was discussed and requested Mr. Bell
provide a short briefing on this request.
Mr. Bell stated when the Villas at Milnor Crossing were developed only
one water meter was installed. He stated
since that time they have received one master bill for water in the
neighborhood of 130,000 gallons monthly.
He stated anything over 12,000 gallons is billed at premium rates. Mr. Bell stated the condominiums are
single-family homeowners and they believe they should be treated as a
single-family homeowner and receive the same rates as any other single-family
homeowner. Mr. Bell stated they would
still pay the same sewer rates and the service charge would be the same as any
other single-family homeowner.
Mr. Drobina stated he
had worked with Mr. Bell on this draft agreement along with our law director. Mr. Wisniewski clarified this was being
considered because this Association came to the City and asked for this
agreement. Mr. Wisniewski stated further
this has been before the Committee in the past for other Associations and it
has not moved forward. He stated his
concern was that if we did this for the Villas at Milnor Crossing, then other
condo associations will come in and ask for the same thing. He stated his question would be why we did
not prepare a generic agreement that could be used for others that came in
asking for the same thing. Mr. Drobina
clarified that other condo associations in the city that have the exact same
situation that he could think of would be Homestead Condos and Berkley
Cottages. Mr. Wisniewski inquired if Mr.
Drobina could get in touch with the other condo associations to see if they
wanted to do this so just one ordinance could be done, and Mr. Drobina stated
he would do that. Mr. Drobina stated he
would get with the other condo associations and the law director and have a new
ordinance prepared for the Committee to review at the next meeting.
Mr. Fix stated the next
item to be addressed would be item 7.B.(2), Review and discussion regarding Postage
Drive. Mr.
Fix stated late last year he was approached by the condo association that is
located off of Postage Drive. He stated the agreement between the City, the
developer of the Kohl’s property, and the condo developer had them own and be
responsible for the road that leads back into their condominium development,
and that road is primarily used by Kohl’s customers. Mr. Fix stated they were concerned with the
amount of use the road gets by Kohl’s customers as compared to their condo
owners and the amount of money they have spent over time to maintain that road,
having it plowed, lights, etc. Mr. Fix
continued in January or February he had spoken to Mr. Drobina, Mr. Bachman, and
the Acting City Manager and they all agreed that it probably made more sense
for the City to maintain this road and have ownership of this road than a condo
association.
Kathy Smith stated she
is the president of the Fairfield Square Condo Association and they have a
50-50 split with NOCA. She stated Centex
and NOCA entered into an agreement on the roadway and it is a 50-50 split; 50
percent for Centex which was passed on to the condominium association and 50
percent for NOCA; which is divided among the other owners along Postage Drive,
Kohl’s, Huntington Bank, Key Bank, and NOCA pays a certain portion for the
empty parcel they have. Ms Smith stated
they have attempted on many occasions to try to reduce the responsibility they
have along that road. She stated the
Board has tried to contact NOCA directly, they have had their attorney contact
them, and they are not willing to budge.
She stated the condo association was willing to renegotiate for what
they felt was a more equitable percentage for the owners in Fairfield
Square. Ms
Smith stated to be sure of their position they had contracted for a traffic
study along Postage Drive
that was done in November 2008. She
stated that showed the condos to be a 10.8 percent user. She stated they feel they have an inequitable
situation. She further stated it is a
643 foot roadway and after several failed attempts at resolving it through
renegotiation, and the limited usage by the residents of Fairfield Square
versus the businesses that are along there, they feel as taxpayers and
residents of the City they felt they should approach the City with this issue
and ask that the City take over Postage Drive. Ms Smith stated the 50 percent share is for
maintenance, snow removal, salt, repair, replacement, and they have been paying
100 percent of the lighting along that road.
Mr. Sauer clarified the
lighting runs from S.R. 256 all the way back to the development and questioned
why the association paid for all of the lighting, and Mrs. Smith stated the
control is in their development.
Mr. Wisniewski stated
from Mr. Bachman’s memo it appeared it would not be in the City’s best interest
to assume this from the cost perspective that it was not built to city
standards; that it didn’t go under all of the engineering that a normal public
street would have gone under. Mr.
Bachman stated he cannot say if it was built to city standards because we did
not inspect the road. He stated the
plans show typical city cross sections, but we did not inspect the road and
that is one concern. Mr. Bachman stated
he can understand the resident’s position, but we are already strained to have
enough money to take care of the streets that we have. Mr. Fix stated the road would have to be
repaved about every ten years and questioned what it would cost to repave 650
feet of roadway. Mr. Bachman stated he would
have to calculate that and could not give an estimate. Mr. Fix further clarified that we do
occasionally plow that road, and the condo association is responsible for
plowing the streets in the development.
Mr. Drobina stated we do not go back into the development and do any
plowing.
Ms Terry Androsac stated
she felt it was important to note that there are only 66 units back there, it
is not a large complex, and this is quite a financial burden for these
owners. Mr. Alan Trickle stated he was
on the Board when this was first discussed and he had brought a plan on the
construction of the roadway to the City, so the City does have a copy of the
plans. Mr. Jim Kirchner stated he would
like to address the cost of what it might be to maintain this road. He stated he did not believe he got a reduced
tax rate because he is a condo owner; he pays taxes as if he is a single-family
homeowner, and unless he got a reduced rate on taxes he did not see how this is
fair. He stated he pays taxes to pay for
Pickerington roads.
Mr. Wisniewski stated he
would like to have Mr. Bachman come back and tell the Committee what
maintenance costs would look like for this road, repaving, adding it in for
snow removal, and any other issues we might have to address. Mr. Sauer stated he would like that information
as well and he would also like to know what the current state of the road is so
he would know how soon we would have to address something if we did take it
over.
Ms Androsac stated she
felt it was important for Council to
understand that this road services Pickerington businesses and a lot of people
travel on it, not just the condo residents.
She stated she felt it was an important consideration to know that this
road services Pickerington residents not residents of Fairfield
Square only.
Mr. Fix stated he
appreciated everyone coming out tonight and he felt it was reasonable for the
Committee, as the representatives of the 17,000 people that live here to have a
good understanding of what it is that we would be signing up for should they
decide to take something like this on.
He stated asking our engineer and service director to come back with
numbers on what the incremental costs the city would bear looked like before
making any recommendations. Mr. Fix
stated he would like this to remain on the agenda for the next meeting when
they would have that information.
Mr. Trickle stated he
just didn’t understand how this road was passed and Mr. Wisniewski stated that
was the way the developer and the association chose to do that road. He stated there was probably something that made
sense for the developer to do it as a private road versus a public road. Mr. Fix stated when the City builds a road,
we know going in what our responsibilities and long term costs would be to
maintain this road. He stated in this
case, that road was built outside of that and we are now being asked to assume
the responsibility for an existing road as opposed to one that we planned and
built. Mr. Trickle state he understood
that, however, he believed the City was collecting taxes from Kohl’s, Huntington,
and the other businesses along the road as well as the residents of the condos
and he did not understand how that was different than any other neighborhood in
Pickerington.
4. DEVELOPMENT:
A. Development Director’s Report. Ms Crotty stated she had provided a written
report and she would be glad to answer any questions.
B. Presentation by Development Director
regarding business incentives. Ms Crotty
stated in the interest of time she would summarize the information she had
provided to the Committee members. She
stated she has been trying to respond to a lot of things and, obviously, city
officials want to attract offices to the City.
Ms Crotty stated she has heard there is a concern that there may not be
a balance of development in the City. Ms
Crotty stated she has done a lot of research to see what is going on in Central
Ohio because when it comes to attracting certain types of users, we are not
operating in a vacuum, we are competing with all of central Ohio. Ms Crotty stated further while our impact fees
come into play, there are a lot of other things that come into consideration
when someone is looking at where to locate.
She stated someone looking to locate will do an analysis and they will
come up with the same information she had provided to the Committee, and we
just do not have an office market here.
She stated we would be challenged with that and there is a lot of
competition out there. Ms Crotty stated
also there are jurisdictions close to us where it is a lot cheaper to get land,
it is a lot cheaper to build, and they do incentives. She stated some communities do CRAs
(Community Reinvestment Area), property tax abatements, enterprise zone
abatements, and some do TIFs and it comes down to a financial analysis. Ms Crotty stated she has been looking at how
we compare with other communities when it comes to that financial analysis and
it is expensive to develop here. She
stated we have a lot of land along S.R. 256 that is already zoned commercial,
and our last bit of land that is not developed and has good freeway visibility
is zoned C-4. She stated you could put a
gas station or a restaurant there and it would be easier for the developer to
get a return on his investment by splitting it into smaller parcels and selling
them for $500,000 an acre. She stated
that makes it a little more challenging to get an office user interested. Ms Crotty stated she was trying to think of a
way we can change the dynamics, and she has looked at what other communities
are doing. Ms Crotty stated she had
provided examples of what is going on in other communities and almost all
communities are offering some type of performance based incentive or a
development grant. She stated the beauty
of that is that it is tied to city revenue and eliminates the conflict you can
have with some of the other tools, and that is something we might be able to
do. She stated this could also be set up
so you calculate it based on future income tax revenues that you anticipate and
not give the grant incentive until you have already collected the income
tax. She stated while you cannot rebate
or refund income tax, you can set aside money for these grants. Ms Crotty stated we will be competing with
Canal Winchester where it is more affordable, Reynoldsburg
where they have just started incentive programs, and so this is something we
might want to do. She stated this can
also be used as a business retention tool.
Ms Crotty stated she would like to have an ordinance prepared that would
create this program and then as we utilize the program each individual
agreement would go to Council for
approval. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt
this is definitely something he would be interested in having on the books to
attract businesses instead of starting off at square one every time a business
is looking at Pickerington. He stated
further that giving Ms Crotty the tools she needs to perform her job most
effectively, to attract economic development into the City, gives her the
parameters to work under and gives her the freedom to work with businesses and
bring something to Council to look at. Ms Crotty stated she felt creating this
program would give her something to offer, which she does not have right
now. Ms Crotty stated she has spoken to
Mr. Banchefsky at Schottenstein on this issue and she felt our attorneys can
draft the ordinance to establish the program.
Mr. Sauer stated he did not have any problems with offering incentives
and he would like to have the draft ordinance outlining the program brought back
to Committee. Mr. Sauer further questioned
if Ms Crotty felt having this program would have helped to retain the
professional offices that went to Canal Winchester. Ms Crotty stated she felt it would have been
helpful, however, in that instance there was a huge difference in both land and
in development costs. Mr. Wisniewski
stated he also felt everyone should understand that creating a level playing
field will cause Council to evaluate programs
and evaluate situations and incentives that have not been palatable, such as
tax abatement, TIFs, etc. He stated if
we want things to come to the City and we want more opportunities for people to
work in the City, then we will need to do some things that may cause some
people to complain. Mr. Fix stated he
felt that was simply taking a long term approach versus a short term approach,
and in a long term approach it made sense to do some things. Mr. Fix stated he felt all of Council
had the greater good in mind and would take the long term approach when the
opportunity is presented. Mr. Fix stated
further he liked the idea of the grant program and CRAs, and in addition to
that he would like to see what other tools Council
can help her with and what can be used that would involve other governmental
entities in the area. He stated one of
the things businesses look at in building is how easy it will be to get
something done. He stated if it is a
project that will take six months longer here than in another community, then
they will go to the other community. He
stated he would like to encourage Ms Crotty to bring back information on how
easy we are to do business with and how Council
can help with that and also how we can cooperate with Violet Township, Canal
Winchester, and the County and what other tools are available if we start doing
that with the Port Authority and the JEDD, etc.
He stated further he did not want to see Diley Road become a retail
corridor and he liked the idea she had of providing certain types of businesses
with incentives. Ms Crotty stated if
anyone had any questions about any of the information she had provided, she
would be more than happy to answer them.
Mr. Wisniewski stated he would like to see a draft ordinance on the
grant program for the next Service meeting.
(1) Annexation – Update. Ms Crotty stated she would recommend an
amendment to the Pre-1994 CRA for the Diley Road and Kroger
area. She stated the timing will be tied
to the annexation because you cannot create one on property that is not in the
City. She stated she would work with the
law director so the legislation can be introduced when the annexation comes to Council
for acceptance. Mr. Sauer asked if there
had been any further discussion with Violet
Township on the Busey
and Diley annexation and Ms Crotty stated she has not
had any further discussions with them.
Ms Crotty stated it has been discussed with the property owner and the
owner’s representative has spoken with them as well. She stated she would anticipate that the Township
would want to review it once it is filed and she would expect the petition to
be filed soon. She further stated there
are no provisions right now for us to do any type of revenue sharing or
anything like that. Mr. Sauer stated
that is what he was asking because as soon as that comes through if there
haven’t been any discussions to see if there is some common ground. He stated he would like to prevent any
particular difficulties from occurring if at all possible; he would just like
to sit down and find if there is some common ground somewhere that could be
found. Mr. Wisniewski stated he was not
sure what kind of common ground Mr. Sauer was looking for. Mr. Sauer stated that is because we have had
no response back from them and that is what he was asking; if there has been
any follow up on the initial conversations to see if we can get a response to
find out what it is exactly that they would want. He stated usually a dialogue includes two
parties and it goes both ways and that is where he was driving. Mr. Wisniewski stated he understood that, and
they are petitioning to annex into the City and Mr. Fix stated at the last
meeting Service had asked Ms Crotty since there are many more annexations
coming, to take a look at doing something with the Township that would prevent
some of the issues that have come up in the past. Mayor O’Brien stated the difference is that
we are not out actively annexing; these property owners are petitioning
us. He stated we cannot deny the
property owner their rights or hold them up from doing what they want to
do. Mayor O’Brien stated if the landowner
petitions to annex into the City, what is it that we should talk about with the
Township. Mr. Sauer stated he was not
interested in denying the individual that wants to annex into the City
anything; he is interested in finding out if the discussion regarding some sort
of revenue sharing. Ms Crotty stated she
was told that the Township did not expect anything on this annexation but going
forward she would say this is something that we need to look at and consider
because with a one percent income tax if you do any types of incentives for a
business in order to be competitive you run the risk of not a lot to go
around. She stated you really need to
look at what it is worth to the City.
Mr. Sauer inquired if that was also taking into consideration if we were
to do that them providing the services to amount for what they are
getting. He stated at that point it
would be a different calculation because there would be services that we would
not be responsible for and if that alleviates issues along that corridor then
he felt it was something we should be looking at.
Mayor O’Brien inquired if Ms
Crotty had done any market research on educational development opportunities
and if there was any market in this area for extensions or branches or
whatever. Ms Crotty stated she has not
looked at that as yet. She stated we do
have the OU Pickerington branch here and Mayor O’Brien stated they are
landlocked and do not have room to grow.
Ms Crotty stated she agreed this would be an industry we might want to target. Mr. Sauer clarified that when Ms Crotty did
the analysis she looked at what it would generate in terms of revenue for the
City as well. He stated he would be
curious to see how that would compete with professional office versus retail.
(2) Development Process – Update. Ms Crotty stated we have been looking at this
and there have been some changes. She
stated she has been working with Mr. Schultz and Mr. Hopper and some
improvements have been made to help guide people through the process. She further stated Mr. Schultz has talked
about doing a comparative study with other communities to see where we
stand. She stated we are currently in
the middle, there are definitely communities where it takes a lot longer and
the process is more cumbersome to get through.
She stated we are looking at making some tweaks to some things to try
and improve that even further.
(3) Economic Development Marketing Plan –
Update. Mr. Sauer inquired if we could
look to see how we compare with communities around Central Ohio
that are getting a lot of the office development and Ms Crotty stated she was
looking at that.
(4) Business Retention Project –
Update. There was no further
update.
(5) Long
Range Economic Development Plan –
Update. There was no further update.
(6) Implementation of the Diley Road Corridor Plan –
Update. Ms Crotty stated she felt we
need to be forward thinking as properties are zoned in this area. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt Canal
Winchester would plan on big retail down there and we did not want that to
bleed into our part of the corridor.
5. PLANNING AND ZONING DEPARTMENT:
A. Planning and Zoning Director’s Report.
Mr. Schultz stated he had provided a written report and would be happy to try
to answer any questions. ,
(1) Planning and Zoning Representative
Report (Mr. Sauer) Mr. Sauer stated he
had no report.
B. ACTION
ITEMS:
(1) Refugee Road
Study – Update. Mr. Schultz stated a
Planning and Zoning Work Session to discuss the Refugee Road Corridor Study has
been scheduled for June 8, 2010, at 6:30 P.M.
6. SERVICE DEPARTMENT
A. REPORTS:
(1) Service Manager’s Report. Mr. Drobina stated he had provided a written
report and he would be happy to answer any questions.
B. WASTEWATER
(1) Wastewater Plant Expansion –
Update. Mr. Drobina stated he has
nothing new to report.
a. TDS – Update. Mr. Wisniewski clarified that we have not
heard anything from the EPA as yet.
C. WATER.
(1) Review and request for motion to approve
draft ordinance authorizing the City Manager to execute an agreement with the
Board of Directors of the Villas at Milnor Crossing Condominium Association
regarding utility billing rates. Mr.
Wisniewski stated this had been discussed earlier in the meeting.
7. ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT
A. Engineer’s Report. Mr.
Bachman stated he had provided a written report and would be happy to answer
any questions. Mr. Bachman stated we
have had some difficulty in getting the contractor to come back in town to work
on the Town Square Drive extension, however, he hoped they would be back any
day now.
B. ACTION ITEMS:
(1) Water Master Plan and Sewer Master Plan
- Update. Mr. Bachman stated we are
working on these projects and today for the Water Master Plan we took pressure
readings and flow readings throughout the City on fire hydrants. He stated the GPS work on all the fire
hydrants and valves and manholes has been completed, and we have cost data on
the software for the water modeling. He
stated on the Sewer Master Plan the flow meters have been set and they will be
analyzing that information.
a. Review and discussion regarding S.R.
256 Safety Project. Mr. Bachman stated
he has scheduled a speed study between S.R. 204 and Diley Road for tomorrow and
that must be completed before we submit our grant application. Mr. Bachman stated he has been reviewing the
plans for S.R. 256 on the sections we have done and it looks like we have about
seven and one-half more feet of right-of-way behind the existing sidewalk, so
at some time if we wanted to look at moving the sidewalks further from the
roadway and have more of a tree lawn we could do that. He stated also ODOT is also looking at more
of a complete street concept in their safety program and encourages you to do that
and that might mean they would like us to do something with that sidewalk.
b. Improvement Options for Long Road from Diley Road to Colony
Park – Update. Mr. Bachman stated he had no report this
evening.
(2) Review discussion regarding Postage
Drive. Mr.
Wisniewski stated this had been discussed earlier in the meeting. Mr. Wisniewski asked if Mr. Bachman could
get background details as to why the developer decided to build this as a
private road rather than a public road and include it in the next Service
Committee packet. Mr. Bachman stated the
cross section of the street is to City standards, but we never inspected
it. He stated he could say the road was
designed to City standards, but he could not say it was constructed to City
standards. Mr. Sauer stated he assumed
when the residents moved in to the condos they signed an agreement that they
knew that was part of the responsibility of their home owner’s association fees
and questioned if it were possible for us to find that out. Mr. Wisniewski clarified the complaint of the
residents was the cost of the maintenance and Mr. Fix stated their complaint is
the exposure that they have as individual homeowners to maintain what in
essence is a city street that is used primarily by Kohl’s. Mr. Wisniewski asked Mr. Bachman if he would
find out if there are other private roads in the City and where they are and
include that in the packets as well. Mr.
Fix stated he felt the City allowed 60-70 homes to be built behind a retail
center and for the retail center to push off the cost of maintaining what is in
essence their driveway on to these residents.
Mr. Wisniewski stated the developer was part of that agreement and it
was a “buyer beware” situation. He
stated if you do not read the fine print you can’t complain to the government
to get you out of a situation you legally signed for. Mr. Fix stated if this were miles of road he
might agree. Mr. Drobina clarified Mr.
Wisniewski wanted information on private roads that are for commercial and
residential use. Mr. Drobina stated we
also have some private roads that are just commercial. Mr. Fix stated then to clarify Mr. Drobina
would provide information on private roads that serve both residential and
commercial, not private roads that serve commercial only. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would like both
because it is being suggested we take over a private road that serves both
residential and commercial so he would like to know where all the private roads
are throughout the City that serve residential and/or commercial. Mr. Sauer stated it might not be a bad idea
to also get the information on what it would cost to maintain if we ended up
taking over all of those. He stated that
would at least let council know what the impact would be. Mr. Fix stated he would also request the
report make a distinction as to what roads are used both commercially and
residentially versus those that are just residential. He stated he was not interested in taking
over roads that are just for commercial uses at all.
C. TRANSPORTATION
(1) Review and discussion regarding ODOT
controlled traffic signals. Mr. Bachman
stated he had no report on this issue.
(2) School Speed Zone Study – Update. Mr. Bachman stated he has not been able to
begin this study as yet, but he hoped to have something to report next
month.
8. CHAIRMAN. Nothing was brought forward.
9. OTHER BUSINESS:
A. Discussion
regarding Marie Avenue
connection. Mr. Bachman stated he had
provided a memorandum regarding the cost of connecting this road. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would like to have
this removed from the agenda.
10. ADJOURNMENT. There
being nothing further, Mr. Wisniewski moved to adjourn; Mr. Sauer seconded
the motion. Mr. Wisniewski, Mr.
Sauer, and Mr. Fix voted “Aye.” Motion
carried, 3-0. The Service Committee
adjourned at 7:48 P.M., May 19, 2010.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
________________________________
Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk