CITY PLANNING, PROJECTS, & SERVICES COMMITTEE
CITY HALL,
REGULAR MEETING
7:00 P.M.
1. ROLL CALL. Mr. Fix called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M., with Mr. Fix, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Barletta present. No members were absent. Others present were: Bill Vance, Lynda Yartin, Greg Bachman, Ed Drobina, Joe Henderson, Brenda VanCleave, Chris Schweitzer, Pat Reade, Eric Zimmer, Jay Shutt, Jonathan Diller, and others.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF September 22, 2011, Regular
Meeting. Mr. Blair moved to approve; Mr.
Barletta seconded the motion.
Roll call was taken with Mr.
3. COMMUNITY COMMENTS: There were no community comments.
4. DEVELOPMENT:
A. Development Director’s Report. Mr. Henderson stated he had provided a written report and would answer any questions.
(1) Annexation – Update. Mr. Henderson stated the County has requested a revised legal description and we are waiting for that from the property owner.
(2) Development Process. Mr. Henderson stated the transition of some Planning duties to Mr. Fulton is going smoothly.
(3) Economic Development Marketing
Plan. Mr. Henderson stated he is
scheduled for two visits to
(4) Business Retention Project – Update. Mr. Henderson stated the business outreach team is continuing to visit local businesses.
(5)
(6) Implementation of the
5. PLANNING AND ZONING DEPARTMENT:
A. Planning and Zoning Representative Report (Mr. Blair) Mr. Blair stated the Planning and Zoning Commission stated a request for a sign for M&M Chicken was denied by the Commission and the remainder of the agenda items were approved.
B. Planning and Zoning Department Report (Mr. Henderson) Mr. Henderson stated one item approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission for the rezoning of 35 West Church Street is on the agenda for this evening. He stated the Board of Zoning Appeals met in September and approved two variances and there are three cases on their agenda for October.
C.
D. ACTION ITEMS:
(1) Review
and request for motion to approve draft ordinance approving the rezoning of
a. Review and request for motion to
schedule public hearing for open discussion regarding proposed rezoning of
6. BUILDING DEPARTMENT.
A. Building Department/Chief Building Official’s Report. Mr. Vance stated a report had been provided in the Committee’s packet and he would answer any questions.
B. Code Revisions. No report.
7. SERVICE DEPARTMENT
A. Service Manager’s Report. Mr. Drobina stated he had provided a written report and he would answer any questions.
B. WASTEWATER. Mr. Drobina stated we are doing some work on the old part of the wastewater plant and in November we will begin flowing through the complete plant. Mr. Drobina stated our current average is 1.8 million gallons per day and our capacity is 3.2 million gallons per day.
C. WATER.
(1) Water storage tank maintenance contract - Update. Mr. Drobina stated he does not have an update this evening. Mr. Vance stated he anticipates getting formal direction to go out for bid in January.
Mr. Vance stated Mr. Eric Zimmer of Tipping Point was present if Mr. Fix would like to address the solar panel project at this time. Mr. Fix stated he would address that issue at this time.
Mr. Vance stated we have been speaking to the power companies for quite some time and we have been attempting to successfully and informally negotiate a happy medium associated with net metering whereby if we produced surplus solar power that would enter the grid we would receive compensation from the power companies for that power. Mr. Vance further stated that his recommendation at this time is to scale down the initial proposal as far what we plan to incorporate at the water plant, and have the infrastructure necessary to power the water plant without creating additional surplus power that goes to the grid, and get started with a scaled down version. Mr. Vance stated what he was seeking this evening is direction from this Committee to move forward with the initial applications necessary with South Central Power and Buckeye Power. He stated once we complete those applications with their assistance he seeks permission to direct those applications to Council to receive official direction to move forward with their filing.
Mr. Zimmer stated the City has a great facility for this project and the challenge is with South Central and Buckeye Power and right now we are trying to take the path of least resistance in order to get something out there. Mr. Zimmer further stated if we do that we will get a sense of what the plant is using, there are some discussions going on about perhaps putting in a little more metering, and then perhaps expand over time. Mr. Zimmer stated the next steps Mr. Vance described are just so that before we invest a lot more time and energy let’s clear this hurdle with South Central and Buckeye Power and make sure that we are good, then we can move into finalizing the area and the contract costs. Mr. Vance stated we have a fantastic project and a fantastic site, this is a trend setting effort, and he wanted Mr. Zimmer to come to the meeting tonight to confirm that Tipping Point is on board with these final steps to move forward. Mr. Zimmer stated they are committee to trying to work together and develop a project with the City. He stated he did not feel they would be able to do the project anyone wanted to do in the beginning, but we may get there over time. He stated it is still a good project and is a way for the City to hedge part of your power costs at the plant. Mr. Vance inquired if Mr. Zimmer felt confident that he could help the City find investors for the project once we get the necessary clearances from the power companies. Mr. Zimmer stated he does feel confident, he would not guarantee it, but he felt confident. He stated they are very close right now closing investor rounds for the Southwest Licking Water Treatment Plant. He stated he has investors lined up there as well as Licking Valley Schools and Southwest Licking Schools are also pretty close to closing. Mr. Fix inquired how the program worked with investors and Mr. Zimmer stated basically they do what is known as Power Purchase Agreements, which are a form of third party ownership, so the agreement you would enter into is to purchase the power that the system generates at the plant. He stated the City would not own the system, would not operate it, and would not maintain it. He stated Tipping Point would own, operate, and maintain the system. He stated they act as a project developer and the reason projects are done this way 99 percent of the time for public sector entities is that a large part of what makes solar economical is that is the 30 percent federal tax credit and very strong accelerated depreciation benefits. He stated all this would do the City no good, so what they do is use the private sector to own and operate the equipment, take those tax credits, and give them the ability to simply buy down the cost of the system and sell you power at a rate that is less than what you are paying today. Mr. Vance stated in our case, to satisfy the power companies and some of their policies, we will have to structure a deal where technically the City will be the owner of the facilities, but we will essentially outsource all the related maintenance responsibilities, etc., via a contract. He stated the first step was to get the concept approved by the power companies and the second step would be to seek the investment necessary from Council to help structure the deal. He stated we would have to utilize our law director to do so, and this work would not be included within their monthly retainer, so we would have to get an estimation from our law director as to how much that work would cost and at the end of the day we would be looking at a solar infrastructure investment where initially it was proposed for $4 million to be invested but we are scaling it down to about the $1 million range. Mr. Fix clarified that Tipping Point’s investors would put in $1 million, they would build the solar field, and they would sell the electricity that is generated from that solar field to the water plant at a rate that is lower than we are paying now to South Central Power. Mr. Vance stated that was correct. Mr. Fix further stated in so doing, Tipping Point would generate a return of a $1 million investment between what the City would pay, tax benefits, and renewable energy credits and Mr. Zimmer stated that was correct. Mr. Zimmer stated the reason Mr. Vance was asking if he was confident was because the deals are obviously tight in Ohio. He stated when he started some of these conversations there were additional grants that were available and those have evaporated. He stated the deals are challenging to get done, but it is finding the investors that are willing to do that. Mr. Fix inquired if Mr. Zimmer would know if the deal was put together before we invested our money in the process, and Mr. Zimmer stated he could do that, yes. Mr. Barletta questioned with the other schools and utilities Mr. Zimmer spoke about if they managed to get a buy back agreement from their electric companies, and Mr. Zimmer stated they were all AEP customers. Mr. Zimmer stated the four major investor owned utilities in the State of Ohio are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission and as part of state law they are required to enter into these net metering agreements. He continued that all of the co-ops and the municipal utilities around the State are not regulated in the same way; they do not have a requirement to do it. He stated South Central does it, but they do it on a very small scale. Mr. Zimmer stated they will net meter a resident, they would net meter a small business, but they would not net meter the size we want. He stated the issue with the net meter is they would size the system to produce less power than the plant uses total; it is just a timing issue. He stated you could have a sunny afternoon and the panels would produce a ton of power and the treatment plant is running slow so in that time you need to net meter. He stated that has been the challenge and if the City had AEP as their utility he would have been moving on this very aggressively. He stated he understood why the utility was hesitant to do this and where their challenges were and Mr. Barletta inquired what their challenges were. Mr. Zimmer stated net metering works in a way that says if you produce more power than you need, you will put it back on the grid and it will flow to wherever it needs to go. What net metering does is say you would trade the power you buy back at the same price, and the problem is they are out buying power on the wholesale market so they might be buying power at three or four cents and they are selling it to you at a higher rate. He stated they do not want to do that on a great scale because they are basically paying more for power than they have to. He stated the other challenge comes in that it depends on the utility, but South Central is affiliated with Buckeye Power, which is their generating utility, and Buckeye Power has more power than they really need so they do not want any more power on the grid, they want to sell everything they have. The challenge is they have enough already and they don’t want to pay more for your power than they can buy on the wholesale market. Mr. Zimmer stated he has looked at this in as many different ways as he can and he doesn’t see a way to get there. Mr. Fix clarified that assuming we did this, there would be no danger of our plant ever being without power because we were still connected with South Central Power. Mr. Zimmer stated that was correct, it was just supplemental; it was just when the sun was shining and you were producing power you would be buying it at a rate less than you would otherwise when the sun is not shining or it is at night, you would continue to draw from the grid like normal. Mr. Barletta clarified that when we talk about using a lawyer, we are not going to fight the battle of changing regulations for power companies. Mr. Vance stated it would be for structuring the contract, that we understand the challenges that they face and what we need to do to accommodate their business interests. Mr. Barletta stated it appeared the power company did not want to do this anyway, and Mr. Vance stated the net metering was the biggest issue. Mr. Zimmer stated he thought that South Central is relatively open to this, but they are in a contractual relationship with Buckeye Power that says they will buy no power from anyone else. He stated the legal piece is really two things. One, you have to sign a contract and you need to do your normal contract diligence with them and, secondly, we need to find a way to put a deal together that satisfies two things; from a federal tax credit perspective they need to be the owner and from a utility perspective you have to have an ownership stake. He stated it is just a legal twist that needs to be figured out. He stated that was the legal work, it is not to take the power companies on and try to change regulations. Mr. Zimmer stated it is not legislative it is truly just what the structure that would meet these two criteria. Mr. Vance stated it is a step by step process and we will continue to take one step at a time with this Committee’s permission to do so. He stated if it is not a good deal for the City in the end, we will not do it, but it is absolutely worth exploring. Mr. Fix stated he felt this was a good thing to push forward with as long as we know that before we go out and spend money on legal documents that Tipping Point has their investors on board. Mr. Zimmer stated he would make sure that he has a commitment letter from investors before he gets into how the legal piece is structured. Mr. Fix moved to authorize the City Manager to move forward with the filling out of the applications and to utilize the City’s law director with those applications coming back to Council; Mr. Barletta seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Blair, Mr. Barletta, and Mr. Fix voting “Yes.” Motion passed, 3-0.
8. ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
A. Engineer’s Report. Mr. Bachman stated he had provided a written report and he would answer any questions.
B. ACTION ITEMS:
(1) Water Master Plan and Sewer Master Plan - Update. Mr. Bachman stated he would address these items this evening.
(2) S.R. 256 Safety Improvement Project - Update. Mr. Bachman stated he will make a presentation to ODOT’s Central Office tomorrow morning.
(3) Submission of the S.R. 256 storm sewer project for OPWC funds – Update. Mr. Bachman stated we should hear from OPWC regarding our funding request sometime in December.
(4) Review and discussion regarding Ordinance 2002-07, accepting a permanent easement from Gregory D. and Ann H. Lisk. Mr. Bachman stated the survey has been done and our law director is working on getting an appraisal.
(5) Review and discussion regarding drainage
issues on
(6) Review and request for motion to approve draft ordinance to repeal Chapter 1466, Flood Damage Control, and to establish Chapter 1466, Flood Damage Control, of the Codified Ordinances in the City of Pickerington, Ohio. Mr. Bachman stated this has to do with FEMA requiring we adopt a new ordinance for the new flood plain. He stated Ms VanCleave was present and could answer any questions anyone might have. Mr. Barletta moved to approve and forward to Council; Mr. Blair seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Fix, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Barletta voting “Yes.” Motion passed, 3-0.
C. TRANSPORTATION. Mr. Bachman stated we have been using a different traffic signal technician contractor and we have been getting good results.
Mr. Fix clarified that the crack sealing contractor is scheduled to start work next week, he was delayed due to the rainy weather we have had. Mr. Bachman stated he had provided a listing of streets that were scheduled for crack sealing and we hope to have the project completed this year.
Mr. Bachman stated he had maps for the Water Master Plan and the Sewer Master Plan for the Committee’s review. He stated Mr. Jay Shutt and Mr. Jonathan Diller from Floyd Brown were present to answer any questions.
Ms VanCleave briefed on the Sewer Master Plan and stated we found our system is actually in good condition. She stated some issues were identified that we need to be aware of and prioritizing projects to be included in the CIP.
Mr. Bachman briefed on the Water Master Plan and stated we found we are actually in better shape than we were on the sewer side. Mr. Bachman stated he was proposing an altitude valve for the water tanks in the CIP for next year. Mr. Bachman stated further that in the future he would recommend we add an additional well to our well field.
Mr. Bachman stated this was a brief overview of our systems and he would be happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Mr. Drobina stated this will provide us the ability to see the flushing system or the distribution system all together. He stated in the past we have had to go through different drawings and different developments and try to piece it together.
9. CHAIRMAN.
A. Strategic Plans Goals – Update. Mr. Fix stated he had no update this evening.
10. OTHER BUSINESS:
A. Proposed solar panel project at the water treatment plant - Update. Mr. Fix stated this was discussed earlier in the meeting.
11. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, Mr. Blair moved to adjourn; Mr. Barletta seconded the motion. Mr. Fix, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Barletta voted “Aye.” Motion carried, 3-0. The City Planning, Projects, and Services Committee adjourned at 8:20 P.M., October 20, 2011.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
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Lynda D. Yartin, City Clerk