10 October 2006 BZA Meeting Notes

10 October 2006 BZA Meeting Notes

Present: Jim Deaton, Chairman, Jane Ohlmansiek, Jake Hoog, and Mike Hall
Absent: Patty Baker

Also Present: Mark McCormack, Planning Director, Kate Rademacher, Enforcement Officer, and Arnie McGill, Attorney.

Ralph Thompson- Candidate for Commissioner was also present

1. No public was opposed to the front yard variance for a pole barn for A.Wayne Spitzfaden on Mount Pleasant Road in Miller Township on Ag land.
The board ha no issues with it.
Ohlmansiek motioned and Hall 2nd to approve the variance for a 38 ft variance from the edge of the road pavement for the barn citing the variance code as being satisfied.
All ayes. Passed.

BZA “Conditionally” Passes a Conditional Use on to Plan Commission.

2. Conditional Use request for a Condominium and daycare Center on 25 acres of R land on Stateline Road in Miller Township. Owner Landhill Development, Applicant Bayer Becker and Classic Properties represented by James Noyes for president Joe Faruggia.

[NOTE: This land is part of the larger parcel that has been in contention for 7 years. The rezone hearing in 1999 held by the Plan Commission resulted in an eventual UNFAVORABLE recommendation in August of 1999. Sept 7, 1999 two of the three County Commissioners at that time overturned this recommendation. Mark Dole voted Nay. Vera Benning and John Kyle, after privately meeting with the developer on the land, voted Aye.]

James Noyes presented the material for the development after the Planning Staff slide show of the issues and area were presented. 14 of the 16 letters had been received by adjoining property owners.
Of note:
1. There was no information on the sewage except for a letter from Greendale indicating their ability to handle the outflow if it passed through Sugar Ridge’s oversized lines.
2. The traffic information was old, the newest of the data was from 2004, and didn’t have the latest developments figured in.
They intend to do traffic study at primary approval.
3. They arranged uses with eth lay of the land- the open space is primarily sloping too much for development.
4. The day care is 5,000 sq ft and approximate parking spaces are on the map.
5. Noyes attempted to justify the need for condos in this area saying they think there is a demand not being met.
6. The condos will be 2-3 bedrooms.
7. There will be no walking trails as the greenspace land is unsuited to it- too steep.
8. Roads and opens space is owned by HOA.

Public comment:

Judy Niemeyer- adjoiner and opposed. Wants fence and trees and is concerned with safety. Thinks the hilly terrain in open space is dangerous.

Dennis Merk- owns 150 acres north of development. Asked the board to look at whole picture. If you pass this, there are more behind it. It was defeated before because of the single entrance. Said the only greenspace here is what is too steep to use. Stateline can’t handle the traffic being proposed. He has cattle and ponds and needs to protect his interests- we need a fence if this goes in.
There are farms all around this with livestock.

Ralph Thompson- There are quite a few condos in this area- Mt. Pleasant, Sugar Ridge, Whispering Woods, HVL.
There are lots of vehicles in an area with very limited access- single entry is an EMS issue.
Steep hillside with cuts could lead to potential slippage and only a the HOA to cover this.
Fire dept. in Bright recently requested increased funding from commissioners to handle the increased development and they were turned down- as there is NO MONEY FOR IT.

Kathy Scott- Condos can be a large building that looks more like an apt. What are these like? Do they have garages, single floor plans? Noted that in Wildwood in Fairfield they were an example of condo associations for a long time. Sometimes people make apartments into condos.

Sammy Gutzwiller- longtime resident and represents Bachman and Zimmerman and also Red Pine Properties (Andy Temmel). She asked to see the Greendale letter. She noted they were trying to attach to Sugar Ridge and that Farruggia (this property) is in VRUC’s CTA!!! She asked Deaton to read the letter out loud. He did. She then asked to get a copy of it. [NOTE: SO VRUC’s CTA is not currently served and DCRSD took over all land not currently served by sewer. Is DCRSD really in charge of this? Or is this the area DCRSD is allowing Greendale to serve with their agreement?]

Sheila Merk- lives on adjoining 150 acres by the single-family home section of this development proposal. Asked where the play area is for the daycare, which is situated closest to Stateline Road. Noted only greenspace is undevelopable. She thought integrity was important here and she sees this as a more transient population being marketed to with the condos. She also saw the developer as transient- develop it and leave the management to others.
She gave a brief history of the issues with the original development approvals and the sewage treatment plant that they attempted to slip in which would have dumped to a dry creek bed (9 mo of the year) and on to Ohio. Ohio and IDEM communicated and essentially stopped that once Ohio was informed of the problems. IDEM denied the plant. She said these things need to be taken into account when some tells you what they will and will not do.
She discussed briefly, the commissioner’s overturning the PC recommendations on the zone change and was stopped, as this was supposedly not pertinent to the proposal.
She said Stateline is NOT up to date for the houses now, why add more and why with only one entrance? This shouldn’t even be considered.

Linda Mitchell – represents her family, which owns and operates a working farm of 90 acres to the north. She noted the only greenspace is the fall-off areas. They are developing the ridge and we are very concerned about the drainage that will affect our farm. The adjoining lands are 150, 90 8, 23 etc acres. This is TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER with what surrounds it on three sides.
She sees a huge safety issue with the daycare close to the road and to Niemeyer’s lake.
In Aug 23, 1999 the principal of Bright Elementary wrote a letter about this stating concerns with health, safety, and space issues at the school.
The traffic figures need to be UPDATED FIRST. Originally Faruggia stated he would fix the dip in the road, then found out the cost. He stated he’d pay $10,000. Kyle made the $10,000 a condition of the rezone. The dip is fixed- the COUNTY TAXPAYERS footed the bill. Faruggia paid nothing. He needs to be made to pay for that part.

Dan Johnson- a commuter who uses Stateline Road daily. He read section 315 conditional use requirements and cited 3 areas of it that he said they didn’t meet. He said it doesn’t meet the character test in b. He said article c talks about facilities and infrastructure and notes the letters are not all in place and only the politically correct ones are coming in from the schools. He was concerned with eth pitfall of an HOA and their ability to keep up the development and infrastructure long term. He figures the taxpayers will eventually pay for that. He also noted the traffic congestion in the next article was an issue with at least 320 more vehicles and more that 1200 trips per day added to the roadway onto a twisting hilly road.

Sammy Gutzwiller- HVL POA pays all our taxes and has 1850 homes in eth most successful HOA with 35 miles of roads that ARE THE BEST ROADS IN THE COUNTY!!! She cited her experience as managing 15 offices and 800 employees.

Sheila Merk- noted that some people RENT condos from their owners.

Public discussion ended at 8:20 and the applicant answered questions from the board.

They will run compaction testing before cutting into the hills. Runoff will be addressed by erosion control with silt fences and hay bales.
Condos are 3 stories high with 11 units to a building; each has garage and some with 2 cars. They all have a personal driveway.
Nicole Daily of Bayer Becker pointed out Sugar Ridge and HVL as answers to being out of character in the area.
There is emergency access behind the daycare.
Daily noted that numbers from 2004 indicated a need for turn lanes on Stateline and they will do a full traffic study before primary approval. [NOTE: This is a conditional use- and as such is asking for special consideration in an R zone. They should have done MORE work ahead of this so this board would have FACTS to work with.]
The site distance issue was corrected when THE COUNTY fixed the dip.
Mark Rosenberger of Bayer Becker said that VRUC was unresponsive to letters and Greendale supplied them. They are going through the formal process with IURC to remove this from VRUC’s CTA for sewers.

Board Discussion:

Ohlmansiek- we need condos, but was concerned with it being dropped into an area with EORKING farms. The Ag surrounding this isn’t just open space. She was concerned with sewers. Day care might be needed in an are with a lot of homes.
Jake Hoog- Thinks the parcel itself is too hilly to be used for Ag. Had problems with the day care and sees a serious safety issue – it needs to be set back further.
Mike Hall- Problems with infrastructure and sewer. McCormack noted it should be taken into consideration and that it will also be addressed at primary approval.
Jim Deaton- This R is never used for farming. It’s right across from high density. Let them ask for it.
Ohlmamsiek went through the 6 criteria:
a- sewers an ongoing problem and adding traffic to Stateline at an entrance 2.5 miles from US 50.
b- on a ridge so it might protect neighbors somewhat from it by greenspace hills.
c- will be covered at primary plat stage [NOTE: passing the buck to PC]
d- won’t impede the development around it. [NOTE: Farms are also developments. What if they can’t pursue their business?]
e- evidence will be provided by traffic study at primary approval. [NOTE Passing buck again to PC]
f- is OK

Some board members had trouble with a and d, some with c and e.

Hall asked McGill- the attorney- do we have to answer ALL 6. McGill said YES.

Mike Hall motioned and Jake Hoog 2nd to grant the conditional use subject to them getting the Plan Commission and related depts. approval of c and e of section 315.
All ayes Passed.

[NOTE: This passes the buck to the Plan Commission and state code is the basis for the 6 conditions. They are not separated by the word “or”. McGill also said they have to all be answered. The BZA needs to take a serious look at this procedure.]

ADMINISTRATIVE:
Monthly enforcement report and stats were passed out.
Meetings with OKI and Land Use Plan for Master Plan were announced on the 16th and 18th.
Nov 2 will be another US 50 discussion- no time or place yet.

The BZA then entertained comments from the audience on the last item. Possible solutions to the issues involved:

Getting the R zone breakdown finished
Having PC review conditional use first then BZA takes their recommendation and goes further. This was how it was handled in the previous ordinances.
Old zone change history of the original zone maps that stripped out roads with R zones was commented on.
Wanting the public to speak up and not talk in the audience and complain later was advised by the board and staff also.
Noting it was hard to sit on the boards and take all the criticism.

Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township