Plain City will not move forward with a plan to eliminate the expedited process of approving changes in the village historic district.
At Monday night’s meeting, council president Kerri Fergusson announced council was tabling proposed legislation.
Under the village code, the Design Review Board must approve changes to buildings in Plain City’s Uptown Historic District. As it is written, certain minor changes can be fast tracked, meaning that rather than going through the full board hearing, the village administrator or other staff can approve them.
Village Administrator Nathan Cahall said changes that can be expedited are pretty straight forward citing a business that wants to change the wording or design on an existing sign without changing the sign location or size.
“These are pretty mundane matters that would have been cumbersome to take to the Design Review Board (DRB),” Cahall said.
Last year, DRB recommended council pass legislation to eliminate that fast track option and require any change made to a building in the district to be approved by the board.
At a council meeting in January, a pair of Uptown business owners spoke out against the change.
Business owner Tim Dawson said the change would be bad for business. He said temporary things like sandwich boards detailing daily specials and seasonal window paintings are important tools for a business to communicate. He said they would likely be eliminated if the fast track were eliminated.
At that January meeting, council closed the public hearing and deferred a third reading of the legislation until members can discuss it more thoroughly in work session.
At the February work session, Council member John Rucker, who sits on the design review board, explained why the design review board had recommended the change. He said a previous staff member approved a request, allowing a building owner to paint a previously unpainted building.
Village Administrator Nathan Cahall said he understands the concerns of the design review board. He said the design code does not offer guidance for an unpainted building. He said the paint color was in compliance with the board standards, so the situation is, “kind of a grey area.”
Cahall said many of the situations are a matter of “aesthetic versus taste.”
Council members said clarifying the code and giving staff more guidance could better fix the problems than eliminating the fast track option. Council member Darrin Lee said the items covered by the fast track option are “pretty reasonable.”
“I agree it is ridiculous that you should need to have a board meeting if you want to change an awning color or a sandwich board,” Rucker said. “That’s not the intent.”
Rucker said he would take the matter back to DRB for further consideration. He said DRB would also like to add “some teeth” to the design standards. He said too many building owners make changes without any approval, then apologize, but know the village will not force them to return the building to its original state.
Council member Shannon Pine said the board will likely be making some modifications to the code.
She said DRB is also considering adopting local standards versus a document created by the state that can be “confusing.”
At the meeting, Cahall also said the village has a verbal agreement with one property owner to create additional parking in the Village Uptown. He said officials “are still working out some details with the other two business owners.”
The Village is working with the owners of Buckeye Brass and Winds on North Chillicothe Street and Lovejoy Plaza on West Main Street. The businesses share a parking lot behind the buildings.
Other business owners have asked the village to focus on increasing parking options in the evening.
Officials have said an agreement could be a win-win-win for the village, the Uptown businesses and for the owners of the parking lot, which has fallen into disrepair. Some visitors to the Uptown are already using the parking lot, adding to the deterioration, but not compensating the lot owners.
“I don’t want to jinx it, but I am cautiously optimistic we will have something in the next two months, up or down,” said Cahall.