The Columbus City Council held a public hearing to discuss the proposed update to the Big Darby Accord, a 20-year-old interjurisdictional agreement protecting the Big Darby Creek watershed in Franklin County. The hearing featured presentations from planning consultants, city development staff, invited speakers from Metro Parks and the Streams and Wetlands Foundation, and public testimony from 13 speakers. The update aims to strengthen water quality monitoring, expand protected conservation areas, increase stream buffers, and improve the revenue model for land acquisition, while maintaining the existing cap of 20,000 residential units. A major point of contention was whether to delay the amendment until the completion of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Integrated Prioritization System (IPS) Phase 2 study, expected later in 2026.
In addition to representing District 2, which is on the far west side of Columbus. Today we will hear presentations about the tremendous amount of work that is being done to update the Big Derby Accord, a vital interjurisdictional agreement aimed at protecting the Big Darby Creek watershed. This review process has lasted nearly a year and a half and has been one of the most complex and scientific city projects I've seen in my time as a council member. The purpose of this hearing is to inform the public about why the Accord needs an update, what community engagement efforts went into this process, the science-backed environmental goals of an updated accord, and what is being improved to further protect the watershed. We're happy to be joined this evening by several individuals who have really been knee deep in this project since 2024. Chris Herman, MKSK principal, city and regional planner, Ianko Sport, MKSK planner. Brian Clark, Department of Development, Deputy Director for Regional Growth Strategies, and Christopher Lore, Department of Development Planning Division Assistant Administrator. I'm also thankful to be joined by my fellow council members, a committee vice chair Councilmember Weich and Councilmember Ross. Would either of you like to share some opening remarks? No. Okay. Well, thank you all for being here this evening. I will now hand over the speaking to Chris Herman and the team to share their presentation for my colleagues. If you could take note of your questions as they move through the presentation, and then we'll go around the dias to answer questions at the end. Okay. So turn it over to you. That's good, thank you. Thank you very much. Again, my name is Chris Herman, and thank you for your time tonight. I have about a 25-slide presentation, which I'll keep short and to the point. Wanted to start just by providing an overview of the Big Derby watershed. It's an exemplary watershed, which is why this has become such a big topic for the region over the past decades, actually. It's a natural scenic river, state scenic river, exceptional warwater habitat, also outstanding state waters, and it's under the uh strongest protections of the Ohio EPA. And so this is uh the watershed for watershed for Big Derby. You'll see in the pink is the Accord area. So one of the things that I think is really important to keep in mind is the watershed is 555 square miles. The Accord area is about 83 square miles. And so we're focused on the Franklin County portion of the watershed, and that's what this accord covers. Uh the 2006 accord was a uh cooperation between 10 Franklin County jurisdictions. Uh it was voluntary, shared goals to promote conservation and development. And there's a linkage between those two, and I'll explain that more as we go. This is the current 2006 mission statement. Um, but the key point is to preserve, protect, and approve the Big Derby Creek watershed and its unique ecosystems, also to promote responsible growth. Uh, in some of the meetings we've had in the open house, I do want to point out in the second bullet. Some people were confused and thought this is something new. This is the current uh mission statement. It talks about adequate public facilities, it talks about promoting a full spectrum of housing choice and providing the educational recreation and civic opportunities of the citizens of each jurisdiction. Um we are preserving this mission statement and carrying forward. The only thing we are changing is the very last bullet, which reference studies that occurred in the early 2000s when this was uh adopted, and we're gonna make it more generic to just reference studies that are occurring and updating and taking into account. The accord has done a lot of amazing things, and uh all the jurisdictions should be proud of what has been accomplished. Um almost 3,500 acres of open space and prime conservation areas have been protected. Uh we've seen uh over 6,000 housing units built since 2007. Those developments have used best management practices, and you'll hear us say BMPs a lot. That is how you uh do development in a way that uh takes addresses stormwater runoff. So best management practices are the ways to address how stormwater runoff is treated on site to make it uh a better water quality and less of an impact onto the receiving streams. A big part of this has been a big success has been nine stream and wetland restorations as part of this that's occurred. We're excited to continue to see restorations as more projects are advanced. And again, it has been a multi-jurisdictional process with an accord review panel that reviews developments before they're approved and reviewed by the jurisdictions. Why are we talking about amending it now? Because it has been 20 years since this accord was originally written and adopted.