I'll go ahead and call the June 23rd, 2025 housing planning development committee meeting to order.

The first order of business is the approval of the May 12th 2025 housing planning and development committee meeting minutes.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Motion second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Eyes have it.

Is there a preference on order?

We go in.

I appreciate the fact that Mr.

Wyman uh is here after his having a medical procedure, so we may want to hurry up and get him out.

Okay.

Well, in that case, then I'll just take it in the order it's on the agenda.

Um, which is the communication from uh Commissioner Parmley.

Uh just to clean up the docket, I'll go ahead and make a motion to receive and file that communication.

Is there a second?

Uh any discussion?

All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Um and then now the ordinance.

Uh so I've had time to dig into this a little bit, but I I guess I'll toss it over to Commissioner Parmley.

And appreciate the you know, the thought about this.

I I certainly you know, a lot of constituents reach out with ideas about plantings and how they can be a little bit more uh stormwater friendly.

And I know you know we have our issue with our sewer system is not dry weather flows, it's wet weather flows, and whatever we can do to slow down that stormwater, I think is is good for us.

Uh uh, so I'll go ahead and throw over Commissioner Parmley to kind of walk through the ordinance and um have discussion.

Uh this is uh this is something that the administration myself been looking at for quite some time.

Um pollinators, big issue.

Uh without without bees, none of us would be here.

Um so to kind of take a look at it to permit you know wild garden, it's not even just wildflowers.

I mean, if you could plant tomatoes, you want to do a garden, you don't have a backyard, front yard gets the majority of the sun.

Um trying to accompany all those different type types of plannings you can have in the front yard.

Um to your point, Councilman Baker, you know, the more natural greenery we have in the front, the less goes into the storm system.

So after talking through that, um I think the the main gist of the ordinance is not only allowing these plannings in the front yard, but kind of having the line of sight maintained um on the public or on the private property side, especially with corner lots.

I mean, we have the ordinances already where you know bushes on corner lots can't exceed three feet in height, you know, for that reason.

So you're not half in the middle of the intersection slamming on the brakes when a kid's trying to cross the street while they're on their phone.

Um it it gives homeowners more latitude on on private property.

Um it it doesn't go hand in hand with the high grass ordinance that still exists, but it just gives private ownership more ability to kind of make their front yards their own.

And this is something you see a lot on deeper lots, on edge water, on lake, um your interior lots typically don't have that kind of frontage.

Like me on Rosewood, I mean I have 25 feet in the front yard.

Just talking about my street, you know, there's a handful of houses that have been doing this for some years now, but we we do want to be sensitive to overgrowth on the public sidewalk, site triangles, and that buffer in between public right-of-way and private property.

Thank you.

And I um in doing some research on this, it looked like you did you pull this language from Minneapolis or or was it I don't know, because it's pretty similar.

Yeah, no, it's just you?

That's my research, me just shooting from the hip.

Because I'm curious, we have like we define meadow vegetation, ornamental plan, and rain garden, but we don't really use it in the in the section B.

So I was just curious as to kind of if we had some future uh thoughts about getting that into cut into the code.

I mean, I'm gonna claim ignorance and speak to my lack of a green thumb.

Um again, my primary objective with this was to allow the front yard plannings, um, not allow, permit the front yard plannings, but ensure that you know we're not blocking visibility.

Um again, I mean it's natural landscape, front yard gardens, wild flowers, um things that help attract the pollinators, to be honest with you.

Um, just plantings that we have here in Ohio.

And why why can't somebody have wild vegetation in their front yard that I think the thing we're gonna run into is again, I'm not a botanist, but you know, what's a weed opposed to you know uh native plant species, and that's something we're gonna we're gonna have to vet out along the way.

Um there was concerns during the last council meeting about existing conditions, right?

So you got a tree on the corner, you have bushes already.

This is not a permit process.

This is you don't need approval to do this, but if you choose to do it, you have to stay within the confines of the ordinance.

And we really had no teeth when it came to this originally.

It was just growth over the sidewalk.

You know, there's a handful of properties, I know Councilman Bullock knows about a couple of them that just constantly grew over the sidewalk.