Lakewood Housing, Planning & Development Committee Meeting – June 29, 2026
Lakewood Housing, Planning & Development Committee Meeting – June 29, 2026
The Housing, Planning & Development Committee met at 6:00 p.m. on June 29, 2026, in the City Hall Auditorium. The committee approved its June 22, 2026 minutes and then heard a joint presentation from LakewoodAlive and a Cleveland Bridge Builders Leadership Action Project team about the difficulty homeowners face repairing or replacing aging detached garages in Lakewood.
Consent Calendar
- Approved, by voice vote, the minutes of the June 22, 2026 Housing, Planning & Development Committee meeting. The motion was made, seconded, and passed unanimously.
Presentation: LakewoodAlive / Cleveland Bridge Builders
- Vice President Kyle Baker introduced the presentation as part of the agenda item on the May 20, 2026 LakewoodAlive Board meeting and said the garage issue is frequently raised by residents and relevant to the ongoing zoning refresh.
- The Bridge Builders team, represented by Ken Kallinschuk, Bob Whitney, Nicole Runick, and Crystal Reed on behalf of an eight-person group, presented research on garage repair needs and potential solutions.
- A video featured a Lakewood resident, Timothyah, a stroke survivor who said he can no longer maintain his property and whose garage roof collapsed in a windstorm. He said he is unable to afford the rebuild despite wanting to comply with city code.
- The team reported 111 garage-related citations in 2024–2025, with 20–25 properties recommended for demolition or replacement. LakewoodAlive is aware of about 100 garage citations per year and uses those contacts to assess resident needs.
- They stated that most Lakewood garages are detached, that federal grant dollars cannot be used on detached garages, and that replacement typically costs $20,000–$40,000, while even demolition plus a shed can cost $3,000–$8,000.
- Citing appraiser Scott Moylan, the team said a garage adds an estimated 3.5–4.5 percent to property value, so owners may be required to spend more than the garage adds to the home's value.
- They said LakewoodAlive's volunteer capacity supports only a handful of repair projects per year, not a large-scale program. Non-government solutions they researched included financing, grants, fundraising, and workforce development programs.
Policy Options Discussed
The team presented four policy options for council consideration, along with pros and cons:
- Allow garage alternatives, such as parking pads, carports, sheds, or green space instead of a full garage rebuild.
- Create demolition variances for unsafe structures, allowing quicker removal before a rebuild plan is finalized.
- Extend the current six-month rebuild requirement to a longer period, possibly up to five years.
- Expand Lakewood's homeowner tax abatement program from 10 years to 15 years for garage projects, potentially with income or age restrictions. The team described this option as less impactful because it does not provide upfront capital.
- Councilman Baker noted that Cuyahoga County recently ended the HELP loan program, which had been one way to finance garage repairs, and said the city is exploring county or local alternatives.
Council Discussion & Requests
- Councilwoman Strebig, who identified herself as a landlord, called the issue overdue and asked whether the city can identify landlord-owned versus owner-occupied properties by cross-referencing the rental registry. The team said they can share their citation list and would need rental registry data to improve ownership classification.
- Councilman Bullock thanked the team but urged caution about relaxing garage standards. He said he would prefer to find financial resources before backing off Lakewood's traditional detached-garage character and expressed concern about paved backyards becoming the norm. He said variances and longer rebuild periods are easier to support.
- Council President Kepple requested data on the share of cited garages that are owner-occupied versus income properties and the percentage of owners who wanted to rebuild versus demolish. The team said they did not survey owners on rebuild preferences but can provide ownership estimates and appraiser information.
- Chair Evans and Councilman Baker said the findings are timely for the zoning code overhaul and would be used soon.
Key Outcomes
- The committee approved the June 22, 2026 minutes.
- The Bridge Builders team committed to providing council with the list of cited properties, ownership data for those properties, and the one-page appraisal information from Scott Moylan.
- The committee took no formal vote on the policy options; the discussion will inform upcoming zoning code work and possible future council action.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good evening, everybody. Uh welcome to the June 29th, 2026 meeting of the Housing Planning and Development Committee. We have two R3 members here, which is a quorum. I expect Councilman Bullock will be here as well. Um first order of business approval of the uh I'll move to approve the June 22nd, 2026 uh uh meeting minutes. Uh seconded. And seconded. All in favor, aye. Motion passes. Um second item on the agenda is uh report from Vice President Baker regarding the May 20th meeting of Lakewood Alive Board of Directors. Um so this is in regards to some work. And I'll I'll let you use you guys introduce yourselves, but the um a class or group of the class of Cleveland Bridge Builders did some work talking about um a subject that we actually hear a lot about from residents um on and is important, especially since we're talking about zoning, and that is garages in the city of Lakewood. Um so I will turn it over to the group and welcome you and thanks you for thank you for being here. Thank you. Trying to make sure the mics are working. It should just be a red. Well, thank you, Councilman Evans and all of counsel for having us today. Um we're gonna do quick individual introductions. We have a brief video to show you, and then we'll talk a little bit more about who we are, what our research was, and what some of our recommendations are on this problem. Um I'm Ken Kallinschuk, I'm a director and principal of project management consultants. I do economic development consulting, including for Lakewood occasional. I'm Bob Whitney. I'm the director of government affairs for Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity, so work in quite a bit of housing advocacy. Um though uh this issue talking about garage is definitely a unique thing, so happy to be here and thanks so much for having us. Hi, I'm Nicole Runick. I'm a major gifts officer with Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. I'm also very excited to be here. Hello, everyone. I am Crystal Reed. I am a director with the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Workforce Board, which is now called Greater Cleveland Works, and very thankful for this opportunity and excited to share what we've been up to with you all. Is this visible on your iPads? We see it up here, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You can go to the video. Sorry, Joe. Community development organization here in Lakewood, Ohio, and our mission is to sustain vibrant and welcoming communities. We do that by a housing outreach program. We help entrepreneurs and small business owners. We beautify commercial corridors, and we throw really nice large-scale community events. Lakewood is often looked at as a quaint and affluent city that doesn't experience um any low to moderately low income residents. But we are a very we're a very lucky city that we have all socioeconomical walks of life here. A challenge with a historic city is that our homes are a good portion of our homes are century homes. They're 100 plus years old. And with that comes significant charm and beauty that we love, but it also comes with repairs that need to happen. And if you can't afford those repairs, where do you go? My name is Timothyah. Uh my wife, my first wife and I bought this house in 91, and I've been living here since for 35 years. Up until the point of the disability of my stroke. I could maintain everything.
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