The Powell Planning & Zoning Commission and City Council held a joint meeting on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Council Chambers at 47 Hall Street, Powell, Ohio. The agenda included the oath of office for three new commission members and an overview of ongoing efforts to update the zoning code (Case 2025-12ADM), with discussion focused on building heights, zoning district classifications, and lot coverage rules. No meeting minutes were available; this summary draws from the agenda and the meeting transcript. The agenda lists the meeting start time as 6:30 PM, while the transcript metadata records a timestamp of 12:45 UTC.
I know that the downtown uh mix the you're increasing the building height from 35 to 40. And uh can you give me some information that would suggest what might be the difference? Does that mean the difference between having three stories versus four stories, or does it allow you know more of parapets and things like that that's I think really it's one of the things that we've seen with and the the best example I can give is Milano right, Claudia. They they requested just over 40. So one of the things is it supports more of the three-story scale development and really what people are looking for on those upper floors. So ground floors for commun for commercial, usually want to sit at a certain height, that tends to push it up, and then if you're gonna do residential or office above, you don't want to restrict it to an eight-foot ceiling or a seven-foot ceiling. You want to be able to have a little bit more flexibility there. So it's one of those that we want to allow for that, you know, just kind of like matching modern practices. Um, but also it's a deviation that's come up uh several times with development, so it's helping to remove that from being something that they have to request separately. Now, if somebody wanted to come in and do a four-story, they are gonna have to request a deviation that's likely gonna exceed the height, so there's gonna be more conversation that has to happen of what is the impact of that, and is this really helping a development that the community wants to see versus just somebody saying I want to maximize what I can do on the site, regardless of if it makes sense and if it fits with the character. And I noticed that in industrial, I think it's maybe 45 feet and is that just consistent with with modern industrial buildings that they need that kind of space. Correct. And it and it depends, it kind of goes back to some of the uh the uses that we're trying to attract, which is it's the zoning district is called industrial, but they're more of like the clean type of industrial building. So it's like it's research and development, it's it's those types, it's you know, it may be um health science related, those aspects, but yeah, they're they're similarly looking for, depending on what they're doing, you know, taller, taller story heights for each. That gives a little bit of flexibility if they do, you know, a two-story building versus a single story, or if they need a large single-story bay area. We have a lot more flexibility there to really attract the types of businesses that we want, especially as the city you know looks at other growth opportunities, potential annexations, other aspects where you know we don't have a ton of those sites today, but that doesn't mean that in the future we won't have more of those coming in or more properties for that. So is the gun room DTR or the like that development about house center? What is pointers point? Harper's point would be um it would not be DTR, it would move to the mixed residential because so Harper's Point was one of those that was rezoned um when the development came in to the downtown residence, but it doesn't quite fit the same character of what you have like in the northwest quad of downtown. So really the downtown residential is focusing on that northwest quad where you have some of the original property lines, the original sites um when Powell was established as a village, rather than the newer developments that have come in. So even something like Encore Park isn't gonna be downtown residential, it would be that mixed residential because it doesn't quite match the same um character as those other lots. All those homes are only 50% lot coverage. Yes, but lot coverage for us uh refers to the building. So 50% of your lot can be the building pads, it's not other things like hardscape like the driveway or those. It's it's just the building, it's the buildings itself, the structures. Similarly, those are things that we want to get feedback on from you all from the public to make sure that we are encouraging the right type of regulations for these. Sorry, Dave. Hearing no other comments, Wogan, great presentation, Claudia. Thank you for all your support in this. Thank you. Uh appreciate you guys very much. Uh meeting before we adjourn, I got a little counter question. April 11th is a Saturday. You know what? It's the 8th. I I must have missed it, but it's it's supposed to be the 8th. The 8th. Alright, cool. So our next meeting's April 8th. Cool. We'll see you on the 8th. I thought you were just making a general statement. I didn't know we were.