Boston Heights Overlook

This Month
The Planning Commission began its review of Omni's request for this new PRD zoning district, and the specific requests for rezoning of the parcels along Boston Mills Road, across from existing single-family homes. Although Omni Turnpike LLC does not own this property, it is presumably acting as an agent for the current owner, Boston Heights Development Company, under a purchase option. As Omni has formally made these requests, the Planning Commission must make a recommendation to Council, which it will do at its July meeting, after the Public Hearing on 9 June 2004.

Council will subsequently vote to approve or deny the requests. See Zoning Code 1143.03 for zoning amendment procedures. See Zoning Code 1159 for RB Retail Business zoning.

Omni spokesman Greg Baka and attorney Dale Markowitz reiterated their proposals and comments, as previously presented (see the links above to earlier meetings). Principally, they promised these results: forcing ODOT to change the future Route 8 interchange design; provide the Village with a "holistic" master planned development; estimated $1,195,000 tax income ("direct & indirect"). Of this $935,000 was income taxes, $226,000 was real property taxes, and $34,000 was personal property taxes.

Mr. Baka also presented a chart summary of this predicted tax income. Councilor Mike Cheung expressed skepticism about these numbers; for example, how a largely retail development would produce $935K of income taxes -- implying $62.3M annual income. (This would require, say, 1247 jobs to be created at $50,000 per year -- unlikely for retail jobs?). The Village has 100% reciprocity for income taxes paid by its residents, so the cluster homes would likely add little income tax. Mr. Baka said he'd look into it.

The proposed cluster home development was claimed to be comparable to the "Villas of Tuscany" cluster home development at Twinsburg and Walters Roads. (Note: "Tuscany", with 36 homes platted on 18.2 acres, will have eventually have 2 homes per acre, not 4 as in the Omni proposal. Those homes are about 2200 sq.ft. and have sold for $200-250K. The Tuscany buildings are clustered together within a commonly-owned open area.)

The Omni zoning plan would allowed up to 4 homes per acre (although Omni's display showed only about 3.5 per acre). Omni predicted a a selling price of $170-300K for its proposed cluster homes. There was a short debate about how that would compare to the current pricing of homes in Boston Heights. (Note: The average 2003 sales price was $337,392. The 2000 median home value was $263,500K.)

Mr. Markowitz pointed out that the proposed PRD zoning (for these cluster homes) would incorporated private, rather than public, roads and so reduce the requirement for public services.

Dr. Cheung noted that the Village had been moving toward lower residential density (1.5A), not higher as in this proposal (0.25A). He noted that this plan (for 212-228 homes) would increase the number of households in the village by over 50% -- and just at this initial location.

Councilor Bill Goncy, in the audience, suggested that the cluster homes' 3-4 bedrooms implied children, not empty nests -- and mentioned the Village's possible problems with the Hudson Schools. Mr. Markowitz denied the connection, suggesting instead that the promised "empty-nesters" demanded extra bedrooms for offices, hobbies, guests, etc.

Referring to Omni's promise to attempt to influence the Route 8 interchange design, Mr. Bill Bode (of Boston Mills Road) pointed out that ODOT had already rejected several of Omni's concepts for engineering reasons. Mr. Baka delicately suggested that these restrictions were not as hard and fast as ODOT had claimed. He did not, however, have an answer for how this development would play out if the interchange was built as currently planned.

The question arose as to how Omni was planning to deal with the derelict hotel on their property north of the Turnpike at Hines Hill Road. The Village had recently (19 April 2004) declared this structure a public nuisance. Mr. Baka stated that Omni did not have the funding to do anything about repairing or removing that hotel, and would not unless they got their desired zoning and were so able to build their entire project. Mayor McFall asked if that was tantamount to Omni planning to ignore the ruling of the Nuisance Abatement Board. Mr. Baka reserved comment on this, except to state that the company would have a legal response in due time.

Some residents asked why the Village was not immediately embracing Omni's business development plan. Dr. Cheung and other members of the Planning Commission explained the reasoning behind the zoning plan completed in 2003. This included a reduction in residential zoning area, and placement of OP Office Professional zoning, as in the Boston Mills land under consideration, as a business usage designed to buffer current residential zones from more intensive retail zones.

Mr. Baka reiterated Omni's previous claim that it would take "30 years" to make money on this property under Office Professional zoning. (Actually, previous claims ranged from 10 to 20 years). This argument hinged on the asking price of the land, the owners' requirement that it be sold together with the segment north of the Turnpike, and office development in Hudson's adjacent District 6. Mr. Baka also repeated the claim that the retail developments (presumably both north and south of the Turnpike) could not be built without putting more potential customers in the vicinity -- hence the cluster homes.

Mr. Baka and Mr. Markowitz both speculated on why the Boston Mills Road property had remained unsold for many decades. They suggested that it was because no "economically viable" proposal had ever been made before. (Note: In fact, over the past 10 years, both Industrial and large-scale Retail developments have been proposed for this parcel. In all cases, these were turned away because they appeared to be inconsistent with the adjacent residential usage, inconsistent with the overall village's development plan, and/or likely to cause undesirable impacts and costs.)

Due to the late hour, the Planning Commission deferred further consideration until after the 9 June 2004 Public Hearing on this matter.

1. sign language to cover each district - size, height, placement
2. fences - type, height, opening/no openings, post placement
3. outdoor storage for each district
4. Occupancy Permits - who provides - see CO 1375.01(C)(3)/(4) and 1147.01(B)
5. Required 5000 foot spacing between service stations, per Zoning Code 1159.04(1)(A), and unspecified spacing between self-storage facilities.