the july meeting will
will stumble to a start
maybe maybe check check can you hear me
well once once social hour starts well
is this picking up the underway oh my
gosh
what's happening they're having a good
time i know this is great
okay
all right folks going to start the
meeting here we go
um i almost had having done the the crew
game
uh last saturday which was fabulous i
almost want to say like in calling your
role
she lost i won't do that
so sheila jim wilson here
uh dave wakeman ellen
oh and molly okay
to also quorum we're ready to go um
so
approval of the minutes uh june 16th
uh our last minutes uh i'm sure
everyone's read them
carefully and thoughtfully and so i'll
be happy to take a motion
on that
uh second and uh
the sheila well all all
in favor say aye aye aye okay
um i don't have any additions to the
gender
at some point uh eleanor and i may wish
to talk about the livingston avenue
study
uh because that's still percolating
after a very lively
session yesterday you might be
interested in parts of that
because i think it's helpful for all the
commissions to have at least some
operating knowledge of this stuff uh i
don't think there's any other
additions to the agenda that i'm aware
elena do you know of anything else okay
that's good um and so
um small victories resident comments
i don't know if we have any of those
although grant and the mayor met with
somebody who
felt pretty strongly about his tree and
his limbs and uh
pays taxes in the city so uh yet another
voice of of um
that the arbor part of the arboretum
fell on his car so i guess we'll put it
that way
but life does go on um
any update uh bexley bloomers
okay can you turn your mic on
thank you ah thank you uh oh i was gonna
say jordan was putting
up some photographs of what we've done
this was from last thursday
we have gone in and extensively weeded
all these beds taken out vines along the
wall everything's been edged and mulched
as well as to the bright the pivot
hedge has been taken down four or five
feet
uh then this is up by the bench and
again extremely
heavy weeding has been done the bed's
been edged
and last week we re-mulched it very
heavily because
it is challenging to keep up with the
amount of weeding
we have to do and yeah you see that
bench
again vines and all that all that's been
weeded and
as you see fresh mulch
we've replanted this bed and by the
gazebo
cleaned that all up
and again cutting the uh
boxwood there kind of down the pharaoh
which has come back beautifully
uh julie kessler planted all the urns up
there that are just doing beautifully
they love where they are and um
yeah sue grows to the yeah so
everything's been weeded mulched
this area is to the south side of the
parking lot
and anybody who knows anna from the
community foundation she and her family
have weeded this area because they can't
come on thursday so
on either side of that walkway they've
tweeted it it's been mulched
and again just up by the mansion so
we've done
a lot of work up there and
let's see yeah all of this has been oh
there
is gary giller and his friends removed
uh
random bushes and um
anyway i am and a vine
i know and this is
to the north side of the new edition at
jeffrey
kim um mary and i we did that
monday evening um
it was heavily weeded you know full of
weeds
and there is kim amongst the landscape
and here's another bed to the
north side of and there in the distance
you see mary mcnun
master gardener resident and very hard
worker
and so that gives you some idea what we
did last thursday and monday
absolutely fabulous wow a lot of work
and who all participated in that
let's see gary giller and couple of hit
pals for uh
brian and scott from church uh let's see
paul lacroix was there uh myself mary
mcnun
uh paige crane was there for an hour
we missed linda she's a regular yeah and
she was in
in indianapolis at a baseball tournament
last thursday
kim yee uh and let's see vivian bishol i
i
mean there's there's a group about
sue and jim gross and susan and ken
and um so we have worked pretty hard up
there
for the last weeks the mansions
you know you think there'll be a another
opportunity to do that in the future
with us
members of the same group maybe even
with others joining them
oh we had to please welcome other people
we're there every thursday morning from
night every friday
okay yeah every uh october yeah
so um i have a list of things that we're
going to be doing tomorrow weeding
around
the tri-color beach mulching and then
oh i mean we've done a lot of work
around the shelter the toddler's
playground
looks fabulous yeah and i um
serve remove service berries with trim
bushes
mulched edged i found a dogwood
under a mass of tangles of stuff
and then tomorrow that area just north
of where that
dogwood is there is a um mulberry
and um honey and suckle and all that
that we're going to be
it is so perfect so anyway
it's been very rewarding i mean it's
been a lot of hard work
the love shows i mean you know it's such
a beautiful sight
and and it it is so photogenic
but then when you see it all cleaned up
you know it kind of looks like it's out
of an english magazine
that upper terrace i mean really when we
started there
it was a mess right and really working
on that in that weeding and now the
expanse well of course with all the
rain we've had just the green turf and
then just
the beds being cleaned up and then the
planting of the perennial and then those
urns
i mean you can just envision receptions
and cocktail party it's
it really is it's lovely that's huge i
just think that's huge
anyway it's um it's like you say it's
just been very rewarding yeah we've
worked hard and then you step back and
you know
that it does look nice a massive plan
because we look back
from the meadow and you look up and you
can see where
you know somebody thought it was a good
idea to plant these three trees and then
somebody else said
we've got a bunch of these guys let's
plant them there
you know we probably should think about
and then we'll move on here but we
should probably think about
specifying what we mean by master plan
because we could use a master planting
plan
for that property and stay out of the
master
plan as to what happens with every inch
of the ground
and what we shouldn't do and shouldn't
should do with the ground but rather a
master planting plan so that we can
proceed on with well everybody who's
working on this will tell you
a master plan is is needed and
um i would say the group working on it
would have
would not be hesitant with input on and
you know some of the things that need to
be done but
uh you know it's it is it's a beautiful
site and um
you know it's it's been rewarding
working there and i can't say enough
for uh the city crew and uh you know ron
and craig and sean and all that
they're great we started out delivering
our own mulch
they take pit you know with wheelbarrow
and now which is great much more
efficient
the the men now that we're
we're going to be working but they've
been great they've been tremendously
supportive
and so it's been a good experience
so we welcome anybody who would like to
join us thursday mornings between 9 and
12.
just uh send uh an email to me
linda susan yeah or just show up
and we'll hand you a trial thank you uh
we might as well
well we recognize uh linda zupnik is
here
at her to the uh to the crowd um
and then any fundraising updates on i
have for bexley and bloom
uh
this time last year
uh we have brought in 12 805
from 117 people this year we're at
13 765 from 136 people
so that's great it's going well and
um people continue to contribute really
till year end
but we're in great shape wonderful
appreciate that uh i know nothing about
the street tree at 678
south vernon um anything on that grant
i think that they did so this was the um
the gentleman who wanted to have a maple
tree removed
because the roots were hurting his yard
and so the recommendation from the tree
commission was not to have it removed
but
ben and susan generously agreed to go
actually on site
um and i think they edged it and created
a little bed and put mulch down i mean i
know that that was what the plan was
they did do that too the two of them
physically did it
yeah i think they did it last thursday
he wanted to yeah he wanted to know how
to do a straight line edge
yes between curve and sidewalk i guess
they did it last thursday before she
met up with us at the mansion i think so
i think so
first time i've heard that she does that
kind of yard work so we'll
look for other opportunities she hires
her own property and really good
volunteers brother
okay we'll talk about livingston
in terms of other so i think we'll we'll
slip that in
someplace probably under uh old business
uh
so uh next item is uh an
application to be reviewed and voted on
and we do have a quorum we have five
voting members so uh
donna can you take that one away yes so
we are going to be looking at
tbgr 21-5 a private residence located at
22
south roosevelt avenue um this is a
project that actually is
going to be zap tomorrow and since we
are
on vacation or we're in recess on in
august
we are basically reviewing this
simultaneously so um
this is not a new build um we are not
necessarily looking at all
of the landscape although all of the
landscape is is quite lovely it's a
really great design but the reason why
this has come up is that
um the owners are asking for a variance
for a four foot metal fence along broad
street
um because this is a corner lot the uh
technically the front yard that is
considered a front yard along broad
rather than a side yard
um and so then that fence is going to be
zap for review for variants
um the there is a going to be a stone
wall
that is along the sidewalk on roosevelt
there's a two-foot setback but this
stone wall
is just beyond that and so it's not
something that the tree commission needs
to review
so although we have a lot of information
to kind of look at we're really just
kind of focusing
on the plantings that are around the
fence itself
i had recommended um at one point that
in their original design along the fence
line they just they had no bed and so i
thought having screening there would be
a little bit more appropriate
in talking with kathy we need to make
sure that we have
a 30-foot 30-foot basically kind of
triangle from the intersection of where
broad and roosevelt came in
do a diagonal and then no plant material
can be taller than 30 inches in that
because of line of sight for the cars
we've looked at the plan we think that
we are
good with that we don't necessarily need
to worry about that
they have a row of karl forcers grass
which can
get tall but um you know they won't i
don't think it will be a problem and
then they have
um sort of a smaller grass in front of
it i think it's a hack and a cloa
the japanese forest grass in front of it
um
and uh i think that we have both i think
we have both noah and evelyn
from um foreground studio um
joining us via zoom and if we could pull
up them so they have an opportunity to
just explain
the plan a little bit
uh i guess yeah
uh this is uh noah do you does my video
need to be on or
what do i need to do uh no no i mean if
you
don't want to have your video on you
don't it's fine
either ways i uh so in
uh the art meeting i i think they have
to have video or something to be sworn
in so i just wanted to check
um so i uh i'm
one of the co-owners of foreground
studio uh
evelyn is our project designer here and
she's been
um doing most of the conversations with
the city
uh as well as with the homeowner so i
was gonna let her
present but i'll be here to answer any
uh additional questions that might come
up
hi my name is evelyn and as noah
mentioned um
i had been talking to elena a lot about
the design and you mentioned you wanted
us to walk you through the project is
that correct
here we go i'm sorry i'm having trouble
hearing
you once i can oh sorry can you hear me
now
yes i can hear you now so we we have
kind of a combined project here
of um sort of what's going to be zap as
well as here and so
we um we're looking at the landscape
plan here
we can kind of scroll through and bring
up any kind of site photos
um so you just let us know where you
would like us to navigate to
yeah so let's go ahead and pull out the
plan uh the first page on the
plan set that we had sent over everyone
we're going to try to turn up the volume
here we can't quite hear you
okay
all right can you try again yes can we
pull up the first sheet on the plan set
that we had sent over
uh yes perfect thank you
is it this one um let's see
my screen is still showing the same
thing um
no are you able to see it no it's not
coming up yet it had been
previously
all right so we can see
the existing conditions can you not see
it on your screen
all we see is like far
of the browser
all right give us a second please okay
thank you
so
the hybrid process
good to see you again hello
there we go
okay sorry about that guys we are
the difficulty of uh zoom hybrid
in-person meeting i don't know if i ever
want to participate in again
but okay go ahead okay so this is the
existing plan here
um you can see we have the street trees
which are all staying
um there's a few trees uh that are
existing within the perimeter there of
the
of the plan um that we will be removing
um if you scroll down we i will
highlight which ones are
leaving um so the ones closest to the
channeling fence
are going away as well as the one up
scroll down just a little bit to the l02
plan
right there yep yep
so the two trees um that are labeled
existing trees to be removed that
those are going as well as the one a
little south to that to those two
um we are going to add a tulip tree
um where that existing tree to be
removed on the north side
uh south of the house is that and then
we are adding a row
of horn beams on the north side of the
home
um if you were looking at it uh and
that should help remediate the removing
of those three trees there
um scroll down to where we actually
start to see our
actual design
there we go yes so you'll see there the
the tree that we're adding
on the outside of the plan and then the
horn beams up top by where that existing
channeling fence we're at
um yes and then
all the other trees on plan are staying
we will not be removing any of the other
trees other than the three that we had
touched on
you can then see the and actually if you
scroll all the way down i think the 3d
model will do a better job at
visualizing everything
and yeah
there we go yeah there you go
so then to touch on the on the fence as
well as uh
like you mentioned the car foresters
with the japanese forest grass you can
see how those will be planted in front
of the fence
um between the fence and the sidewalk
there uh hornbeams you can see
with the hydrangeas on the bottom so
there is an existing
existing chain link fence um where the
horn beams are at that we will be
removing and proposing that four foot
fence
that'll be just a black aluminum fence
there
uh you'll see a flagstone patio with a
movable fire pit so that fire pit will
be purchased by the client
um so it'll just be that flagstone
i believe that's about 10 feet in radius
so 20 foot
diameter that patio there um you have
your steppers with some
plantings along the house there and then
if you look at the perspective view from
the west
uh so the steps leading up to that front
door so this is what we originally
thought was our front yard
um this is that proposed
um law retaining wall that that we are
uh
adding and the reason we wanted to
incorporate that retaining was so that
we can have a flatter
front yard so that there uh the
homeowners kids can run around and use
that as
more of a usable space there we have
those car foresters again we have some
use and then
we will also have some japanese forest
grass and those
gravel beds there and then throughout
the
whole property property you'll notice on
the plan but we'll have
some boulders scattered throughout um
and like mentioned that retaining wall
is pushed back
uh the two feet needed from that
sidewalk so in front of that retaining
wall we'll just have that strip of grass
there
uh zoomed in aerial view from the north
that's just another
another view into that flagstone patio
area with the steppers and the beds
if we scroll down i believe there should
be more
more images there we go um so this is
a perspective view so this is the as if
you were standing at the alleyway that's
behind the house there
um you can see that that retaining wall
turns a 90 degree angle into the
driveway
uh the retaining wall that you see
behind the tree here that's
existing um and then that tree is also
existing we have boulders like mentioned
scattered throughout this 3d model
doesn't do a good job of showing
the vegetation but the plan has some
japanese uh forest grass scattered
throughout there as well some other
plant materials i believe uh nepeta
um and so here is so that's the driveway
here the gray um
square that you see there that tree we
are adding um
it's a smaller ornamental tree this is
also going to be a gravel bed a
retaining wall behind that
kind of hard to see here but um
behind these chairs you you might be
able to see a retaining wall there and
that's just to retain the neighbor's
side it's a little higher than
our homeowner's side here again the same
concept with the boulders we have the
same plant materials all throughout
scattered around
and then we have this uh empty area
that'll
be a nice little area to hang out at and
sit
for the parents and then you have a step
into that
uh side yard which you see here uh
in the bigger picture to your right here
where the ac unit so those ac units are
located there currently we're not moving
those
we are proposing a once we uh
go into what's considered the side yard
we bumped up the
the fence to a six foot fence that's
just going to be a cedar
a wood fence there just to provide some
additional screening for the homeowners
you have some steppers in that gravel
with the same plant material
and boulder scattered throughout there
the steps on the back of the house there
those are existing we are not going to
remove those this will stay
we will overlay with uh porcelain tile
to match the front
um and i believe that's a pretty good
rundown if you have any questions
uh please let me know and i will uh
help you thank you for that detailed
review of the plan
i began to reiterate uh our decision
uh rest on the fence alone correct we
see the fence in context i think that's
very helpful for us to understand that
and if we could return this particular
drawing we're looking at i am presuming
the fans is of the same height
on all sides it's showing a little gap
that looks like
it's maybe a mistake in the graphics
yes very conceptual i think so yes
from my understanding and um evelyn
correct me if i'm wrong it's basically a
four foot fence on all three sides
correct yeah just that this particular
drawing shows the bottom corner
them not aligning and i presume that's
just a graphic detail so
um and um again uh
ellen what's the what does the code say
about fences in the front yard
um i oh go ahead
i'm sorry i thought i heard evelyn but i
may have been mistaken with elena
sorry maybe it might have been me that i
am 100 sure of but i think that is why
they're asking for variance
so um i think that fences are not
allowed
in the front yard um and so they're
going to be zap because
you know for the way that this is
designed the way that the front door is
located
the address is along roosevelt it just
happens to be that the way that
it is zoned that this is technically a
front yard along abroad
and so that's why they're going to be
zap tomorrow to ask for a variant so
this can be considered more
of a side yard right and oh excuse me
i'm sorry i'm just going to chime in
real quick
uh based on our bees have application uh
for a front yard fence it's there is
uh allowed up to two feet so we're just
uh requesting a variance to
to bump that up to four feet for this
particular offense
thank you for the clarification noah yep
yeah i i am
uh uh at least for myself i'm
trying to go up and down broad street
and um
see where we have fences in play uh or
some kind of barrier i'm sure we do
uh did you have a recommendation one way
or the other regarding the fencing
um we we are not
tasked with deciding whether or not the
fence is appropriate that's b zap
uh my recommendation would be to approve
the fencing as well as the plant
material as shown
um i think that the fact that it is a
open
decorative metal fence with perennials i
think it'll
you know if you if you've driven by i've
walked by this site a lot with my dog um
cleaning it up having some of the trees
removed it's actually gonna look
beautiful
i think it's to have a very nice area
and even with this design i think you're
going to have much more visibility into
their side yard or front yard than some
of the other houses on broad that just
are just
packed full with dense plant material
you can't even see anything um
so i think the fact that they are on a
corner lot and they are being conscious
of the fact that you know
you need to have some visibility that
this is an excellent compromise
do the board voting members have
questions for the applicant or staff
pretty minor one but is there along the
sidewalk is there anything that will
keep the mulch from washing
on to the sidewalk
that would be a question for you evelyn
yeah
do you want to take that out chime in on
that
you go ahead okay um so
uh we do not have anything spec
currently um we could do
like a metal edging or something but our
preference
is to actually just edge that uh
along the sidewalk um
because any edging you have like
typically pops out
over you know at freeze thaw cycles um
over the winter and it just it ends up
being a a messier
uh situation than if we just maintain
the
uh the bed edge there yeah
and i'm not it's not a major issue for
me i just i didn't know whether it could
be graded slightly below the sidewalk so
that the sidewalk itself provides
an edge it just given the golly washers
we get
lately just seemed like the owners might
be happier if that's
taken into account when the project's
done
absolutely so part of the idea with this
whole thing
is that the house itself is very uh
uh representative of a you know
mid-century
uh architectural style that that's
you know here and there in bexley and um
to kind of reinforce that all the beds
are really like
streamlined and and kind of as flat as
possible
uh the house itself has a flat roof so
we're trying to be very linear with
everything
so it's not like we're gonna have big
mounded beds right up next to the
sidewalk
thank you thank you any other comments
from members
um well i don't know if i'm allowed to
comment or not
you can rely on you can whisper in the
world i don't understand
i'm not sure about that why isn't it
what on the other side of the fence
you use well you usually um the the code
asks that there be plant material in
front of a fence to screen it and to
soften it in some way
and so that's pretty typical of what the
city asks for
yes because i would have put the plant
material on
the inside of the fence not the outside
okay okay i have a comment this is dave
wakeman
and my recommendation would be to put
a three foot width of lawn
along the sidewalk and then reduce it to
one row
well maybe it is one row and then the
fence in a one row
of carl foresters because i have a coral
force to have a few
and they do spread and flop and when
you're walking on the sidewalks
that will impede upon people trying to
get by and it will just become a
maintenance
uh for the homeowner in the long run
this will save them if they put a
stripper on there
and three feet isn't going to reduce
their soccer i agree with you
i just don't like them that close to the
sidewalk
um can i propose sort of a middle ground
here i don't uh
a small strip of um
lawn there i feel like is going to be
actually more difficult to maintain than
if the plant bed came up to the sidewalk
if we just didn't have
the carl foresters uh like a double row
of them as proposed on the plan
um and kept them further back off of the
sidewalk but
maintain that mulch bed there would that
be okay
i no i disagree right
um could you kind of elaborate on
what the difference is between i'm a
resident of here 30 years
and i'm also um educated as a landscape
architect and walking
properties that have mulch against city
sidewalks
it washes into the sidewalk it appeads
upon the sidewalk
i think it's and i think we are going
above and beyond looking at a corner lot
to fence in for a young family with
their family which we understand
but i think uh to ask for a strip of
lawn is not
it will not be that hard to maintain
that they'll have to
they have to mow the street lawn uh
along curb to sidewalks so another
one swipe of mowing along there
is fine um evelyn uh
in in your conversations with sarah on
this do you
think she's gonna have an objection one
way or the other or an opinion one way
or the other on
on that side of the fence yeah yeah
yeah so honestly the only thing she's
worried about is maximizing the amount
of space that she will have for her kids
to play
i think that if um we are taking that
front strip
of carl forrester now and just adding it
as grass
without needing to shove that fence any
further back i think she will be
okay with that okay all right can we
specify the uh
the width of the grass strip
evelyn do you have a thought about that
um i believe the existing bed
as it is now from fence to sidewalk i
believe that's five foot right now
um so three feet would leave us with two
feet
um i think that's fine
which is three and which is two i'm
sorry three feet would be the launch
strip and then our two feet would be the
bed which should be enough for the car
forester they don't get super wide
i don't know if you could split it in
half two and a half two and a half
whatever
i agree 30 inches okay or you could just
move the fence back one foot
and do six feet three and three
you know i don't mean to be but you know
what when we were looking at homes 30
some years ago and well i had two homes
here
but corner lots were you know we looked
at a beautiful home on bexley park in
drexel
and we could not put a side fence and at
that time it was not
allowed so i know and i understand the
prices of houses and
to get young families in we need to
create these kind of things but
i think six feet and one foot is not
going to
uh appear upon this side lawn i just
pulled it up it looks pretty large
i think um you know karl foresters
i also think i don't know how much
sunlight is going to be here and
uh they may struggle and there's quite a
few of them being planted as a border
so i i just think six feet and do three
feet and three feet if you're gonna
need the bed yeah i would tend to agree
with that i think
um while we can't vote on the fence
itself as to whether it exists
we can vote on the graciousness of the
setting on the fence
uh broad street is uh is a special
street
and the more gracious we can make that
setting
uh and and i i think that is uh
appropriate and you achieve some
graciousness when it just sets back a
little bit farther and then there's
kind of normalizing with the grass panel
uh to uh to
to add to that overall cross section so
i would agree with that
so we're talking about one foot of fence
and
three feet of uh plant bed and then
i'm sorry moving the fence towards the
house one foot three feet of plant bed
three feet of lawn and then the sidewalk
correct thank you that seems reasonable
okay do you think evelyn is at all i
agree
with what one foot won't impede too much
okay
all right okay any other uh
comments from uh you have a question um
ellen did
they provide any is it necessary to
provide irrigation
no as a material no and um
also it is when the removal or addition
of trees is there any need for
tree protection for the existing trees
when they
move in with some equipment
um i don't i mean they are removing some
of the existing trees
um and then planting new ones from what
i can tell and know and evelyn you'll
have to you know
let me know it it doesn't appear that
any of the major construction that's
happening is going to hurt any of the
roots of any of the existing trees
okay what are the trees
that they're removing calipers and
species
we know that are we are we privy to that
um
off the top of my head i don't recall i
don't know evelyn do you know what the
the type of could we scroll down to the
existing
photographs there we might be able to at
least see the
the width of the the trunks and
we're not able to rotate the photographs
sorry
so everyone has to turn their head just
gets better and better
so this is the front okay
um keep going okay stop stop there we
that's one of the ones that is going to
be removed can you scroll
yeah yeah
there are two those two in that picture
and then there's a multi-stem river
birch i think that is
kind of a sad looking river birch back
there that's going
and then is this a maple up here evelyn
i cannot remember what this second tree
is
first one looks like a maple the one
back here
okay okay thank you
any other comments for a call for motion
hearing now is there a motion
well anyway first we should um our um
can you can you put what the findings of
fact are
regarding this would be uh what the
changes suggest to change
the suggested changes would be to um
for the bed that is along broad street
to increase
um to add a three foot panel of lawn
immediately adjacent to the sidewalk and
then a three foot planting bed with the
carl four store
removing the front row of the karl four
store and then necessitating the
pushing back of that fence line back one
foot
thank you any and the applicant is in
agreement with those finding of facts
yes good call for a motion
i move that we approve the plan with
that modification
second uh all those in favor say aye
aye those not in favor same sign
motion passes congratulations uh good
luck with the we'll look forward
to uh that that's the old dr minlin
house if i remember way back in time so
uh
he was quite proud of that house so
that'll be fun
thank you guys so much we appreciate it
thank you i do i do wonder whether
how they're going to access this since
they're probably not going to
be able to put equipment on broad so we
may want to look at whether those street
trees do need protected if they're
driving equipment
they uh we ran into that issue with um
the new build on and they went right
over broad street
so they went right into it so um
we'll we'll see how that works but it's
not as soon as a pool permit
they'll get a tree protection program
right we've actually already received
that so
um we've uh looked into that uh
already a little bit so it's required
for all city treatments
regardless if they're going to access it
or not but great
whether it goes up or not is that okay
well we're saying the guys replacing
sidewalk segments get awfully close to
the trees
we thank you for your uh uh time and uh
good luck with the uh
your construction thank you very much
everyone thank you thank you thank you
moving on uh um
don't know the the project that has
the infinite project the 424 south
columbia any update on that
in terms of the agreement just a verbal
update so they are
in the process right now um they were
they were traveling they were back and
forth
um but they are still moving forward
with it and we are hoping to be able to
have an agreement
um to review in september since we are
out in august
um but it is moving forward every all of
the different parties know
um and are well aware of what needs to
happen so
i'm confident it will happen great
just to clarify i mean i if if it's an
agreement
that the neighbor is agreeable to my
preference would be that it be signed
rather than
something that we review oh yeah no yeah
we're not going to review it i don't
think we need to review the language so
but i'll clarify that with them and just
say if you just want to bring us the
sign thing and
mr heyer is okay with it and it seems
odd we should be part of this
triumphant of thing anyway right just
the two of them go ahead and
get it signed any other
that's all the landscape applications so
yes we can move on to
staff report already so
um just an update on the ohio savings
bank
we've been talking about wanting to have
a signed maintenance agreement and what
we have decided to do in working with
the owners of the property
um is use the existing
emails that have been going back and
forth between
me the landscape architects and the
owners saying that they will maintain
and water the plants and take care of
them
and still go forward with the watering
plan
that we had reviewed and not necessarily
have
you know them sign it and deliver it um
and so
all of that information has been um i
created a pdf and uploaded it
into viewpoint so it's associated with
the project record
um if any of you are interested in
seeing it i'm happy to send it to you um
just
shoot me an email or let me know then
the next havenwood park if we could
bring up the plan for havenwood
with this one we had reviewed this a
number of months ago um
there was a uh there were some community
members who were
um not happy with the amount of um
plaza that we were providing so we
actually
ended up reducing it slightly this is
where
we have come to and we just wanted to
give you guys kind of an update
is there are we able to zoom in on this
on the plan are we on this one
yes perfect so if we could zoom in on
just this
side kind of corner this area
so what we've done it it was important
for us to still be able to provide an
accessible entry
into the park um and we have removed
the larger kind of area where you see
temporary band stage
that was where there was a large plaza
we have since removed that and we now
are providing two
five foot blue stone paths that would go
um meet at great at the sidewalk have a
gentle slope that comes up to the grass
level
arc around and then a bench on either
side
so the intent for this is that people
who are in wheelchairs people who have
strollers
it is easy for them to come up into the
park kind of park there and basically
then have
access into um into havenwood
the center strip would now be a row of
lariopy
um we were looking at potentially
keeping that as just
lawn but it looked odd it just looked
just the proportions of it it just kind
of looked like it was a awkward mo strip
and so we wanted to still have the same
intent and the same
feel of the original design so that
would just basically be a sea of variety
so you have still that green
viewpoint coming in rather than having
it all hardscaped as it was previously
if we could scroll down to the next one
i think we've got hardscape
um keep going it's in the next one there
we go
um so there you can kind of see a little
bit more it still would be
um we still slightly modify the beds the
retaining walls that we're going to be
putting around the corner of it would
actually turn
and then create an edge line for where
that sidewalk would be
and then we just have a bed in the
center in that location
there was a lot of conversation about
why did we not have
the same accessible entrance off of
euclair
rather than cassingham the main reason
for that right now is the large tree
that you can see off of euclid in the
center if we were going to put in any
kind of sidewalk there
digging down eight plus inches is we
would just we would just destroy it
um and so until you know
site conditions change um basically the
the main accessible entrances off of the
sidewalk so
this seems to be you know good and i
think that that's most likely where
we're going to be moving forward with
that so i wanted to give you guys an
update
any any comments or thoughts on that uh
one question would be did
has this plan been uh approved by the
tree and public garden commission so
that is this modification do we need to
act or is that just simply i don't think
so i'll double check but i don't i don't
think so
my recollection is that we we were just
advising
about it and the council then heard the
plan right the council
heard and then the council is good with
this um and with the changes the council
approved it
with the modifications of changing and
reducing the plaza side
size so i think we're good and we're
going to do the same
um i think ben already shared this with
council
i'll have to double check richard did
you see it yet okay so i'll make a note
of that so we'll have to
circle back with you guys to would it
would it uh
cross a t and dot an eye for the tree
commission to approve this plan if the
did you say we had
did we recommend or did we actually
approve it i think
we sort of did one of those soft things
where we said that council
we'd
i don't see why we shouldn't amend this
plan to council commend
uh whatever we do can we have a motion
then to do that so
i move that we commend this plan to
counsel mr chair second
any conversation discussion
not those in favor of the motion say aye
those and not in favor same sign great
we've officially done our job with that
one good
awesome already thank you um so we can
get rid of this one and if we go to the
the next plan so this is
the plaza the 1908 plaza the town gown
plaza
this is currently this is i think the
eighth
version that we've been working on so we
had shared this a couple of months ago
um there was you know excellent feedback
and comments about you know
we had removed a sycamore or they didn't
go over so well
um can we push it back um can we keep
that row of sycamores
and um and so this is where we are right
now
um we have met with uh paul mathews and
jason halliwell
at capitol university they have um and
they've reviewed this
with the president everyone at capital
right now is in support of it
um but you can see this is almost
directly across if can you
scroll down just a little bit no other
way so we can see across the street so
there you can see where the pocket park
is
and then the entrance to the drexel just
to kind of orient you
as to where this is located um we are
essentially the the plaza itself is
almost 100 feet
wide we wanted to make sure that we have
now two entrances
that are basically splitting the
difference in between the existing
sycamore trees that you have
it's then pulled back a little bit
further to
avoid the uh the root masses of the
sycamore trees
and then we still have the holiday tree
on center
there within a fire pit the fire pit we
are still
thinking about whether or not that is
going to be gas or wood burning
and how that would actually work um and
so there still needs to be
you know some discussion about that but
the thought is that there might be some
sort of element there that provides
warmth um in that location with the kind
of a seating bench around it
the the plaza wouldn't necessarily need
to be it's going to be sunken so it's
going to basically be at the grade of
the sidewalk and then they're going to
be
18-inch seat walls around the perimeter
of it to provide for additional seating
and then most likely a row of boxwoods
on both sides just to prevent people
from kind of falling into it
and then just large landscape steps that
go into the lawn itself
we arcked it to avoid the um roots of
the large tilia tree that you can kind
of see briefly
on the kind of the bottom left of the
screen that you see
and the little dots that you see um
we are i haven't redrawn it yet but we
want to make sure that we incorporate a
flag pole a pole for bexley
a pole for capital and a pole
potentially for um
ohio and so we might have three
flagpoles that are along that back there
rather than all of the dots that you see
with the one
you know kind of one flagpole so we're
still tweaking this a little bit
um the thought is that it would have
limestone walls and a blue stone
um plane that would pick up on you know
what we have back here behind city hall
and what we have potentially in some of
the other parks that we're working on
and so we just wanted to share this with
you um as to where things
are um and to see if you guys have any
kind of
comments i i'll
offer some it the the ceiling panel
is 28 feet long so take away two
it's 20 uh 26
times four would be the width of the
blue stone i mean that's a
big payment area uh a lot of hardscape
so
and and the other question i would have
uh
is the holiday tree um
what we're calling that poor pine that's
out there no i think that pine is now
gone
good yes i think they would be a holiday
in distressed
trees i believe they have when we were
down there they were actually i think
that pine has since been removed
um and so this would be a new one um and
we were talking about this being a
norway spruce and actually looking into
getting
a like a mature specimen and how much
would that be so rather than getting one
that's like you know
10 to 12 feet tall actually looking to
see okay what
what would it be to cost to actually get
a mature
30-foot plus tall tree which you know
takes a lot more than just you know
a small local landscape company to kind
of come in um
and so that we're right now at this
conceptual stage
we had we had actually um i went out
there and flagged it out and marked it
um and it doesn't
while it is big it doesn't feel too bad
in the size
there because of the space that's there
um capital is confirmed they're not
planning anything right now with um any
buildings that are going to go there so
we're not necessarily going to be
interrupting with any kind of future
development in that
we asked ben and i asked them if there
was any concern that the size and the
scale of this
was going to detract from the main
entrance
and what their thoughts were was that
since they have the horn beams that are
there that are really kind of screening
that for the entrance the gates are
actually
its own purpose and since this is all
really going to be at
grade level and there's not going to be
a lot of plants it's not like it's going
to have a huge visual
impact in it um could we maybe
i don't know it's probably a lot of work
for somebody it'd be interesting before
we actually
uh look at the finalized plans to stake
it we can go out there and look at it
definitely the staking of it it might be
helpful to
happy to do that yeah i had done that
before is easy enough to do right
right i have a question um what is the
reason for this
um to create a space um a long
main street that the town and
the students and faculty of capital
university can come and sit and gather
capital is also in desire to have
more spaces for their students to kind
of sit and study if you have ever walked
through campus right now
the area by the fountains is just always
packed and so they're kind of looking to
have are there some spaces that we can
have some other areas for students to
sit and gather
um and the idea to start activating main
street a little bit more and to provide
a spot
where people can particularly now with
the um i can't remember what the open
container
thing is dora with dora people can come
across the street and
and i i believe capital did confirm i
think
that you can you would be able to bring
the beverages onto
campus we would have to double check on
that they said they couldn't do it on
july 4th
okay okay so then no i lied
inside the sidewalk
all right so also if it's a 100 feet
wide
and i'm looking at it's coming out 69
feet from the sidewalk to the
where the holiday tree thing happens
so it's how does that impact i mean not
that we always going to have it but you
know the july 4th activities that
and all the main event stuff as far as
filling that space which we normally
fill with
vendors and activities i think it's a
i think it would be a an opportunity to
have a different hardscape place for
some certain activities that you could
have i mean it's certainly going to
impact it but
so far the mayor hasn't said anything
negative about it no one at capital has
said anything
negative about it i mean the area there
is is quite large
um and so to to scale it actually
surprisingly fits
i mean i think it's worth it's worth a
shot to try to animate that
side of of main street and um
you know hopefully it doesn't take
a lot of people to make to activate the
space that's my only concern about you
know it's
damn you darned if you do in darn if you
don't turn to the scale
right because if you make it too too
small the the
the campus area itself will just absorb
it and swallow it out yes
uh so it has to have some presence to it
but uh if there's one you know one
person sitting there they're gonna be
it's gonna look loading so you know the
ability to create
groupings and seating uh i think will be
pretty important to uh
uh do it but uh you know like fourth of
july i'd be like
that that could be a sitting area for
you know the eating part and so forth so
that that could be a positive for that
but uh
um and in terms of
three-dimensionality
you it will you'll see it as a as a
space going off
and then the edging is how tall on the
18 inches
18 inches 18 inches yeah right yeah so
it's going to read like a space
well i shouldn't put that everything
reads like a space it's going to read
like a
low-defined sea wall right
more more actually two-dimensional than
three-dimensional yes
any other comments or thoughts here we
don't know yet
okay any other uh
this everyone can pile on on this um
molly your thoughts um i guess
i'm a little confused here so there's a
12 inch seat wall
there and then the step so i don't i
don't know it means
i don't understand so the
the um and we haven't shot grades yet so
we're going to do that
and then so things might tweak so if you
imagine so you come in at the sidewalk
and you're coming in
flat right so this plot i mean it'll
drain so water will actually be able to
sheet flow off a bit
they're going to be two six inch steps
that come into
the lawn area right so that's where you
see the curved areas where the limestone
steps
it's the lawn is higher the lawn is
higher so this is sunken
it's sunken and so then the two north
south
where you see the plant material that
would be an 18-inch seat wall
you know so we can have that and then in
front of the holiday tree is that
is a 12-foot sea wall so it's kind of
you know right so you're stepping up
into the land
you're stepping up and you're stepping
down no i don't get a ball
no yes you're stepping up all right got
it
good great
any other comments regarding that just
watch its progression
yep any uh sense of timing on this for
year of the parks
here are the parks
[Laughter]
you're right there must be there
maybe we should think about a big push
behind doing all this stuff maybe that
should
gurgle up um any other
uh status of any of other like the the
pocket park across the street
the pocket park across the street um so
we
have found the slate um
and then i have a contractor who i think
by the end of this
week i'm going to be able to have a cost
estimate for
um and so the the hope is that um by the
end of this month we're gonna have the
the cost to be able to decide how much
all of this is
and then talk with barry blank about um
funding it
and then seeing what the city may or may
not contribute or if it's something that
the um the blank tree fund will fund
and then um you know we i think the
search still goes on
uh to find these gem-like spaces for
the eastern part of maine somewhere
somehow um
because all the all the little gems are
kind of occurring there
which is fine they're reinforcing an
area that's already pretty strong
uh will only make it better but um it
just says
if we've got work to do on maybe the old
gas station site which
uh just simply putting that to grass
would be such a delight wouldn't it yeah
that'd be a major improvement just
having that
um so uh work yet to come
on that um good anything else um i don't
think so
great thank you
mr archer mr tree
all righty um so
i'm not quite sure what the bexley joint
fund is
project i think is that the hardscape
uh we've been looking at trying to get
some of the hardscape
existing hardscape throughout the city
maintained which is
turned out to be pretty hard to do to
find a company to
come in and power wash and tuck point
and
low landscape walls i do have a price
from yard barbers to do all this
they don't think it needs to be done
yearly possibly you know every three to
five years you come in and evaluate and
get a price and go through so right now
we're looking at right around seven
thousand dollars
to have all the landscape walls uh
repaired
cleaned and power washed
[Music]
recommendations yeah we'll take sure
yeah i mean but we've called five or six
companies
they just don't want the maintenance
side of it i mean they'll come in and
build us whatever we want we just
can't find anybody who wants to come in
and clean them
great we'll take the can you send that
to me too thank you
recommendation okay and then we need to
choose an understory tree for south
cassingham
i'm sure everybody did their research we
have
hall thorns crabapples and then a
japanese
snowball styrac tree it's like a
it's like a yellow wood i guess the best
way to describe it
whitish pink flowers the malice
the crab apple can be pretty much
whatever we want
we will make sure we get the varieties
that don't have the
you know infestations on them
fire blight all that stuff
apple cedar rust and then we also have
the hawthorne which is particularly my
favorite
i think the flowers on it are pretty
nice
um what's
what's the plan for the area right by
bexley uh united methodist church
so we would have to get permission from
them to get some oak trees behind the
sidewalk
which i don't know why they would have
an issue with it i can't imagine
uh so we would plant 51 of these
in between a curb and sidewalk from
broad to fair
and then behind them uh we have room for
21
oak oak trees that we would be planting
from broad to fair wow
wow nice so my only concern with these
is if they produce thorns 25 years from
now which
most of them haven't that we've planted
in the past so
there's that much space on that street
for that many trees
with the small ones yeah i mean you can
pack those in
we just don't plant small ornamental
trees
[Music]
it's great we can mix and match we can
do whatever
you know whatever you guys want to do
each one adds a little
piece to our tree canopy does it not so
so grant is first concerned is there
anything
for um you know when you say mix and
match i mean any concern about having a
monoculture of that many trees on the
i mean there are not that many blocks
there i mean so i mean does it make
sense to kind of
go by kind of block and say one is this
is one is this i mean
my preference from a designer is like
i'll be the same right because that
looks
so much better but then is there
anything that we need to be concerned
about that like if something comes in
and wipes it out or
i think that's always an issue a man
would affect all
three species okay so i don't really
know that that's going to be a okay
an issue uh they're both fruit bearing
flower bearing i just anything that
comes in is going to get them all
yeah so my vote is also for the
hawthorne i mean i know that
i'm not voting but i think that that's
just a it's an interesting tree
more so than i worry about crabs just uh
yeah yeah i i love talk hearts but i am
a little concerned about
saying up here the form is a little
erratic it's not state and properly
pruned
early on or we find them they've already
been turned into shape
a little bit will probably be i wouldn't
say pruned
um cut into shape
um but yeah we would this would be
something we would have you know to me
this is like an entrance way into the
high school kind of like
so it is something that we will have to
constantly beyond
how is that in regard to the the
japanese snow bell
talking about i think it'll be less less
work on the japanese snow belts more of
a dainty
tree um uh more upright
uh it'll be smaller um
anything that you know it's going to be
right in the path of anybody any
pedestrian really if you just
plant them and walk away from them
but i do think these would be less less
work for sure
crab apples would be more work
these they're all the same 20 15 to 25
feet
and this this begins from elm or from
fair you said
yeah from fair to abroad yeah and on the
school property as well
or not uh well we do have right away
behind the sidewalk on on the cassingham
side so we would put our oaks in and
then
there is a lot of signage in front of
the cassingham school so i'm not sure if
we'll be able to get if it'll make sense
to do that
yeah the big issue there uh and i
presume the school
is involved in this decision uh about
that planning
the debate is protecting those trees
from kids
yeah i mean that'll those things are
gonna have to be amazingly uh
protected because they'll be well you
got buses that
parked there on the one side you know i
don't know how well
if we go sporadic on the school side or
just don't do anything at all i mean
yeah
have we talked to the school folks about
that jungler we probably should because
that
dynamics i mean if you're out there
during uh
you know when they when they go to
school and come out of school and so
forth i mean and we're
hanging around in the front yard i mean
there's just it's hard for a tree to get
started
out there very very hard reminder of the
infamous planned uh plant uh next to the
new playground
uh on on the south side of elm
and all of those plants oh these will
all and you know they're gone they're
all just trampled to pieces so yeah now
the
all pretty predictable like you know
they want to get this
this guy's you know what's that how's
that going to survive well it'll be fine
the kids will take care of it
gone pound it out of existence um
so so what do you all think do you want
a single tree you want to mix it up or
what's the best uh best approach here
and is the here are the openings for
this
like pretty much one and then something
else one
or is it there are twos and three does
it you know how do the
how do the openings pop up as it relates
to the block faces
and it's uh ones and twos
but they're all i would say spaced
roughly 15 feet apart
okay we can get closer to
um water taps and gas taps with these
now if there's like a vertical element
like a street light
then we skipped it but there's also a
vertical element there so it's not going
to look
off um a lot of no parking signs
um handicap signs the closer you get to
the school
so i think i think it'll look very
uniform
you know it's key that we talk to the
school
i mean i was on the facilities part
for that and know how much use those
front yards get for all kinds of
purposes
some areas are a little more um safe
from it than but once you get around the
elementary school
i mean it's it's a it's a challenge so
something to think about
um so what's any thoughts opinions on
which
one of these followed the same species
okay and i second that okay
and then which species would we prefer
what advice do we want to give graham
can they all die i have a quick question
though as far as the fruit goes
um hot hawthorne's are great build birds
eating fruit
yeah i mean anything that we are going
to put in this little area
correct now in front of the high school
i just pulled it up there is not a devil
strip
in front of the high school it's all
sidewalks so there would be no
ornamentals in front of the high school
or or oaks well we were putting oaks
behind the sidewalk
yeah okay somebody want to make a motion
no we own like five these are all city
trees here
yeah oh everything everything on casting
families
do you want a motion yeah why not i move
that we approve the planting
of the hawthorns in the appropriate
spaces of this
project with the hope that the bees will
keep the children away
second second step
all in favor say aye aye aye those not
in favor same sign
good great thank you wonderful
okay um next item
mr wilson and our tree canopy study um
there's and maybe to tee that up for you
a little bit um
there was uh only from um susan's
favorite university university wisconsin
did a big study and
determined that 40 percent tree canopy
was where you started to get the
significant benefits of
all the the environmental benefits of
tree canopy
um and i forgot what was our what was
our number four
39 right
um so i jim i know you asked folks to
from the list that we had what would be
places we'd want to look at right so
let me explain that um i uh last meeting
uh
some of you volunteered or people that
weren't here were volunteered
and um so i've sent the a
follow up spreadsheet that we got after
we got
our report a couple months ago that
lists
all of the different municipalities that
buy their their total canopy coverage
and what i've asked that subgroup
to do is look through that list identify
communities that might bear some
resemblance to bexley in some way
and then we'll depending on how many
communities we've identified
either i or the group will then research
those communities what ordinances
what other programs they may have in
place to increase
their canopy so um i didn't give a
deadline
to the group that i sent the the the
spreadsheet to
so um i will circulate a deadline in
august since you're
you're not we're not meeting you have
hardly anything to do
um and then once i see how many
communities we've got to research
our group can decide whether we want to
split that up
or want me to do it right and then
we will convene and look at some of
those possibilities and bring those back
to the whole commission
which might then make suggestions to
city council because i
some of these may be programs that the
tree commission could implement
itself but if we're talking about an
ordinance we're gonna have to make the
case
to council why this is beneficial to
vaccines right
yeah it's it's tricky when you look at
the list um
what what you would and and and maybe
it's for different
we can look at different things for
different reasons um but if you're
looking for compatibles
you really like to look at those first
ring suburbs
um you know and this were if if they had
the data for example
uh and if it was interesting you know
ottawa hills and toledo
shaker heights cleveland oakwood and
dayton you know
thing places that are very similar to
bexley and first ring suburbs
that all started off like we did they
were you know
the original tree canopy was cut down
and it was all farmland and then we
started from there
um upper arlington would still be a
comparable on the list
even though they a little bit different
land use mix but maybe that doesn't
matter
some of the other places you wonder uh
once they get
large i mean if when you get down south
they all start off being pine forest you
know and so you're carving out of a pine
forest and
and uh so it is tricky to look at that
but i think
it would be also interesting if some of
them are higher
what they're doing to preserve their
tree canopy and to see what their where
their issues are
so um and i suspect that the folks will
continue to add to that list
um additional places but
um it would be it would be interesting
to think about
what other criteria we'd be looking at
so for example let's say we look at
charlotte
and charlotte says they have 45 tree
canopy
um you know what do we what do we do
with that piece of information for
example
um do they consider that high do they
consider that low
is it something to be improved upon
right we'll have to look at
if we identify the cities then we have
to double check and see if they make
this make sense because if charlotte for
instance
has 30 acres of parkland
which we can't match they're not going
to be a good comparable
right for us but right it's a you know
we don't
we don't know until we try to see
whether we learn anything
it may require i mean as as just a
little more homework but
um getting on our google maps and
looking at a place like charlotte and
saying
well this portion of charlotte looks
pretty treesy
and and and residentially i mean in
other words
if they could come out of our data and
isolate specific pieces which they're
able to do here's what's capital
and here's this they probably could do
it for these other places
so it may be we're looking at sub-areas
within some of these places
that you can identify from google
aerials
are these are the cities identified
because they've already had
canopy assessments done okay okay
so we're not just like oh i drove
through a great little town in georgia
and it was fantastic let's
okay okay perfect and there's what i
don't know is there maybe
60 places on there maybe something like
that probably but not
they're not 60 places ahead of bexley
we're 23rd on the list
so that's correct um so it may be a
limited sample
yeah and you know obviously the more
comparable
it comes the more meaningful uh it is
that won't necessarily give us who is
involved with their tree programs
but it at least gives us a start to look
at that so
that's good now it and and
uh again when you look at the growing
over and over this big article in the
new york times about
uh tree canopy and the importance and uh
it's just simply becoming even more
important and yeah now you're seeing big
programs to roll out
massive tree planting plans uh uh at a
large scale kind of like what solar is
doing
in terms of big fields of of trees just
simply to
recreate the balance so we'll do our
part
we'll do our part uh the next one the
tree
land landmark tree program uh i think
that's just a statement that's
maybe being rolled out uh
who knows something about that i'm not
sure what that is
i think it's coordinating with the uh
the women's club who puts on the
house and garden tour that we maybe um
coordinate with a better deeper
understanding of the bexley landmark
tree program maybe that becomes part of
tour day
well since the sweetgum is already
covered in the heritage tree program
i think probably it's requiring a lot of
research to determine whose trees should
be marked next yeah
you know you wonder why you couldn't
have if you've got the garden day going
on
you wouldn't add the tree walks um as at
least other things people can do when
they've come over here
uh to see the gardens uh you know here's
a couple of tree walk candidates i mean
that's an interesting thing because
what if we had had a map yeah we could
have taken out a half page or a full
page
ad and been like hey here's a tree walk
in this area you know the city could
have i mean i mean
even just kind of suggesting it uh
whether people are doing or not says
that you know we're pretty
we're broader than than just these
individual gardens
uh it's bigger than that and you know
maybe the day comes we also have jeffrey
i mean this work of jeffrey is
phenomenal
to do the the love and care of that
that's the i mean that poor old gem
i mean it's just you know and now we're
finally uh recognizing it for
for what it is so i think that's just
fabulous so um
it's almost like we need somebody for pr
purposes to
start to link all this together and and
and and
how how do we continue to kind of
promote ourselves and probably more
importantly because again
and this is babbling but the uh you go
to some you go to new albany you go to
upper arlington you go so many places
you look at dublin
i mean the kinds of things that they're
doing in terms of civic improvements are
unbelievable they're unbelievable
anyone's walked across the s bridge
from old dublin to new dublin knows
exactly what i'm talking about and uh
the same with the path along 161 in new
albany canada library and everything i
mean
people are doing great things and uh
that in and of itself isn't the reason
to do this stuff
um but uh we do want to maintain our
place as being a premier community so
it's uh it it's not without its
importance
and so we work with what we've got
uh okay north cassidy improvements
north cassie is always the thing when i
talk about it
i want to talk in the speed of which the
project is moving
forward so we still have a couple of
years
before construction start well we're
getting down a year and a half now i
think it's only a year and a half
um the plans uh
only the city can open up the plans
because there it takes
a huge amount of computer capacity to
print up
the entire plan set i don't know if
that's been done yet
but if you recall the the remaining
issues on that project
were our entry feature on the west side
of cassidy
coming in what would happen to that and
it uh elena did a plan that showed it
moving back
to make sure that the sidewalk on the
multi-use path but then narrowed to a
sidewalk
comes in straight doesn't curve around
it gets us next to the pavement because
so it allows continuation of tree lawn
walkway and then entry feature to the
west
um it does uh set what do we go back
maybe four feet or so four or five feet
yes it wasn't it wasn't much at all and
so you know there'll be a change there
uh but what we won't have
is this interruption of the tree lawn
coming and dying
because the sidewalk comes into the
street and the street then is right next
to a busy street
cassidy and it makes no physical sense
and it makes no safety sense
um so they put it into the plans i think
the
uh meeting hasn't yet been set up
between them just to confirm that but
uh if you could somebody can make a note
to the mayor
that um the city is the only one that's
able to unlock those plans to get copies
for us to see
can't be done at all
so that's it for that i'm going to at
this point throw in the
the livingston avenue study just a
little quick update we
we are um we're on time here for we're
still on time for an
early departure um but the uh the
livingston plan joint study
as you know between uh columbus on one
side
bexley on the other but they of course
control all of livingston
uh the study uh from east from west to
east goes to basically alum creek
uh or the the uh
to uh james road and
then has two big chunks to it has the
commercial chunk up front
and then from college on to uh james is
in essence basically single-family
residential except for the
uh the church and a new uh replacement
for the
uh brookwood presbyterian which will be
a elderly housing
um so the
uh among the the goals are the obvious
ones about
safety beauty land use
and a variety of things and so
we're on to our third session and the
first one
really focused or this third last
session this week
really focused on traffic um
and yours truly got a little
concerned and upset because the by the
time you
play traffic game and and molly knows
this really well
well you you know odot says this and
odot says that the standards do this
the standards say that and so by the
time
uh the lady that was done representing
that i'm not trying to get her in
trouble but she is on the team
um not only wasn't there much of
anything you could do
you might actually lose a traffic signal
at kingsley
and then if we were to do bikeway
expansions we would have to do it on
site if you wanted to do medians we'd
have to
chew into the single family lots and it
was um
um something we're gonna have to square
up to here a little bit because
that's not what we need to get done
to move things forward because otherwise
if
if if that's where we're left where the
where the traffic
uh in those traffic standards where the
car is 100
the focus well maybe 98 everything else
is 2 percent
shouldn't have started to study in the
first place i mean that's that's the
very nature of the problem
is the vehicles and the cars and the
speed and the traffic
um and um i point out areas
uh that have long since dealt with this
um for example city of worthington city
of warrington's the state route 161 goes
right through it
the state plan was to make five lanes
because
that's what the the traffic
justification was for and
and city worthington said that's heart
of our community we're not we're not
doing that
we will not do that and so they didn't
do it it's got the three-lane section
going through there
uh and fine people accommodate they make
sense out of it
we just redid high street third street
and fourth street to make them more
pedestrian friendly and to add bikeways
we just really
did that and so we're going to expect
the same kind of attention on livingston
here and simple so eleanor tried to calm
me down you did a
halfway decent job thank you you want to
add to that at all
no i mean i think it's i think it's true
um and then richard i see you raising
your hand i um
they the the presentation unfortunately
um there's a lot of traffic data
that just needs to happen and so that
was what the majority of the
presentation was
and so it really gave the impression
that
that's what's driving the plan um and um
everyone and you know i hope i didn't
disparage engineers too much
i said you know you really can't you
can't have engineers designing this i
mean engineers just they're they're not
going to have the right kind of
aesthetic
um kind of guideline for it so um i
uh i think that we need to have kind of
like a little
mini in intermediate step where we kind
of pump the brakes a little bit and then
revisit the goals
um and really say this is what we want
to drive it i mean we want to have the
vision
and then this is what we want to do and
then figure out how to
you know accommodate that versus sort of
saying okay well the traffic and this
and this and the pedestrians and this
and this is what you're
what you end up with um because i agree
with you i mean it's just
it's not gonna look any different it
might actually you know be wider
you know they might make it wider and
we'll end up with you know six lanes and
um
just you know well just it could be it
could be horrible so we don't want to
lose out on this
opportunity so it may take a little
intervention and and you know we don't
have to
necessarily add this to the minutes or
anything but uh i think we'll talk to
the mayor
and i think he'll want to make sure that
he talks to andy ginther and we make
sure we're
still matching those words that were
said at day one
yes by the mayors both mayors yes pretty
clear about their expectations so
i'm i'm just venting so there we go
richard
could you want to come up to a mic
a few things i was wondering um because
roundabouts are the rage everywhere in
the
the county i would love to see a
roundabout at college in livingston
especially since if it's realigned a
little bit
since there's a that this green empty
green spaces
pie pieces that aren't really usable for
anything
um it also the roundabouts and other
communities provide easier pedestrian
crossing because they have the little
islands you're only crossing two lanes
instead of five lanes or
whatever and i think just hitting
around roundabout tends to slow traffic
up on morse road and
brownsburg new albany road which i
believe is a state route
there's not the backup that there used
to be with
with traffic and i it adds visual
pleasantness to to as an entry point
especially and then if my my suggestion
also is if the state i mean the
us-33 route presents
um guideline issues um in the past
us-33 used to come up to main street if
i'm
correct up college and it was rerouted
to livingston and allen
creek or maybe just livingston i think
but
whether i know some places the u.s
routes
emerge onto interstates so you know
could it be requested that
33 merge onto 70 and then get off on
livingston again just so
that you can maybe remove that
federal guideline issue
yeah i mean and now's the time to talk
about that stuff
oh and with speedway it was sheets
building on that corner too
and to show you how far away we are
from even those kinds of things right
now
um livingston and college intersection
is 100 cars when you you cannot cross
as a pedestrian it is so impossible to
cross as a pedestrian
because it's always an active movement
of some kind left turns here or right
turns and so forth
so there's never a down time for that uh
and so those four folks that try to walk
to the jewish center
uh i mean it's it's it's you're taking
your life in your hands
and then the other thing and then i'm
sorry i continued to vent
but it was like uh we do crosswalks
where we're showing
where where there's a shown need for
pedestrian crossing
well there's no one can physically cross
the street between college and and j
you take your life in your hands as you
do that and so to say
therefore there's no demand for it so
therefore we're not going to put any in
i mean it's it's
it's it's contorted logic it's not
starting with a vision of what
needs to happen it's it's it so at any
rate i'm done i'm sorry
i appreciate this chance to vote was
there any discussion about medians at
all or
is that part of if you do medians then
of course you have to expand into the
residential
properties which of course that just
makes it worse yeah
so and you know the thought about
reducing
and going down to three lanes that's
that should be talked about
um the one thing that should could be
easily on the record would be all these
uh you know the
the the pedestrian crossings with the
lights and the you could do
you know you could do those in a bunch
of places and then declare this street
of pedestrians this is a pedestrian
identified pedestrian safety zone stated
and declare it at both ends i mean
there are a lot of things that we can do
but it they cannot just begin at the end
after the car is taken care of i mean
that's not going to work
so you spent the weekend up near indian
there's uh
carmel i don't think there's a single
traffic light
in the entire city they are all
roundabouts in
carmel indiana yeah 30 miles of indians
those were you know there there are some
good examples in town there's some bad
examples the
the dublin one is a little tough because
there's two side by side
uh up where we're talking about the 161
and river road
um the the ones out in uh
uh hamilton road has gotten relocated in
its big swath goes through a couple of
traffic circles they work fine
they don't work quite as well with two
lanes
going in the same direction uh but they
they can
they can work our limitation might be
land i mean to do
to do them you know you're going to take
a lot of acquisition of ground
uh but we'll see i mean i i don't want
to rule that out
um and i'm sure there's there are other
answers that are out there
and if you have to change some rules you
have to change some rules
i mean there's going to be a public
workshop
in mid-august and so we'll certainly
send that out to everyone
i think as many people as we can get
involved
possible and speaking up um the better
it is we're trying to figure out that
detail so we had a
we had a um i mean i think it's safe to
say a disastrous meeting yesterday where
we tried to do a hybrid
um some of the people were here in
council chambers and some of the people
zoomed
and i think for the first 15 minutes it
was just it was feedback and reverb and
so
um i think we have to make the decision
we're going to go 100 one way or the
other
um the hybrid is just it it is not
working and
um what what i found yesterday just you
know as
an anecdote um when it's when you have
some people in person
only the people who are in person really
spoke it made it really difficult for
anyone on zoom to really participate
and so um i think that it it just it was
not
you know and we tried it you know it's
no one's fault we tried it
um but i think that you know we haven't
decided yet
okay enough of beating that little puppy
uh i'm gonna
leave for later the partnering with
because susan's more involved with that
with the uh
the canopy folks and but just suffice it
to say
they really enjoyed their work with us
we enjoyed what they were able to do for
us
keeping them friends so that we can
access their data in different ways is
great
they would be at the forefront of any
new
ideas or research about that so it's a
it's a good friendly partnership and and
one that i think we want to keep going
with
um on to really important things um
and i also want to be vice chair of this
next day
spice chair small town
and larry be required to continue
service
acceptable to both of them
as long as i as long as it's a vice hair
i'm fine with it that's good
okay i'm fine with that yes uh all in
favor say
aye all those beau say no no
no i'm kidding okay thank you for that
um
last item uh we're good on time here the
last item
um is to get some traction
on two lines of thinking we were talking
about
uh one was this idea you know how
how do we get you know we've got some
properties that need some
landscape improvement you know what's
been put in is half dead or
ragged and uh um you know how do you how
do you kick-start that a little bit
and the thought being uh could we
have um grants just like there's the
facade grants could we have landscape
grants
or at least some percentage of what it
takes to turn the properties
around to get people uh motivated
beyond just the enforcement side like
you shall do this and so forth
um so how to put some meat to that it
needs some kind of ownership
and so that could be a couple of people
and i know
it doesn't have to necessarily just
include uh members of tree commission
but it should include
maybe two members of three commission
and maybe there's somebody from the
chamber
kathy some other folks that are
interested in that so that it has some
uh representation to it so hold that
thought
and then the second thing that needs uh
traction and some owners uh
to to move it forward is the research
on how to name things and what what that
policy should be
it's it's actually a little amazing
we've gotten this far and so many
decades of stuff going on
without having any real policy about
how you recognize and what are the
limitations of that like
you know hellmann plaza you know and the
flashing i mean
so you know is it are they are is it
plaques is it something
tasteful do we do it all the time none
of the time
i don't think we really have any policy
or procedure about that
which means we make it up as we go along
there's nothing in
council knows about i don't believe
there is i think
uh now i think other cities have uh have
faced this and so i think this is a
question of it's a research thing yes
sir
well we did maybe six seven
years ago adopt a policy related to
like plaques and memorials
in the right of way i think that that
policy would be pretty adaptable
to be expanded to this so if you're
looking for someone to work on that
i believe i had some responsibility for
the the
policy i think it was just a policy that
pre-commissioned i don't think it ever
went to council for
approval i think we but i do think that
probably
someone from the the park and rex
group needs to be on that as well
because we ought to have a
a policy that's not different if you
want to do something in a park
and correct something under their
jurisdiction because i think we're going
to face this more and more
uh we will probably face it on our uh
park at pocket park
yes uh next to the drexel and if i
i think i probably still have on my hard
drive the final version of the policy we
adapted so i can circulate
that'd be wonderful if i can help i'll
be happy to help on that one great
anybody else on
either one of these two yeah i think
just to follow up on the second one um
it's you know it's it's come up in terms
of um
we're also currently in the city it's
not it's not ready to share but also
looking at
a signage package for the parks um
and you know whether or not you know how
far how how far do you drill down
but for instance we have the hoffman
tennis courts right at jeffrey park
um and we then you know if we are going
to have the pocket park that we have
talking about whether or not that's
going to be named
in the memorial of um you know denise
blank
um and so there's certain things and
then people have brought up like well if
i want to donate a tree
do i get to have my name on the tree and
you know or is it only people who have
money
get to you know have a plaque or is it
someone who has done something that's
really special for the community
and has you know been of service to the
community so i think
that you know there are so many
different things that have been starting
to come up
um that we want to make sure that we
have something in place
that we can easily if someone comes up
and says okay well i want to donate 20
bucks
and you know can i have a plaque now on
this this bench in the park it's like
well
okay well for that person 20 might be a
lot of money
but is it not you know so i think that
we just want to make sure that we can
have an equitable and reasonable way to
move forward
and then also not have the city all of a
sudden
just jumped up with you know this tree
and this person and this bench in this
bench and then all of a sudden just
becomes
immaterial because it just you know it
doesn't it doesn't really mean anything
anymore so i think that's a pretty
important
thing we need to do again we um
just walking one of the parks in new
albany uh to where
uh obviously there was some big gifts uh
but
it was a it was a pathway that moved
through
and the path had this little ribbon next
to it that expanded out and came back
it was probably no wider than that um
i figured what it said tastefully about
donation by blah blah blah
it was just this simple little thing
that kind of molded and it it you'd see
it from afar as part of the design
and but it was just a subtle nice little
way to get so
um but at any rate uh we're going to
face more and more of these i think
or we may wish to face more and more of
these because we need to get the funding
we've got a lot of stuff that isn't
getting built
and every time we talk about all the
stuff up here with you know new this
and ideas and um you know we can't just
we just can't uh not all of them are
going to be done by the community
foundation so
cool okay any um how about the facade
grants
who wants to kind of
okay that'd be great that'd be great
anybody on facebook
okay wait till later on that one okay
all righty well
anything else to come in front of the
august tree commission just richard
i had a question
the house that we approved for uh the
new build on francis
um i have been observing
that i i would surmise that the plan
that's
been put in place is not the plan that
we approved
so i would just ask you to maybe take a
note of that
it's a very small plants i mean very
small on this
huge scale of a beautiful home um
so just a note okay thank you bye thank
you
yeah and i presume we do review
we do uh those the ass built then
what what happened i think richard still
needs to report
pardon richard oh i'm sorry richard
council report gosh here i'm
the most important person in the room no
that's fine um we're currently on
recess i'm not sure what there is to
report about
um but um i can maybe
be arm-twisted into helping with
the grant thing great thank you
yeah and i'd be happy to work with you
on that too so great
anything else uh
we put a motion for our journey we don't
need emotion for german everybody wants
to get out of here say
hi well look nobody else wants to all
right don't stand
all right you guys are stuck
all right you're done