By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Bucyrus City Council’s Platting Committee approved an amendment to the city’s zoning map and will forward legislation to the full City Council for a vote.
The amendment, if approved by City Council, would allow True Value to convert part of its parking lot into a storage building/drive-thru. Currently the area is zoned as R2, but for the building to be erected the lot would have to be rezoned to Neighborhood Business for the entire parking lot.
City Code Enforcement Officer John Rostash explained that the rezoning would be just the first step to the construction.
“If this is rezoned this is the first step,” Rostash said. “Afterwards it would have to go to the BZA (Board of Zoning Appeals) to build close to the property line.”
The Platting Committee approved to have legislation drafted by Feb. 16 with a public hearing set for March 31.
The Platting Committee also agreed to send emergency legislation to City Council for an ODOT crack seal project on US 30 and County Road 330. The project is to start at Mansfield Street by the Timken plant and go out to County Road 330 by Wynford.
The Finance Committee also approved the measure.
The Platting Committee decided to put a hold on reviewing the city ordinance that deals with zoning parking and pavement. Currently in Bucyrus the ordinance requires one parking spot for every 75 square feet for eating and drinking establishments. City Law Director Rob Ratliff suggested that the current ordinance creates too many parking places and that council should look into changing it to somewhere around one parking spot for every 150 square feet for those establishments.
“We would be better off with fewer parking places and have green space and water detention,” Ratliff said.
Rostash added that the incoming Tim Hortons/Donatos is concerned about space for the drive-thru so the traffic doesn’t overflow onto Sandusky Avenue.
The Platting Committee agreed to place furthur discussion on the zoning map on hold until an engineer and real estate developer could be brought in to look into the matter and make their findings to council.
The Public Lands and Buildings Committee decided to hold off on placing two properties up for bid until further information could be gathered. The properties at 133 Franklin Street and 115 Fisher Street were on the auction block by the city, but were not sold. City Service Safety Director Jeff Wagner suggested trying to sell them with a minimum bid to cover ad costs with the provision that the buildings at those addresses be torn down within six months. Another option the city will look into will be possibly sending the properties to the recently created county land bank when it is set up and operable.
Both the Service and Finance committees approved legislation to authorize the service/safety director to proceed with procuring material bids for the 2016 year.
The Finance Committee approved sending the Arcadis Contract for 2016 to City Council to be considered as emergency legislation. The contract is estimated for $286,000. However the Finance Committee added that the contract is not to exceed the estimate plus 10 percent of the estimated cost.
The Finance Committee also approved transfers of the carryover of $3,000 to personnel services that were left over from the first quarter. Also approved was the addition of $1,250 to personnel services and subtract the $1,250 from materials and supplies.