Trending
At their Monday night meeting, Marietta City Council's Planning Zoning Annexation and Housing Committee discussed the Enrich Marietta plan and the Residential Revitalization Program as well as the former Marietta Times building on Channel Lane.
The Water and Sewer Committee also discussed the Devola agreement and issues with the agreement itself.
Enrich Marietta is a plan that was created in 2018 by the City of Marietta and Marietta Main Street to revitalize downtown Marietta through strategic actions including identifying priority actions and developing a strategy to begin implementing those projects, policies, or programs within the next three to five years, according to the city's website.
Enrich Marietta brought together stakeholders and organizations for the plan to determine priorities and includes evaluation of the condition of downtown and is rooted in working in engagement.
"Our plan has been paid for since 2020 and we've been acting on recommendations for several projects including Riverfront development," said City Development Director Geoff Schenkel. "The organizations have been working on geographics. The plan has been working well and I want to work on using the plan more intentionally."
According to Councilman Bret Allphin, 2nd Ward, Enrich Marietta was never adopted by council and he stated that he would be open to adopting it.
"I was on the committee for Enrich Marietta pre-council and I'd be happy to support it," Allphin said. "I will request legislation for it for our next council meeting."
The committee also discussed the Residential Revitalization Program.
The program, which has been in action for the past six months, is to help ease blight at the same time it increases available housing in the city of Marietta
Jesse Roush, executive director of the Southeastern Ohio Port Authority, gave an update on the program and the recent projects it has completed.
"We have recently closed on 605 Pearl Street, also known as the Compound, all the valuables within the residence are gone and it is ready for demolition," said Roush.
"We are also working with Community Action on this and have three more parcels set from Buckeye Avenue that we will be taking the same approach with."
Roush says that they have 900 parcels with which they could have opportunities, but they can't say yes to all the properties and they have to take into consideration what the best use of those buildings would be for. He states that they will be calling all stakeholders for a meeting on blight issues.
"We're on the cusp of something worthwhile," Schenkel said about the program.
Allphin also stated that they are still working on the Land Development Ordinance and said that they are still working on three points; how do appeals work, appeals should be made toward the owner, and the language to prohibit the violated entity from doing business within the city.
The Planning, Zoning, Annexation, and Housing Committee briefly discussed a zoning issue with the former Marietta Times building at 700 Channel Lane. There had been discussion about Mark Hall purchasing the building and redeveloping it, although due to zoning switches, the purchase has been halted. Zoning Enforcement Officer Jim Caldwell stated that the building had already been switched in its zoning one time before the new zoning laws were in effect circa 2001.
"The building had previously been a C3 (commercial building) for manufacturing business, was switched to an M1 (light industrial commercial building), and can only go two ways with the zoning from there," said Caldwell. "It can either be a R3 (residential building) but has to be 5,000 square feet and under, so it's not that. Or it can be an M1."
Roush said the building is 22,000 square feet, but it had not been manufacturing papers for 24 years. Caldwell said he has no opinion in the matter and is just following the new zoning laws.
Roush stated that if it were to be classified under M1, it would continue to sit and would be difficult to do business with the building, which could be broken up into three, possibly four, parcels but could possibly appeal for development. The committee said that there will be more discussion to be had about the building.
The Water and Sewer Committee discussed the Devola Agreement with Utility Administrator Kim Nohe. Nohe stated that sewer payments for the almost 6,600 customers, whether within or outside of city limits, pay the same rates. She also stated that there were three entities that pay one admin fee; Devola, Reno, and Marietta City Schools. Nohe said that the rates from 2023 to 2024 have gone down from $8.19 to $7.55 because the amount of admins went up. Although, the money from the Devola agreement with the Washington County Commissioners had not been paid and no contract had been signed.
"The agreement was supposed to include money up front with it and we have not seen any money," said Nohe. "We have paid $492,000 to an attorney and a contract has still not been signed. This agreement has been going on since 2016."
The committee went back and forth discussing that the term sheet they had for the agreement did not match up with one another and what they should do about not receiving any money for the agreement that had still not been finalized. Council President Susan Vessels suggested that council tell the county commissioners that they are behind on their payment and ask for the $3.5 million payment two and a half years later. Nohe's final statement was that council should have a meeting with the commissioners about where and why certain changes were made within the term sheet agreement and come to terms about the Devola agreement.
In other business, the Finance Committee went into an executive session to discuss annual quarterly cost allocations.
Gretchen Dowler can be reached gdowler@newsandsentinel.com.