Zoning discusses old high school property

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

The Galion Plan­ning and Zon­ing Com­mis­sion held a meet­ing on Nov. 27. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from The NOAH Project were unable to attend to con­tinue dis­cus­sion of the senior inde­pen­dent liv­ing facil­ity, a project they pro­posed dur­ing the Commission’s pre­vi­ous meet­ing. Regard­less, the com­mis­sion­ers dis­cussed the project amongst themselves.

The facil­ity would be con­structed at the site of the for­mer high school, north of Church Street. NOAH would be the major­ity owner of the facil­ity while Arbor Shore­line, Inc. would be the gen­eral con­trac­tor for the project. A major con­cern that had been raised dur­ing the pre­vi­ous meet­ing was the pos­si­ble arsenic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion on the property.

Galion Board of Edu­ca­tion Pres­i­dent Den­nis Long was present. When asked about his thoughts on the project, Long felt that a com­pany like Arbor Shore­line would have deeper pock­ets to abate the EPA issues. In con­trast, if an indi­vid­ual wanted to build a single-unit home on the site, that per­son might not be able to afford abatement.

Another con­cern was the unmarked graves at the site, which was a ceme­tery at one time. Com­mis­sion­ers agreed that, if the project moved for­ward, con­di­tions of the con­tract should include abat­ing any con­t­a­m­i­na­tion or other EPA issues, and prop­erly relo­cat­ing any graves that may get dug up to Fairview Cemetery.

Long, who lives less than one block away from the prop­erty and owns two other prop­er­ties in the area, said it could be a ben­e­fit. He com­mented that NOAH and Arbor are try­ing to make the appear­ance of the com­plex fit into the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood. Cur­rently, Galion City Schools retains own­er­ship of the prop­erty and there­fore gets no tax income from it. Allow­ing the facil­ity to oper­ate could help the school and the city earn prop­erty tax revenue.

Com­mis­sion­ers con­cluded that, before mak­ing any deci­sion, they would con­tinue to wait for Arbor Shore­line to present the mar­ket study that was promised dur­ing the pre­vi­ous meeting.

In another mat­ter, cit­i­zen John Nord­strom had zon­ing ques­tions about a prop­erty for sale that he would like to build a stor­age unit facil­ity on.

After explain­ing his plans if he were to pur­chase the prop­erty, Build­ing Inspec­tor Matt Ross advised Nord­strom to stop in the Zon­ing and Build­ing Depart­ment to fill out a form. Ross could then fur­ther advise him on what he could and could not do with the prop­erty (based on City Ordinances).

The first pub­lic hear­ing for the rezon­ing request from Avita Health Sys­tems will be Dec. 11 dur­ing the Plan­ning and Zon­ing Commission’s next meet­ing. It begins at 5:15 p.m. at the Munic­i­pal Building.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Nov 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.