Zoning Commission approves The NOAH Project

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

The Plan­ning and Zon­ing Com­mis­sion held two meet­ings dur­ing con­sec­u­tive weeks in Decem­ber. Dur­ing the Dec. 11 meet­ing, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of The NOAH Project, a coun­ty­wide, non-profit com­mu­nity devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tion, were present. The orga­ni­za­tion would like to build a senior inde­pen­dent liv­ing apart­ment com­plex at the for­mer site of Galion High School on Church Street. A pub­lic hear­ing regard­ing the project had been held dur­ing Plan­ning and Zoning’s Nov. 13 meet­ing (story appeared in the Nov. 17 edi­tion of the Inquirer).

At the Dec. 11 meet­ing, Su Rowles, exec­u­tive direc­tor of NOAH, pre­sented the Com­mis­sion with the promised mar­ket study. It was con­ducted by Vogt San­ter Insights, an appraisal com­pany in Colum­bus that spe­cial­izes in real estate mar­ket research. “The mar­ket study shows that there is a need. To ade­quately sup­port the com­mu­nity and this project, there are enough seniors that should qual­ify to be res­i­dents there,” she said.

She was ask­ing the Com­mis­sion for approval to apply to the state for fund­ing of the project, but empha­sized that NOAH was not push­ing com­mis­sion­ers to make a deci­sion. Eden Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing would be 51 per­cent owned by NOAH, and the other share would be retained by the con­trac­tor, Arbor Shore­line, Inc. (a sub­sidiary of Showe Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion). Both enti­ties would be required to own and main­tain the prop­erty for at least 15 years.

The Com­mis­sion asked about how the mar­ket study was con­ducted. Rowles com­mented that Vogt, which is a very rep­utable com­pany with no asso­ci­a­tion with NOAH or Showe Man­age­ment, did the pre­lim­i­nary study using state data and electronic/phone communication.

Rowles later explained that the mar­ket study eval­u­ated some of the cur­rent senior hous­ing facil­i­ties in the Galion area, includ­ing Buck­eye Arms, Cedar Gate Apart­ments, Cen­tral Hotel, Craw­ford Manor, East­wood Mead­ows, Galion Arms and Hard­ing Manor.

She noted the vacancy rate at such places is low.

In addi­tion, Rowles also pre­sented data on the expected senior pop­u­la­tion growth through 2020, which indi­cates that Craw­ford County will be one of the fastest grow­ing and high­est coun­ties in Ohio for seniors. She said the pro­posed facil­ity would pro­vide a min­i­mum of 35 units—as rec­om­mended by the mar­ket study—which could help “grow the com­mu­nity, retain seniors in the county and bring oth­ers in.”

Com­mis­sioner Bob Cerar had con­cerns of the pre­vi­ous use of the prop­erty as a ceme­tery. Rowles noted that Eden would not have a base­ment, so they would be dis­turb­ing the ground as lit­tle as possible.

Com­mis­sioner Steve Rowan asked if there would be an EPA study per­formed. Rowles responded that there has already been one study, but they would be required by state law to do a more com­plete study before the final funds for the project are received.

The issue was tabled for the Dec. 18 meet­ing so com­mis­sion­ers could review the study in more detail.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of The NOAH Project returned for the Dec. 18 meet­ing. Scott Hun­ley, vice pres­i­dent of Showe Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, also attended to con­tinue the dis­cus­sion about Eden Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing. Arbor Shore­line, Inc., a sub­sidiary of his com­pany, would be the con­trac­tor for the project and pri­mary owner of the even­tual facility.

Hun­ley cor­rob­o­rated that 35 units would be the most his com­pany would build for the facil­ity. Some of those units would be one bed­room, some two. If the project is approved, poten­tial res­i­dents of the facil­ity would need to meet annual income qual­i­fi­ca­tions of either 30, 50 or 60 per­cent of the aver­age annual income of the county. A spe­cific amount of units will be reserved for each income level and the income qual­i­fi­ca­tions would be adjusted annually.

Hun­ley also addressed some mis­con­cep­tions regard­ing the project. First, he does not want to take res­i­dents away from other prop­er­ties in the area and noted that his com­pany watches the mar­ket of the area closely, which cur­rently indi­cates that there are many more seniors in need of a facil­ity like Eden.

As far as the size of the struc­ture itself, Hun­ley said its height will not be more than that of a two story house. Aes­thet­i­cally, it is designed to blend in with the neigh­bor­hood. The outer wall will not be flat, but instead have depth to make the build­ing look more like indi­vid­ual homes.

His com­pany would pay prop­erty taxes, as the facil­ity is required by the Ohio Hous­ing Finance Agency and the IRS to be owned by a for profit entity. This would gen­er­ate income for Galion City Schools.

Cerar asked if the mar­ket study had been com­pleted yet. Hun­ley responded that it had not, but the bulk of the analy­sis was done via the pre­lim­i­nary study and, in his expe­ri­ence with other projects, not much will change in the final­ized version.

Recently, 32 notices were sent out to the neigh­bors in the imme­di­ate sur­round­ing area. Cerar com­mented that, while some cit­i­zens at the meet­ings have responded neg­a­tively to the project, he has also got­ten a lot of pos­i­tive feedback.

Kit Wal­ter, a Union Street res­i­dent who was at the meet­ing, was con­cerned about the envi­ron­men­tal impact the project would have, specif­i­cally on the storm sewer. He said he had sewer prob­lems on his prop­erty when the for­mer high school was oper­at­ing at the site. Wal­ter also asked the Com­mis­sion to con­sider the increase of traf­fic and noise on the area and the added stress on utilities.

Bruce Angell of NOAH argued that the high school would have used more water than the pro­posed facil­ity would. There would be sig­nif­i­cantly less res­i­dents there com­pared to the stu­dents who attended the high school, so it was not a fair comparison.

Rowan asked again about the EPA and ground study. Hun­ley responded that it would be con­ducted within the next few months and any issues would be addressed.

Cerar noted that the Com­mis­sion is espe­cially con­cerned about the pos­si­ble unmarked graves on the site and wants it han­dled. How­ever, the law is unclear regard­ing unmarked graves and who would be respon­si­ble for prop­erly relo­cat­ing the human remains, if any are found.

Com­mis­sioner Chuck Miller said the man­ager of a local ceme­tery told him that if remains are found, the ceme­tery will take care of the relo­ca­tion of the remains.

Com­mis­sioner Rick Swain did not want to decide until he had some ques­tions answered regard­ing the spe­cific time­line for con­struc­tion and logis­ti­cal details, ques­tions that he did not feel Hun­ley could answer at that time. Hun­ley noted the project would have an 18-month con­struc­tion period from start to finish.

Swain also recalled the decon­struc­tion of the for­mer high school being loud and extremely messy, and was con­cerned about bro­ken promises that have arisen in the past with other projects.

Cerar argued that decon­struc­tion is much dirt­ier than con­struc­tion. Hun­ley admit­ted that the con­struc­tion will be loud but he hopes to com­plete the project with as lit­tle dis­tur­bance to neigh­bors as possible.

The appli­ca­tion, if the project is to get under­way, would be due on Feb. 21, 2013. Hun­ley explained that he would need a let­ter that states the proper zon­ing will be in place and the issue is going through the leg­isla­tive process of the city gov­ern­ment, oth­er­wise the project would not be approved for a 2013 start.

Miller motioned to approve the rezon­ing and to draft a let­ter of approval for the pro­posed project, sec­onded by Com­mis­sioner Sharon Baldinger. The motion passed 3–2 with Rowan and Swain dis­sent­ing. The Commission’s rec­om­men­da­tion will now go to City Coun­cil for discussion.

In the mean­time, Hun­ley said the mar­ket study will be com­pleted and a Phase 1 Envi­ron­men­tal Review will be con­ducted. The project will also need to meet other require­ments of OFHA’s Qual­i­fied Allo­ca­tion Plan, which can be viewed at: www.ohiohome.org/lihtc/2012QAP.pdf