Subdivison goes to full panel
July 10 hearing for Canyon Cliffs
Supporters and opponents will have another chance to debate the merits of a northern Allen County luxury home development proposed on the Allen County Plan Commission president’s property.
The plan commission’s executive committee could not come to a unanimous decision Thursday, so the project will be sent back to the full plan commission for another public hearing July 10.
Allen County Commissioner Bill Brown cast the lone vote against the 28-home subdivision proposed northeast of Coldwater and Chapman roads. Brown said he wanted the entire plan commission to review plans for the Canyon Cliffs subdivision.
More than 370 people signed petitions against the project, and the executive committee’s hearing on the project last week lasted five hours. That level of public interest demands the entire plan commission’s involvement in the decision, Brown said.
“It will help the public understand we’re really truly trying to do the right thing,” he said.
Plan commission president Chuck Bodenhafer, who owns the nearly 139-acre property with his wife, did not attend the meeting and did not return calls seeking comment Thursday afternoon.
Environmentalists and some neighbors had objected development could damage Cedar Creek, home to 17 nature preserves and many endangered animal species.
Opponents plan to continue fighting the development, said Derek Reuter, watershed coordinator at Save Maumee Grassroots Organization. The additional public hearing also will give opponents more time to try to buy the property, he said. ACRES Land Trust officials met with developer Oakmont Development Co. III LLC on Wednesday, but the two groups have not negotiated a sale of the property.
Oakmont Development is open to selling the land to ACRES, but ACRES has not made a formal offer, said Mike Thomas, the developer’s managing member.
The project does include environmentally friendly features, including rain gardens, Thomas has said. Oakmont Development also offered to extend a sewer line to more than 50 homes in the Holmestead Acres subdivision, where failing septic systems are polluting Cedar Creek.
Plan commission members cannot block the subdivision’s construction, said Paul Moss, a county councilman who serves on the plan commission. The Canyon Cliffs site is zoned for agricultural use, and that designation allows homes to be built there.
“We cannot dictate to an individual what to do with their property,” he said.
Oakmont Development submitted the project under the county’s minor plat ordinance, which gives the plan commission a chance to weigh in on the city’s street designs, lot sizes, drainage system and other factors.
If the plan commission rejects the subdivision, Moss said Oakmont could still build homes without that level of oversight. The result would be a poorer-quality development, he said.
But Brown questioned whether Oakmont Development’s project meets the spirit of the minor plat ordinance, which was designed to let rural landowners build miniature subdivisions of no more than six homes every 18 months. Canyon Cliffs would be built as five simultaneous miniature subdivisions. Allen County planning staff members say that is legal because the land already was divided into six parcels, and each could be the site of a minor plat.
Plan commission members Thursday also put off a vote to lift sewer restrictions in the Cedar Creek area. Oakmont Development wants to extend a sewer line under Cedar Creek to serve the subdivision.
The six present plan commission members deadlocked on the issue. County Surveyor Al Frisinger, Moss and Ken Neumeister supported lifting the restrictions. Brown, Gonzalee Martin and Susan Hoot opposed it.
Brown said he wanted more information about how many failing septic systems there are in the area and when the Allen County Regional Water and Sewer District plans to extend sewer service to specific areas.
If the plan commission decides not to lift the restrictions, Thomas has said Canyon Cliffs would be built with septic systems.
Plan commission members are scheduled to hold the public hearing at 1 p.m. July 10 in Room 126 of the City-County Building. The plan commission is slated to vote on the project and the sewer restrictions the following week.
Although Bodenhafer has recused himself from voting on any matters related to Canyon Cliffs, the Allen County commissioners’ office has received formal complaints alleging violations of the county’s ethics ordinance, spokesman Mike Green said.
Several were dropped off on Thursday, Green said.
Ethics commission member Tom Hardin said the commission will consider the complaints, but a meeting date has not been set.
Hardin also said he would recuse himself from evaluating whether the complaints are valid and would not take part in any ethics commission action regarding the complaints. He decided not to participate because he is serving as the plan commission’s attorney for the Canyon Cliffs project.
“It would just not be appropriate to evaluate a complaint against a plan commission member on a plan commission matter,” Hardin said. “I just felt very uncomfortable.”
Amanda Iacone of The Journal Gazette contributed to this story.
jglenn@jg.net
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