Council passes on Ravenna Street subdivision plan

by Judy Stringer

Aug. 20 city council meeting

Hudson City Council sided with its planning commission’s decision to deny preliminary approval for a new 34-home subdivision on Ravenna Street, following a lengthy and sometimes contentious appeal hearing.

Prestige Builder Group had asked council to reverse the commission’s July 8 application denial, with its attorney Anthony Vacanti arguing that the preliminary plan met all applicable requirements and that council member Skylar Sutton and former planning commission member Melissa Jones – both of whom live adjacent to the proposed Canterbury Crossing subdivision – inappropriately influenced the decision.

“They were very vocal opponents for this subject property,” Vacanti said. “We’ve been through this process. It’s never been this onerous.”

Sutton recused himself from voting on the appeal. He sat with the audience during the hearing, rather than at his council seat, and testified that guidance from Ohio Ethics Commission supported his rights as an impacted property owner to participate in the appeal hearing and to comment at the earlier planning commission meetings about Canterbury Crossing.

Jones testified separately that she, also following advice from the Ohio Ethics Commission, had “never once voted” and “never once was vocal as a planning commission member relative to this project.” Jones, who is an attorney, added that she recently resigned from her planning commission post due to a new work assignment.

Canterbury Crossing was slated for a 94-acre plot of land on the north and south sides of Ravenna Street just west of Stow Road. Chris Brown, director of land development and acquisition for Prestige, said the homes would be in the $1.2- to $2-million range.

Sutton and Jones told council the Prestige subdivision, as currently proposed, diverts stormwater runoff onto their properties. Brown had said earlier that the drawing showing excess water flow “that direction” was “an oversight” that would be corrected in the final plans.

Two other commenters spoke in favor of the development, saying they were in the market for a single-floor style of home that was not currently available in Hudson.

Prestige Builder Group owner Jon Russell asked council to give the company an opportunity to devise an adequate stormwater plan.

“If we can’t make this right, [if] we can’t engineer this properly, then turn this down. But give us the chance,” he said. “And for the people that are the most concerned, if it isn’t developed, the water running in now – that we’ve heard about – is never going to change. … This is actually a chance to make it better.”

Council, however, ultimately upheld the application denial with a 4-0 vote. Council member Nicole Kowalski abstained along with Sutton.

Council member Karen Heater said the intent was not to “deny any development.”

“It’s just that this isn’t the right approach,” Heater explained. “It was denied by all representatives on the planning commission. So, nobody was picking one thing out. They all had concerns with this development.”

Flooding update

City Manager Thom Sheridan and his staff provided an overview of the city’s response to the Aug. 8 storm, which resulted in widespread flooding. According to Sheridan, the northeast quadrant of Hudson “endured a staggering 6.98 inches [of rain] within a 24-hour period, and more importantly, with 6.2 inches falling from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., over a three-hour period.”

Because of the level of precipitation, the National Weather Service categorized the Aug. 8 storm as a 500-year event, Sheridan continued.

“It far exceeded the design capacity of our stormwater infrastructure, which is typically engineered, as you heard here tonight, to handle 10-year storm events for most storm systems to 100-year storm events for our detention ponds throughout the city,” he said. “This is a typical design that you will see in Summit County and across the state.”

The city fielded 300 calls related to the storm that night, including people trapped in cars and homeowners needing assistance to turn power off due to rising water levels in basements. 

Sheridan said the city has spent $12 million on stormwater projects since the last major flooding event in 2003, but hadn’t yet targeted Tinker’s Creek, which was significantly affected in the Aug. 8 flooding.

“Tinker’s Creek hasn’t been studied since the early 2000s and it’s going to need a complete refresher,” said City Engineer Brad Kosco. “We will be using the data we collect now to build those models, and then that would identify any future, long-term solutions that we could implement to alleviate future flooding.” ∞