Zoning map changes take center stage at Wooster City Council meetings

Amending the city’s zoning map has been a big part of Wooster City Council meetings to start the new year, with an ordinance on this topic expected to be approved at its next meeting Monday, Feb. 2.

“We’ve gone over this at length between the committee meeting and the public hearing we just had regarding the planning and coding zone amendments,” council member Steven Huszai said during the Jan. 20 regular meeting. “I plan on leaving this on second reading and giving everybody here a couple more weeks to hear from constituents and go over the information themselves.”

The first reading of the ordinance to amend parts of the city’s zoning map came at the Jan. 5 regular meeting, followed by a laws and ordinances committee meeting before the Jan. 20 regular meeting, where Vincent Marion, manager of planning and zoning for Wooster, gave a presentation on it.

Marion started his presentation by listing several reasons why amending the zoning map would benefit the city:

—Developing more housing options to accommodate various economic situations.

—Increasing opportunities for open space and recreational activity.

—Preserving farmland through strategic growth.

During the public hearing portion of the Jan. 20 regular meeting, two residents thanked everyone who has worked on the proposed zoning amendments, one calling it a positive step forward in terms of housing for the city and hopeful it will help make more green space available and easily accessible to everyone regardless of their income level.

Council member Jennifer Warden, a member of the laws and ordinances committee Huszai leads, added during her comments at the Jan. 20 meeting that she was happy to see farmland preservation was a focus of the zoning proposal.

“I think our farming community will benefit from it,” said Warden, who is part of the Wayne County Agricultural Success Team.

The third council member on the laws and ordinances committee, Tyler Owens, asked Marion at the Jan. 5 meeting how the goal of increasing the number of residential lots would lead to more houses being built and more affordable housing being accomplished.

“If adopted, there will be two new zoning districts introduced into the zoning code called transition districts that will allow for greater flexibility of use of multi-family duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes stacked higher in some areas,” Marion said. “Another opportunity is the revising of our single-family districts. Currently, we have two primary residential districts outside of the downtown. R1 is the traditional quarter-of-an-acre lots. R2 is smaller lots with the same standards as R1. The proposal is to eliminate the current R2 zoning district for a majority of the city and merge it into R1, with R1 adopting the current R2 standards for lots.”

After Marion’s response, Huszai said the proposal comes with a full recommendation from the planning commission, which approved it in December.

Then at the Jan. 20 meeting, Huszai said approval for the proposed zoning code amendment goes beyond city officials, council members and the pair of residents who spoke during its public hearing. The proposal can be adopted on third reading at the Feb. 2 meeting.

"We didn't mention it in the (laws and ordinances) committee meeting, but we got several letters from local entities that Mr. Marion passed along in support of the zoning changes," Huszai said.