Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

With hesitation I post this but I?’m interested in having an intelligent discussion regarding development within the bounds of the Pickerington School district and learning more about the issues affecting our city.

Most residents believe residential development within the city needs to be slowed down, which I agree with. When a home developer buys up a patch of land in the township what is his incentive in wanting to be annexed into the city? Is it because of the fees (water, sewer, park, etc) city council seems to either reduce or waive? Is the city's only incentive in annexing the land the income tax generated?

What is going to stop this same land from being developed by the same developer if he stays in the township? Nothing that I can think of so don?’t we still have the same problem with the schools? From what I?’ve been told the township zoned the Sycamore Creek subdivision and then city council annexed it into the city. There?’s been mention that city council can?’t be trusted with prime commercial development land yet this was a huge area with the southern part ~1 mile from 33? There?’s another subdivision going in off of Busey I believe that is in the township but also within the school district boundaries. Seems to me that it isn?’t just the city that is residential development happy.

I talked to a friend of the family that is a township trustee in another township and I asked him about the petition fight, especially the 2 homes per acre issue. I figured I knew the answer but wanted someone to bounce it off of. I asked what will happen if Pickerington restricted zoning to 2 homes per acre? He said the typical home developers would simply move out into the township since they could still get higher-density zoning there, which is exactly what I thought. The developers main selling point is the school system and that doesn?’t change whether they are in the city or not. Maybe the township has a limit to the number of homes built per year but I don?’t think so. To me it just seems to be moving the problem around and not really solving anything. Who has the figures as to how many kids attend Pickerington schools live in the township or other cities and how many live within the Pickerington city limits? It seems like the issue with the growth of the school system needs to be attacked at the city and township level simultaneously otherwise it really isn?’t solving anything. I know I must be missing something but I don?’t know what it is.

?– Brian.

Manage Growth part #1

Brian,

You are asking some very basic questions that have some very complicated answers. After making this my hobby the last three years I have acquired a sense of what can be done and what should be done.


Types of Government:

The first issue we all must understand is that this school district is made up of different types of governmental bodies. Many times the City of Pickerington tries to tell us that they are doing the same things out in the township and no one complains. These two governments are completely different and each has separate powers to govern with.

TOWNSHIP:

This is a caretaker type of government. Their only real powers are to maintain a fire department and sometimes they will maintain a police department. They also are allowed to adopt and enforce a zoning code. Most of their powers come from the county and the state. They are very limited on what they can do in controlling residential growth. They have tried in vain to only zone at higher densities. These type of homes are more expensive and they sell at a slower rate. They get most of their powers from the County Commissioners.



INCORPORATED CITY:


A village becomes a city once they reach a population of 5000 here in Ohio. Once they reach that stage they then are given even more responsibilities in their own self government. They must maintain the state roads and bridges with very little help from the state. They also can adopt and enforce zoning codes. The city can change their zoning codes with a council vote. The township must place the issue before their voters. The city can govern itself by ordinances where the township must use state law and the county prosecutor enforces their laws. The city normally has a prosecutor. The significant difference here is that the city can develop a residential growth plan and also enforce that plan. The township can not do this without the help of the county.

Manage Growth part #2

How does a city that is concerned with residential growth control that growth? I have talked with a number of folks over the last few years and realize Pickerington is so far behind the times that I wonder if we will ever recover.



1. The basic way to control residential growth is the availability of utilities (water and sewer). If you don?’t have the water or sewer capacity then you can?’t build. That for years was a real threat to the PLSD because Columbus sat on our western borders with an unlimited capacity. We always thought Columbus was the threat but it was really Pickerington. Last year Canal Winchester closed that gap for us by annexing the Pifer farm. Most towns and cities simply say to the builders come back in a few years when they have more capacity.

In my opinion here is where we all went wrong locally. About 15 years ago the state and the county started getting real tough with the septic tanks and aerator systems. The EPA apparently was leaning on this area of Northern Violet Township. I agree with protecting the ground water and not polluting our streams, but I think there was a real failure in our elected officials when this all started. Today you will find streets and roads in our area with the county utilities on one side of the road and Pickerington City utilities on the other. They all lost any chance to cooperate in the early 90s. We are just now beginning to all pay for that lack of cooperation.

We can all blame this on the total lack of responsibility on the part of everyone not only at city hall but also at the township and county levels. I agree with Brian there is plenty of blame to go around and the township and the County should shoulder just as much as the City of Pickerington when it comes to these water and sewer areas. Back then there should have been water and sewer districts set up and they should have stuck to their assigned areas.

However I don?’t have any suggestions on how to solve this problem. The only obvious one is to replace many of those that represent us in these two governments.




2. Another way to control residential growth is conditions of zoning. I have had hours of talk with Marsha Hall the Mayor of Canal Winchester. Canal?’s solution to residential growth is a combination of controlling sewer availability (except in the PLSD) and conditions of zoning. In other words to get the zoning requested by the developers they are only allowed to build a set number of housing units per year. Very simple but very effective. I am not sure this is still available to Pickerington.

Manage Growth part #3

Once we have established a workable growth plan in the City we might find the Township people having a different attitude toward the city government. They might even give us the OK to annex lands for commercial development and treat us like our little sister Canal Winchester.




3. For controlling residential growth, the absolute way is to set in place a growth management plan. This plan is just a supplement to the comprehensive land use plan. First the city must develop a long term capital improvement plan for the city?’s infrastructures (infrastructures included our school buildings). Once you have developed an idea on how you want to develop the city then you must place price tags on each piece of the pie. This must be long term (10 Years). To generate the money to pay for these infrastructure improvements you must face the reality that your return on residential development cost more in services than you receive in tax revenues. So if you want to grow at say a one and a half percent growth rate then you must limit the amount of residential development each year until you have the other infrastructure projects in place.

So if the residential growth rate is going to be one and one half percent per year then we count the houses and limit the number of building permits to the 1 ?½ % per year. (Example: about 2700 residential units in Pickerington presently, that would mean we would allow only 41 new housing units per years). We would exempt senior housing, any commercial and other business properties that didn?’t produce children. To make it fair to the residential builders we would need to develop some kind of lottery system so that these 41 building lots per year would be divided out evenly to ALL builders and private citizens.

That would mean that it would take 97 years to build out the lots that are currently zoned to be built on. At the same time the city would need to develop some kind of commercial development corporation or commission. The city would provide seed money to this commission so they could start buying land for commercial development. Once the developers realize it will take them 97 years to get a return on their investment then I am sure the city could buy the property at a price that would be both fair to the city and fair to the investment that the builder/developer has made. I agree with Brian there is many acres down near the southern borders of our city that can still be used as commercial and produce taxes with a positive cash flow to the city and the schools.


How do we reach this goal? We must share our ideas and we must also let the Pickerington City Council know how we feel. It is obvious that the current members of the Pickerington City government have no concern for its citizens welfare even though they claim that is why the pass everything by emergency. We simply must replace the faces