Upper Arlington city planning staff and a representative of Columbia Gas Ohio discussed plans to place a natural gas regulator station on a residential lot and scheduled a public hearing for Aug. 16 on the project and related variances.

City planning staff described the ordinance standards the project must meet, saying the station’s equipment must be “fully enclosed, with sound limiting equipment, closed windows and double doors,” and that the design will be reviewed by the city’s third-party architect “as if this were a single family house.” The staff member said the code requires residential-compatibility review of height, scale, massing and materials.

The project as presented includes a primary building with about a 5,000-square-foot footprint and roughly 25 feet in height, a secondary garage-like building about 17 feet tall, and a smaller third structure described as a storage pad or equipment pad. Staff identified three variances likely to be needed: a variance for the secondary building’s height (the code limit cited was 15 feet), a side-yard long-wall setback variance, and a variance for fence ornamentation (finials) that Columbia Gas said it requires for security.

Luca, director of government affairs for Columbia Gas Ohio, told the meeting the company has worked with neighbors and hired a design consultant and that the exterior will use a faux brick veneer and residential-style features. “We are somewhat limited by materials just because we’re just a flammable substance,” Luca said. He described an internal 8-foot security fence surrounding equipment that cannot be fully enclosed inside the buildings, and a small SCADA building on site described in the presentation as roughly “8 by 8 by 8.”

Luca described a heater stack for frost prevention that will sit behind the main building and said it would be “no more than 14 feet tall” where it is visible to neighbors. He said the security fence proposed for similar sites has been an 8-foot wrought-iron fence to meet both security needs and neighborhood aesthetics.

Staff noted additional design and plan items still outstanding: requested renderings from different viewpoints, details about the third structure, and a landscape plan review by the city forester. The staff member said the city requires one tree for every 25 feet of property-line length and that landscaping, fencing and other site details must be reviewed and approved.

City staff explained notice requirements for the conditional use: a 300-foot notice for the conditional-use classification and a 100-foot certified-mail notice for the variances, and confirmed notices were completed. The planning item and related variances are scheduled for the Aug. 16 meeting.

No formal vote or final decision was recorded at this meeting; staff and the applicant will provide additional materials and return to the planning body at the scheduled hearing.

For additional materials and updates, staff said the Columbia Gas project page and planning packet include the design iterations and that the public may email planning@uaoh.net with questions.