Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Zoning topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Stow planning officials push large zoning rewrite; council raises questions on dispensary buffers, lot‑size cuts and mixed‑use overlay
Summary
Planning department and consultants presented major draft changes to Stow City’s zoning code — consolidating commercial and industrial districts, shrinking minimum residential lot sizes and creating mixed‑use and planned‑development overlays — while council members asked for more definitions and asked planners to preserve protections around schools and neighborhoods.
Planning staff walked Stow City Council’s planning committee through draft chapters of a comprehensive zoning code rewrite on June 26, proposing consolidated base districts, smaller minimum lot sizes, and two new overlay tools intended to encourage more flexible infill and pedestrian‑oriented development.
Planning Director Mister Herman and consultant staff described major changes including: consolidating eight commercial districts down to three and combining industrial I‑1 and I‑2 into a single industrial district; reducing minimum residential lot sizes (R‑1 from 20,000 to 15,000 square feet; R‑2 from 16,000 to 10,000; R‑3 from 12,000 to 7,000); abolishing minimum lot sizes for commercial and industrial parcels; adding a public institutional district for government and school properties; and creating a “major plan development” zoning tool that would allow a developer to propose a bespoke development text for large sites (initial threshold discussed at 4–5 acres).
Herman said a nonconformity analysis found roughly 60% of the city’s residential lots do not meet current minimum lot‑size requirements; the proposed reductions would increase legal conformance to an estimated 15–20% in residential districts because the city’s lot pattern is already highly developed.
The presentation also described a “mixed‑use overlay” for the corridor roughly between Graham Road and Kent Road to encourage ground‑floor retail and upper‑floor housing, require buildings near the sidewalk and place parking at the rear. Planning staff said the design would encourage walkable, downtown‑style development but emphasized the draft is only conceptual and developers would still need site approvals.
Several councilmembers and members of the public expressed caution. Council President Kyle Feldman asked whether allowing bars, taverns and nightclubs in the mixed‑use overlay might provoke opposition; Councilmember Kelly Coffey said she opposed a reduced 500‑foot buffer for cannabis dispensaries from schools and places of worship and preferred eliminating dispensaries in the city. Councilmember Jeremy McIntyre asked for side‑by‑side tables showing permitted versus proposed uses; others requested clearer definitions for “bar,” “tavern” and “nightclub” so the code cannot be interpreted inconsistently. Planning staff agreed to circulate a draft of the new definition chapter within about a week.
On conditional uses the draft would permit one cannabis dispensary citywide in the new C‑3 district (subject to state‑required 500‑foot buffers from schools/playgrounds/parks and a one‑mile spacing between stores), still allow tobacco/vape retailers only in C‑3 with a 25% sales threshold to distinguish them from general retailers, and restrict car washes by a one‑mile spacing rule (which staff said would effectively allow roughly three in the city under the proposed C‑3 limits).
Council members asked for additional explanatory materials and for the planning department to produce a consolidated “before/after” table of permitted and conditional uses for review. Herman said a near‑final consolidated code draft should be available in July or August; the plan is to take it to planning commission in September and schedule public outreach and an open house in August. In the meantime the committee agreed to keep the chapters in committee so staff can return with edits and the requested comparison tables.
