City council approves rezoning of 25.195 acres to RPUD amid neighbor concerns about buffers, access and stormwater

Beavercreek City Council on second reading approved Ordinance 25-02, rezoning about 25.195 acres to RPUD (Residential Planned Unit Development), after extended discussion about required buffers, building setbacks, access and utilities.

The measure, described at the meeting as rezoning 25.195 acres from A-1 agriculture to RPUD, passed after council members debated how a proposed 50-foot buffer and a 35-foot rear-yard building setback would interact with the city’s lot-size rules and with future site plans.

Council members said the core issue was whether the 50-foot buffer shown on the developer’s concept plan should be treated as permanent open space owned by a homeowners association and therefore allow smaller lots than the 20,000-square-foot minimum that normally applies adjacent to existing single-family lots. Randy (city planning staff) said the zoning code requires that ‘‘any new PUD where the lots of the new PUD are immediately adjacent existing residential need to be the size of those lots in the existing residential,’’ but if a 50-foot buffer…