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North College Hill committee pauses on adopting comprehensive plan, asks law director to draft implementing legislation
Summary
Members of the Rules & Public Policy Committee debated whether to adopt a city comprehensive plan immediately or wait for zoning-code revisions and a clause making the plan explicitly 'fluid.' Committee leaders agreed to ask the law director to prepare legislation and to circulate the plan to full council for a vote.
Members of the North College Hill Rules & Public Policy Committee on March 10 debated whether to adopt the city’s proposed comprehensive plan now or delay until related zoning-code updates are completed.
Committee members said the plan is intended as a high-level guide for future decisions rather than a set of binding ordinances, and several members urged adding language that the document is “fluid” and may be updated as circumstances and funding change.
Committee discussion focused on sequencing: several members said Hamilton County staff have offered to help rewrite the city’s zoning code at no cost and could produce text customized to North College Hill’s needs. Committee members suggested accepting Hamilton County’s general rewrite and then adding local provisions to preserve existing grandfathering and other locally specific rules.
Committee members also noted the planning commission circulated the final Urban Fast Forward plan to council in November and asked the committee to move the document to the council agenda. To do that, the committee agreed to ask Law Director Michael Deters to draft implementing legislation and an explicit clause that the plan is advisory and may be revised.
The committee chair said she would send Deters an email and asked two other council members to do the same; the committee set no formal adoption date but scheduled follow-up communications to the law director and planning staff.
Background: The plan, prepared by Urban Fast Forward, is intended to give a citywide “30,000-foot” framework for land use and public-investment decisions. Committee members repeatedly said major implementation steps that would change land use or spend money — for example, traffic-calming on Goodman Avenue — will still require separate zoning changes, public hearings and budget approvals.
