Garfield Heights council votes to send charter amendment on land-use rules to voters

Garfield Heights City Council on Jan. 27, 2025 voted 7-0 to adopt Ordinance 08-2025 and submit an amendment to Section 58 of the Garfield Heights Charter to the electors. The ordinance, which the council adopted after suspending the three-reading rule, would allow the city’s planning and zoning code to govern land-use changes rather than automatically sending some zoning decisions to a citywide vote.

Council and city officials said the change is intended to speed local development decisions that have been delayed under what officials called “referendum zoning.” Mayor Matthew Burke described a recurring scenario in which a business buys adjacent houses on a corner and must wait for a general election before moving forward: "So what we want to do is say, section 58 will allow for the planning and zoning code to govern the land use," he said, describing the example of a Sunoco gas station that bought houses on Rockside and Turning streets.

The mayor and the city’s law representative framed the amendment as part of a broader zoning update. The law representative said the city charter dates from the 1950s and noted the procedural requirement for special ordinances: because the measure was a special ordinance, it required a two-thirds council vote to adopt the submission language and emergency declaration. Council carried the necessary votes and adopted the ordinance during the meeting.

Under the approach described by officials, land-use changes would still go through the city’s planning process and the Zoning Board of Appeals and remain subject to public meetings. Mayor Burke said the change is modeled on procedures used in nearby cities and is intended to allow public hearings at the zoning-board level and a council decision without waiting for a general election cycle.

Council took several formal steps on the ordinance during the meeting: a motion to consider by title, a motion to suspend the three-reading rule, a waiver of Rule 24, and then a roll-call adoption. The roll-call on adoption recorded seven "yes" votes (Collier; Mack; Smith; Johnson; Tunson; Rhodes; Kelly). The ordinance’s enacted language directs submission of the proposed charter amendment to the electors; as adopted, it includes an emergency clause.

The ordinance does not itself change the charter; it sets the proposed amendment before Garfield Heights voters. The city did not specify a ballot date in the meeting record. Officials said the change is intended to reduce delays in approving redevelopment but emphasized that local hearings and public input at planning and zoning meetings would continue.