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Bowling Green planning commission advances draft update to access management rules; public hearing set
Summary
The Planning Commission introduced a multi-year update to Chapter 156 (Access Management) aligning city rules with recent ODOT guidance, adding three access categories, revising traffic-impact-study thresholds to peak-hour trips, and adding an MOU and appeals flow; commissioners voted to schedule a public hearing on the draft.
The Bowling Green Planning Commission on Monday reviewed a draft overhaul of Chapter 156, the city's access management policies and guidelines, and voted to schedule a public hearing on the update at the commission's next meeting.
Planning director Heather Sailor introduced consultant Pat Etchie of Mannequin Smith, who said the two-year update incorporates recent changes from the Ohio Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, integrates the city's complete-streets and active-transportation priorities, and adds detailed technical appendices for developers and engineers.
"The intent of the access management policies and guidelines is to provide rules and regulations for managing access to land development," Pat said, describing the update's goals of preserving traffic flow, safety and multimodal access. The draft includes an updated functional-classification map and three access categories that apply stricter controls to principal arterials and looser standards to local streets.
Key technical changes noted in the presentation include revised thresholds for traffic-impact studies: a development that generates 100 or more peak-hour trips would require a 10-year planning horizon; projects generating 500 or more peak-hour trips would require a 20-year horizon. The update removes the previous daily-trip threshold and adds requirements that traffic studies include crash-history summaries and traffic counts taken when Bowling Green and Bowling Green State University are in session.
The draft also expands driveway-spacing rules and driveway categories, raises driveway-dimension standards to better accommodate delivery trucks, clarifies differences between private and public signals (with developers typically responsible for the cost of privately requested signals), and adds roundabout guidance as an alternative to signalization for safety and multimodal access.
Pat said the update adds a memorandum-of-understanding step to clarify scope between a developer's consultant and the city early in the process and an exemption clause allowing the city to waive study requirements for very low-trip developments on a case-by-case basis. An appeals flowchart and a point-of-contact table for applicants are also included in the draft.
Commissioners asked technical questions about how the rules would apply to new development versus changes of use, multimodal accommodations for pedestrians and bicyclists, and ADA compliance. Planning staff encouraged members to submit technical questions to staff ahead of the public hearing to allow fuller responses.
By roll call, the commission approved scheduling a public hearing on the draft access management policies for consideration and recommendation to city council. The commission did not adopt the document tonight; the hearing will allow public comment and a more complete technical review before any recommendation to council.
Next steps: the draft is posted on the planning department's website for review; the commission will hold the public hearing at its next meeting and then decide whether to forward a recommendation to city council.
