St. Peter’s Lutheran Church is moving forward with plans to construct a parking lot on vacant downtown properties despite a tie vote from city council on rezoning for the project.
On Tuesday, city council members Tom Dell, Jerone Wood and Elaine Hilber voted against the rezoning; Frank Miller, David Bush and Tim Shuffett in favor. Grace Kestler chose to abstain, as she is a church member and her mother is on the church’s board of directors. With Kestler’s abstention, the vote was 3-3.
After reaching the tie, the council voted not to have the rezoning ordinance on its agenda again. Kestler once again abstained and the rest voted in favor.
City attorney Alan Whitted said that in instances where city council does not act within 90 days of a decision by the Columbus Plan Commission, the commission’s decision stands.
Planning director Jeff Bergman said the plan commission’s approval of the rezoning ordinance will become effective on Nov. 10, once the 90-day period is up.
According to a memorandum from Bergman, the rezoning is for 30,900 square feet, including four lots, to be rezoned to Public/Semi-Public Facilities.
The properties are located along the south side of Fourth Street, east of Chestnut Street. Three lots are vacant and are currently zoned for Residential: Established with the Mixed-Density Neighborhood Overlay district. The fourth lot is currently zoned for Commercial: Community and contains St. Peter’s LifeWorks outreach center.
St. Peter’s plans to construct a parking lot on these properties to support both the outreach center and their church campus as a whole.
The main debate was over the best use of the land.
Dell and Hilber both said that it would be better to act in the interest of future residential development rather than turn the area into a parking lot.
“I think that we want to encourage residential development as best we possibly can, to keep the viability and the enthusiasm and the excitement going in our downtown areas,” Dell said.
Hilber pointed to the Envision Columbus study, which showed that parking lots were a major contributing factor in the downtown housing shortage.
However, both the planning department and the applicants said that there are certain environmental concerns which might make the site a bad spot for residential housing.
The planning department’s staff report stated that there is possible site contamination “due to past and ongoing commercial land uses nearby.”
In their submitted materials, the rezoning applicants wrote, “Primary detected pollutants are dry cleaning chemicals and petroleum products. The adjacent gas station/mini mart has had some significant tank leakage issues, and the former gas station at Third and California Street has experienced the same.”
At the Sept. 1 city council meeting, David Force, who represented the church, said “What we were told was that FHA won’t approve a mortgage that’s within 300 feet of a buried tank of 1,000 gallons or more. We’re within 75 feet of 36,000 gallons. And, you know, while not everyone uses FHA as a mortgage vehicle, it’s unusual in a case like this for it to not be a planning guideline.”
The applicants also submitted copies of the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, which contained information about contaminants relative to ground water, and Soil Gas Survey completed by Patriot Engineering on the property. Primary soil gas contaminants included trichloroethene (TCE) and tetrachloroethene (PERC).
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, TCE is a known human carcinogen, and PERC is classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
The planning department staff report said, “The environmental concerns for the subject property may make the property unsuited to residential development. Institutional uses, possibly including parking lots, may have a lower risk to health than residential uses.”
Hilber, however, pointed to how certain members of the city council recently voted in favor of rezoning property for additional housing to be developed by the Garden City Mobile Home Park, despite the site’s groundwater contamination.
“I just have a hard time with making a decision based on the environment this week, when two weeks ago, we kind of disregarded that fact,” Hilber said at the city council’s Sept. 1 meeting. “We said, ‘We can put seven more families here, on a site that we know is contaminated, that does not have city water.’”
She added that the site of the St. Peter’s rezoning is already connected to city water, which is tested three times a day for contaminants.
Tuesday’s results were identical to city council’s tied vote on Sept. 1 regarding the rezoning ordinance. Both times, Hilber, Wood and Dell voted against the rezoning, while Miller, Bush and Shuffett voted for it, with Kestler abstaining. At the Sept. 1 meeting, the council decided to delay voting on the first reading for the ordinance and continue the matter at their next meeting.
Prior to the matter coming to city council, plan commission voted 6-2 to give the rezoning a favorable recommendation to city council. Bush, who is city council liaison to the commission, recused himself from the discussion and vote, due to being a member at the church. Fellow church member and commission member Dave Hayward did the same.
However, Bush did not abstain during the city council vote. Whitted said that this is because city council members and plan commission members are held to a different standard.
Plan commission members are required to abstain if their vote could have the “appearance of impropriety;” city council members are only required to abstain if they have a “pecuniary interest.” So while Kestler chose voluntarily to abstain from the vote, neither she nor Bush was required to do so.
