Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Lake Township’s trustees held their latest regular meeting on July 21 in the administration building, discussing an upcoming road levy, the Planned Unit Development (PUD) zoning issue, and resident concerns involving flooding.
The first main topic centered around the decision to place a levy on the ballot for the “general construction, reconstruction, resurfacing, and road repair of streets, roads, and bridges” within Lake Township’s unincorporated areas. Thus, places such as Millbury and Walbridge wouldn’t be included in the levy.
The county auditor estimates that the levy would collect $538,188 annually, and it would equate to a resident cost of $70 annually for each $100,000 of a home’s appraised value. The levy is for five years beginning in 2027.
Township officials, which approved the placement of the levy on the ballot at the meeting, said the last new road levy was in 1990. There have only been renewals since then, which means any taxes are based on appraised home values in 1990. On top of that, they say that it costs approximately $200,000 to replace one mile of a road.
“We’re falling woefully behind,” trustee Melanie Bowen-Greenwald said. “And nobody likes the tar-and-chip and trying to patch. We just felt that at some point, we became derelict in not asking … I don’t want to pay any more taxes than any of you do, but everybody uses the roads. Everybody. We’ve got to have decent roads. It’s just a necessity.”
PUD discussion
Dan Prewitt of Pemberville Road asked why the township went to the Wood County Planning Commission with wanting to change the township’s zoning resolution for the PUD before coming to the residents to see if they wanted it in the first place. He also asked if the trustees were planning meetings to discuss PUD within the township.
A PUD provides flexible zoning for a site, potentially combining variable land uses such as housing, recreation, commercial, and industrial within one development. In other words, it assists in mixed-use development.
Prewitt said the people should have a bigger say in the process.
“That's fine if that's what the people of Lake Township wants,” he said. “I don't have a problem with that. They can vote on it, and if that's the majority that's fine, but I think you guys are wrong in going to the Wood County Planning Commission and trying to get this resolution in. I don't know how you're going to bring it in into a vote, but the people should know about this. I've talked to a bunch of people and nobody understands it, and although we have elected you to do our voting for us, we elected you to represent us, and to represent us we need to know what all the people or the people that want to get involved in Lake Township what they want.”
Bowen-Greenwald said they weren’t ready to come to the people.
“What am I supposed to bring you? It’s not done yet. Whatever we do has to go to the planning commission first,” Bowen-Greenwald said. “They put in what they think it should be — yes, no, whatever. We don’t have all those answers. They look through all this and review it and send it back. That’s how this works. Everything goes to the planning commission first.”
Bowen-Greenwald, however, admitted that she personally doesn’t even know what all the issues will be on that. She knows what it is, but she doesn’t know the specific contents.
“Why would you submit an amendment to them when you don’t even know what you’re talking about right now?” Prewitt said.
Lake Township’s proposed amendment to the zoning resolution for the PUD was recently approved by the Wood County Planning Commission. It will now go for approval to the township’s zoning board on Aug. 5, which is open to the public for them to make their opinions heard.
It isn’t clear how well township officials understand the proposed changes, however. Lake Township actually copied and pasted, word-for-word Perrysburg Township’s 21-page PUD language. The headers and footers are even the same, except for replacing Perrysburg with Lake.
As previously mentioned, Bowen-Greenwald said she hasn’t even seen the PUD language.
“I’ll see it when it comes back through, just like the language for the levy,” she said. “It has to go down there, and it has to be approved. Nothing’s been approved as far as language.”
Bowen-Greenwald said there are no rules against her from seeing what is going on.
“I just haven't seen it,” she said. “So that's on me, I guess. I should have asked.”
Richard Welling, a recently retired Lake Township trustee, also spoke about why the PUD language came to be. He said that when he was trustee, there was a developer, Gulfstream Development, looking at 100 acres off Tracy Road.
“We have no language in our zoning resolution to control what they can put in there, so that’s what got this started,” he said. “They asked for planned unit development information into our zoning resolutions. That's what the trustees forwarded to the planning commission because that's the procedure that's outlined in our zoning resolution and by state law. Either we have some control over what this developer wants to do, or it's just anything they want to put in there.”
Flooding issues
Rich Hayward of Isch Road spoke of flooding issues at his residence because of the piping that leads away from his house. He sent a certified letter to the township one week prior to the meeting, and he hadn’t heard anything back.
He said he came to a meeting in 2022, but he was given the “I’ll get back to you type thing,” but nothing ever happened.
“This has been going on for years,” he said. “It floods (during every hard rain). It’s plugging up. The six-inch pipe is not big enough, and I think everybody understands that and everybody knows that. The six-inch pipe plugs up quite often, but we're to the point now where my septic field is 100 underwater, and there's damage done to that. As you go through my driveway, you can see the damage that the water has done. You can tell exactly where the driveway is going and now my detached garage has been underwater time and time again. Today is July 21. The rain was July 6. I still have standing water in my side yard. The road commission did come out, and they pump it out. It goes down, and then it gets clogged, and it comes right back. I would just like for you guys to make it a priority. That’s all I’m asking.”
Bowen-Greenwald said she spoke to Isaac Bailey, the stormwater inspector for the Wood County Engineer’s Office, and his response was that this is the Black Swamp, and that the creeks and the ditches haven’t been dredged in 20 years.
“That’s totally not true,” Hayward said. “The creek all the way up to my area was dredged two to three years ago, and all that did was make it worse.”
Bowen-Greenwald said that the township’s road supervisor, Steve Fry, would get his number, and they can talk after the meeting.
