Community Discusses City Policies, Future Comprehensive Development Plans

Beth Weiss

A public meeting was held Thursday, Feb. 16 in the Prospect Building for Oberlin community members to provide feedback on key issues affecting the town. This was in continuation of the survey conducted by KM Date Community Planning, OHM Advisors, and Downtown Strategies, Inc. for the Oberlin Comprehensive Plan. The comprehensive plan will serve as a guide for Oberlin City Council’s policy decisions for the next five to ten years.

The current comprehensive plan was created in 2005 with help from Northstar Planning and Design and was reviewed and updated by City Council in 2011.

“A lot has changed economically since 2005,” Director of Planning and Development Carrie Porter said. “We’ve been through a major recession, a pandemic, that has changed a lot of the ways people develop and use property.”

The 2005 plan, which was the most recent comprehensive plan until now, defined its approach toward Oberlin development in contrast to a number of plans created for Oberlin in earlier years.

The first plan outlined was 1970’s Plan for Oberlin, which projected that Oberlin would have a population of 13,299 by 1985. The plan focused on outward growth, proposing suburban-style zoning and a number of commercial spaces on the edge of town. To this day, Oberlin’s population has not surpassed 9,000 residents.

In opposition to the suburban sprawl mentality of the 1970 plan, the 2005 plan recommended “infill” as a guideline, which was proposed to encourage both the development of existing lots within highly populated areas of Oberlin and the construction of new developments inside City limits.

“The intent of both types of infill is to make full, efficient use of the infrastructure in which the community has already invested (streets, sidewalks, utilities),” the 2005 plan reads. “Intensification of the core areas also means that more people will be within walking distance of local commercial areas, schools, parks, and other community amenities.”

The 2005 plan called for Oberlin to focus on developing density, but also acknowledged pressures from New Russia Township and Pittsfield Township to develop the “southern corridor,” a strip of land situated along State Route 58 from Hamilton Street to U.S. Route 20, which sat partially within City limits and partially in New Russia Township. It was projected in 2005 that the intersection between Route 58 and U.S. Route 20 would attract large-scale retail that would be positioned to serve Oberlin and the regional area south of Oberlin. The corridor currently houses Walmart and the forthcoming Oberlin Crossing

For the upcoming comprehensive plan, KM Date Community Planning, OHM Advisors, and Downtown Strategies, Inc. conducted a survey to identify the core issues facing the Oberlin community. They found that Oberlinians were concerned about affordable housing, job opportunities, public transportation, and the relationship between the City and the College. The 555 respondents represented a broad range of people invested in Oberlin, but in comparison to the overall Oberlin population, the respondent pool was on average older and disproportionately white.

“There was an extra attempt made here to reach out to the people of color, the communities, and that did help,” Principal of KM Date Community Planning Kirby Date said. “We kept the survey open longer in order to accomplish a little better balance, and we did improve the balance.”

The results of the survey were presented at the open house, and the 33 attendees were encouraged to add comments to the responses. 53 percent of the survey respondents expressed that single-family homes for sale would benefit their future housing needs, while attendees at the open house emphasized interest in multi-family housing.

See City, page 4