Big Bird visited the Wellington Fire Department on Tuesday to safely light and blow out candles on his 40th birthday cake while the Fire Department held a household fire safety video and tour of the station for youngsters.

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ELYRIA — Mayor Bill Grace will ask City Council on Monday to place a moratorium on the design review process until a more streamlined system can be rolled out after the first of the year.

Businesses and contractors flooded City Hall in October to voice their concerns about the city process they call costly, subjective and unequally enforced. In response, Grace said the Community Development and Building departments have started the daunting task of revamping the entire process.

Grace

“The end result should be something similar to what we have now, but we are trying to put a more straightforward and streamlined process in place,” he said. “It will still serve as an important part of the building process.”

A City Council Community Development Committee meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss the design review process has been canceled and will be rescheduled at a later time. Committee Chairman and Councilman Tom Callahan, D-at large, said he decided to postpone the meeting to give the administration time to work.

“But if progress is still being made, that is excellent,” Callahan said. “That was the whole point of bringing it to Council in the first place. I don’t look at this as a cancellation. It is just a postponement.”

The Design Review Committee, currently a team of citizen volunteers that meets twice a month to review new building plans to ensure designs are right for the city and cohesive to the surroundings, was developed by Grace because of what he deemed haphazard construction that created blight around the city.

The goal was to reshape the look of the community by promoting safe, functional and attractive development while unifying the aesthetic properties of buildings, making sure they blend into their surroundings, he said.

Nearly every building project in the city ends up before the Design Review Committee, however, and some have questioned whether that is good — or necessary.

Grace on Tuesday admitted the process could use some tweaking.

“The first place builders look is the zoning code to find the expectations of the community,” he said. “Design review is the second place. But there are some things that are supported by the zoning code that are not shared by design review. That’s why we want to put things in one place as best we can.”

Grace is facing a possible recall election. The group Stand Up Elyria has submitted petitions to the Lorain County Board of Elections and is awaiting word on whether there are enough valid signatures to go forward. That determination is expected to be completed by next week.

If there are enough valid signatures, Grace would be given five days to resign — which he has said he won’t do — or the city would have to schedule a special election, where voters will determine whether the two-term Democratic mayor should remain in office.

The October meeting, attended by many in the construction community, shed more light on the process as several people who went through the process critiqued it for City Council members.

“We all learned that there are points in the process that are very valuable, but obviously there were some stumbling issues with some businesses,” Callahan said.

Well-known businessman and former Grace confidant Dan Reaser led the charge and previously had called the process irrelevant and slow.

Other critics at the meeting suggested the city’s Building Department make more decisions with design review by using the zoning code as a road map. Grace said that with his planned changes to the process, that will be the case.

“The plan is to move things like signs, lighting and other things into zoning code, which will make it more straightforward and easy for people to understand what is expected of them,” he said.

By going into the zoning code, things that were once guidelines will become part of the code and enforceable by the Building Department.

In addition, red brick — often cited as the illustration for all that is wrong with the design review process — will no longer be recommended as the city’s top choice for a building, Grace said.

“Red brick has been portrayed as the requirement, but it is not. Many times, requests other than red are made and they are approved,” he said. “To clear up the misconception, the new guidelines will remove red brick as a building material recommendation.”

This is not the first time a moratorium on design review has been called for by a city leader.

After listening to debates about why the now-defunct Krazy Mac’s should not have an opaque sign, why FirstMerit Bank should have one and whether the owner of Heavy Duty Graphics, a local sign company that has since gone out of business, was in violation of design review guidelines for an 8-month-old sign on his building, Councilman Kevin Brubaker, D-at large, called for an assessment of the process.

But after some discussion, he let the request die.

Grace said the final touches on the revamp should be in place by early 2010.

Largely it will be an undertaking of the Community Development and Building departments. But more so, Grace said he would like to get the business community involved in the process in the meantime.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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ELYRIA — The developers of Spring Valley Golf and Athletic Club will not be building an assisted living facility in the front of the property anytime soon after City Council’s Community Development Committee shot down a proposal to rezone more than eight acres of land.

Corna

With the failed rezoning request came a request for a conditional use permit that would have allowed the facility to be built, but committee members likewise voted against the request of Bob Corna, who is redeveloping Spring Valley.

Councilman Forrest Bullocks, D-2nd Ward, was the only committee member to vote in favor of rezoning. While he said he also shared many of the same concerns of the other Council members, he said Council would still have a lot of opportunity to weigh-in on various phases of the project before construction started.

The other members of the committee are Councilman Tom Callahan, D-at large; Councilman Kevin Brubaker, D-at large; Councilman Kevin Krischer, I-5th Ward and Councilwoman Donna Mitchell, D-6th Ward.

Council members voted to deny the rezoning until Corna can deal with several violations he has received from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Councilman Larry Tanner, D-1st Ward, brought the problems — grading, storm drains and the stockpiling of building material near the Black River — to Council’s attention, although he is not on the committee. He encouraged committee members to vote against rezoning.

“It’s fine to give us a line of stuff of how this is good for Elyria, but you run into problems and you don’t fix them,” he said.
However, Corna, who asked Council members to accept his proposal, said there was a misunderstanding with the Ohio EPA, and he vowed to correct the problem.

“There is almost this feeling that we have done something wrong with the property,” he said. “But every day I am fighting to keep this property beautiful and green.”

Corna said that while he pledges to keep a golf course at Spring Valley, “the golf business alone can not sustain Spring Valley forever. It will be the development that makes it happen.”

Corna first appeared before Council in 2008 with a proposal to turn the golf course and surrounding property into a $50 million housing development. Construction was supposed to start this spring on 96 single-family and duplex cluster homes, but Corna has not broken ground and has pumped close to $800,000 into the golf course and clubhouse.

The plan included assisted living homes, but in a later phase. On Monday, Corna said he decided to come back to Council with a different plan because the residential building market had no room for a new home development. However, he did a market study that said an assisted living facility could make it in this tough economy.

But first he needs to get the rezoning and conditional use permit in place to help secure funding. “I really need the project to move forward … and I need your help,” he said.

Council members told Corna he has a lot to do before he will get their help. Not only does the Ohio EPA have concerns, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has to sign off on the plan because portions of Spring Valley are in the flood plain.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

ELYRIA — The passing of time is not lost on Julius Pondy.

“I’ve had a lot of buddies die here,” the Elyria man said as he looked around the large room of 100-plus veterans honored Monday in a ceremony at Wesleyan Village.

Pondy, whose looks, spry manner and razor-sharp wartime memories belie his 88 years, talked about the ever-smaller number of World War II veterans he sees.

“There were 123 of us in my outfit. Now there are 23,” he said.

Pondy was among about 130 veterans, most from World War II and the Korean War, who received pins commemorating their military service Monday.

The pins were presented by New Life Hospice in Elyria and Hospice Veterans Partnership of Ohio. The organizations work together to improve veterans’ access to benefits and end-of-life hospice care they are entitled to — but often unaware of.

“Most know they get Medicare, but they can also receive substantial veterans benefits,” according to Joan Hanson, director of New Life Hospice.

The ceremony included a color guard from Elyria VFW Post 1079 and the playing of taps.

Most of the veterans on hand reside at Wesleyan Village or its affiliated Village Meadows near Lorain County Community College.

Others take part in daily activities and programs, according to Wesleyan Village’s Dawn Prokop.

Many of the veterans, some wearing medals, service ribbons and caps denoting their branch of the military, stood and saluted during the playing of the National Anthem, and at the end of the ceremony to sing “God Bless America.”

Most were clearly touched by the pins. Many stood but some sat, unable to rise easily.

Nearly all smiled and thanked those who pinned the Ohio-shaped pins to their shirts or jackets.

Pondy, who was among a number of veterans who were recognized, wore a blue and yellow Navy-themed sweatshirt and cap festooned with several medals including a Distinguished Flying Cross.

A member of a three-man crew aboard one of the Navy’s famed TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, Pondy manned a 50-caliber machine gun located in a bubble turret mounted below the plane’s fuselage.

“I took off facing backwards and landed facing backwards,” he said.

A veteran of 53 missions in the TBF Avenger, Pondy is still on a mission, this time helping fellow WWII vets.

For the past three years, Pondy has helped other veterans make the trip to the nation’s capital to see the five-year-old National World War II Memorial.

“They said I should go since I’m in better shape than most. I walked nine holes this morning and shot a 37,” he said.

“I pushed this old guy around Washington last spring,” Pondy said, interrupting himself as fellow veteran Robert Fawcett smiled and nodded as he moved past in a wheelchair.

Health questions?

Veterans with questions about benefits for hospice care may call New Life Hospice at (440) 934-1458 or (800) 770-5767.

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.