The proposed Jefferson Hill Townhomes in Cleveland’s Tremont were on a roll but the City Planning Commission urged the developer to get more feedback from the neighborhood before coming back them for approval of their plans. This view looks southerly from the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and the Towpath Trail (Payto). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Commission: get more local input first
A unique townhouse development, one of the first that would be built directly facing the Towpath Trail, was on a fast path toward design approval and a zoning change. But City Planning Commission members decided that that path was a little too fast for it and urged that the developer and its architect go back and get more input from the neighborhood first.
A partnership of YVES Development of Vermilion and Vine Development of Cleveland is proposing to build the Jefferson Hill Townhomes. Planned are 14 market-rate townhouses on mostly vacant land on Jefferson Avenue at West 5th Street in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
The development partnership is led by Garrett Allen, an associate focusing on real estate law at downtown’s Walter Haverfield LLP, and Rahman “Ray” Riaz, trained as a pediatric heart surgeon but with a real estate office in Cleveland’s Gordon Square.
“This is a great opportunity to put residential units near the Towpath to make it more accessible and to take this kind of blighted portion of Tremont and turn it into something that complements the existing character of the neighborhood while adding a new offering that is needed in the market,” Allen told the Planning Commission today.
The developers were seeking schematic approval for their townhomes, which is one step away from final design approval. And they were seeking a rezoning for the size — a conditional use permit to allow townhomes to be built on the site. But commission members were uncomfortable with being asked to approve of both at the same time, and with limited public input thus far. So they postponed action on the two requests and urged them to get more local input first.
While the project received a recommendation, with conditions, from the neighborhood-level Near West Design Review Committee on Aug. 7, Tremont West Development Corp. (TWDC), Ohio City Inc. and other community development corporations urge developers to get public input on their projects via the coUrbanize Web site. Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack also wants project designs to get input from the affected block club.
A proposed site plan, elevation along Jefferson Avenue and samples of how the Jefferson retaining wall could be designed are shown on this slide from a presentation given today at Cleveland’s City Planning Commission (Payto).
“This project came to us a month ago,” said Donna Grigonis, TWDC’s director of economic development and real estate. “That was the first we had heard of it at Tremont West. We were hoping to put it on coUrbanize to gather public comment. But we didn’t realize that this was going to be coming before you for approval so quickly.”
TWDC’s economic development committee received a presentation from the developers last night and urged them to also go to the block club to present their plans and get input. Garrett said they would be willing to but Grigonis expressed concern about doing it retroactively, after the planning commission had potentially acted on it.
City Zoning Administrator Shannan Leonard had similar concerns about the conditional use permit application. She said that if the City Planning Commission approves a conditional use permit, it would effectively approve a development’s proposed site plan — prior to getting final design approval.
The 0.57-acre townhome site consists of five hillside residential lots — four of which are vacant. The fifth is occupied by a house built in 2001 at 2439 W. 5th and whose interior is reportedly in disrepair. It is proposed to be demolished for a driveway to reach nine of the townhomes. The site is south of other Tremont hillside developments.
It and one of the four parcels along the Towpath Trail were purchased earlier this year by affiliates of the development partnership. The other three parcels belong to a trust for the benefit of Charles Foy who also owns property at the southeast corner of Jefferson and West 5th, county records show. The trust reportedly has a purchase agreement or option with the developers.
View of a potential driveway to the proposed Jefferson Hill Townhomes from West 7th Street, created by demolishing a 23-year-old house. This is one of two driveways into the townhomes. The other would come off Jefferson Avenue (Payto).
The conditional use zoning permit would address parcels having a mix of two classifications, said Cleveland’s Senior Assistant City Planner Xavier Bay. One is semi-industrial for the four parcels along the Towpath Trail and the other classification is two-family residential zoning for the single parcel off West 5th. Public involvement must be sought prior to the city approving a conditional use permit.
“This has been a very challenging hillside that we have been working with about four different sellers to bring this to light,” Allen said. “We have pretty intense geotechnical issues that we had to design around which leads to a lot of the design decisions that we’ve had. We’ve incorporated some feedback from (neighborhood-level) design review. Those pertain to the scale of the (Jefferson) retaining wall structure.”
A new, 23-foot-tall retaining wall along the southerly side of Jefferson would replace an existing one that’s in various stages of disrepair. A prior design showed a largely featureless wall would be built here along the sidewalk. The Near West Design Review Committee considered that wall’s design anti-pedestrian and not consistent with the city’s urbanist townhouse conditional use permit.
So Jeff Foster, president at Payto Architects Inc., revised the design by adding two sets of stairwells along the side of the retaining wall to access the sidewalk on Jefferson. And the new retaining wall, built with Redi-Rock precast concrete, would step down every 5 feet and feature planter boxes set on those terraces.
“We’ve taken the approach of dividing the site really into two portions,” Foster said. “One of them (has a driveway that) comes off of Jefferson so we can access five units. The other nine units are accessed off of (West) 5th Street. One of the things that most excites us is how this engages with Jefferson.”
Looking up Jefferson Avenue hill from the Towpath Trail, the Jefferson Hill Townhomes would be built on the left side of the street, across from the Tremont Towpath Town Homes that were finished four years ago. Some city officials suggested the new townhomes be built at sidewalk level and not atop a retaining wall (Google).
But city planners weren’t as excited. Instead, planners pointed to the Tremont Towpath Town Homes built in 2020 across the street on how to do it. That development has a single driveway between the six townhomes facing Jefferson and the four behind them. Garrett and Foster said that development is higher up on the hill and could be accessed entirely from West 5th.
“We attempted to minimize the curb cuts by having one access off of either West 5th or Jefferson,” Garrett said. “Due to the topography, there was no safe way to do that whatsoever.”
“As Garrett mentioned, we have some geotech challenges and that results in a pretty large retaining wall,” Foster said. “As far as we know, these are some of the first units to front on the Towpath. And we’re really excited about how that interaction is.”
He also noted that there is essentially one type of townhouse floor plan although they are offered in two slightly different sizes with the larger units having different amenities. Foster said the units facing the Towpath are the premium units and have more of an outside presence. All of the townhouses have exterior spaces — balconies, porches, decks — on each level.
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