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It was standing room only in the Deerfield Twp. trustee meeting room Tuesday night, July 8, as more than 50 people came to urge trustees not to approve a residential transitional zoning amendment.

Those residents are going to have to wait to find out if they were persuasive or not. Trustees ultimately tabled the text and map amendments until their meeting Tuesday, July 15.

Township Administrator Dan Evers said Wednesday, July 9, that some of the trustees indicated they might want to tweak the amendments, "based on what they heard from residents last night and what they have heard throughout the process."

The zoning commission, after several meetings and numerous changes to the amendments, voted against the changes on June 9. The trustees, if they choose to approve the new zoning, must vote unanimously to overturn the zoning commission.

The changes allow for higher density development, multi-use developments with up to six units per building, smaller lot sizes and more green space.

George Pitstick, a resident who has closely followed and participated in the proceedings and is a former zoning official, cautioned trustees that these changes will effect the entire township, not just those within the district north of Fields-Ertel Road and west of Wilkens Boulevard.

Adequate sewer capacity, street infrastructure and a detrimental effect on property values for single-family homeowners are in jeopardy, he said.

"This is a quality of life issue for Deerfield Twp.," he said.

Each resident received a round of applause when they voiced their opinions.

Tom Erbeck, who some said prompted this whole exercise with his development plans, did not. He told the group that the proposed changes, if enacted, would not make development easy for him.

Over a year ago he proposed a multi-use development on his 75-acre site north of Fields-Ertel Road, just before the township imposed a building moratorium on the entire Fields-Ertel corridor. He withdrew his plans when he realized he wasn't going to get the required zoning change.

He denied some allegations thrown from the crowd that the township is kowtowing to him.

"You people are acting like we had something worked out with these three, I assure we didn't," he said. "If we did, it (the proposed map) wouldn't look anything like what's there. This is going to be very difficult for us to develop."

In response to the frequently asked question, "Why do anything, why not leave the planned unit development process in place?", Evers said later that the township wants to be proactive rather than reactive.

"This was designed to create opportunities for higher end development and to do it proactively," he said. "The PUD process is a reactive process, that is driven by the developer. We believe this plan creates a clear, defensible, empirical standard."

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.