Public Hearing On Owens Sewer: A Change In The Proposed Ordinance

At its meeting Wednesday evening, Village Council will hold a public hearing on an ordinance that would provide sewers to the Owens Corning property. At the request of Owens and at the suggestion of Acting Law Director James Gory, the ordinance, introduced at the July 16 council meeting, has been changed. Presumably at the request of Council or of Acting Law Director James Gory, since similar changes were made in the ordinances providing utilities to the new Township garage, the following two paragraphs were removed:

"WHEREAS, the Village of Granville has an established policy of not providing utility services to any property located outside of the corporate boundaries of the Village, and it hereby restates that policy; and"

"WHEREAS, the Council is committed to not providing utility services outside the Village limits to stimulate or encourage the development of single family housing that could bring additional school age children to the Granville Exempted Village School District, and the proposed improvements to the science and technology complex would be consistent with that commitment; and"

This is a somewhat unusual step since this language was carefully crafted in the past when extending utilities to Kendal and the school. The language was designed to protect the Village from law suits from other entities desiring sewer and water outside of the Village corporate limits.

Click here to view the revised resolutions for providing sewer and water service to the new Township garage. The language concerning not providing utilities outside of the Village also has been removed from these ordinances.

In a memo to Council, Village staff wrote:

"We view this ordinance as a companion piece to the grant application that the Township filed on behalf of Owens Corning for up to $5,000,000 in funding through the Ohio Job Ready Sites program for the development of the Granville Science and Technology Complex on the Owens Corning property. Although the grant application included a letter from the Mayor and the Village Manager stating that the Village would continue to provide water service to the Owens Corning property and would also be willing to provide sanitary sewer services for the proposed Science and Technology park, the actual text in the application suggested that the sanitary sewer services would be provided by Southwest Licking Community Water and Sewer District. The purpose of this ordinance is to formally indicate the Village's willingness to extend sewer to the Owens Corning property for the development of the Science and Technology Complex.

"I have enclosed two copies ofthe draft ordinance for your consideration. The first draft, dated July 16, is the version that was introduced at the last Council meeting. The second, dated August 1, reflects some language changes requested by Owens Coming and/or suggested by the Acting Law Director."

Click here to view the complete staff memo.

Click here to view the revised resolution providing sewers to the Owens property.

Click here to view the original resolution providing sewers to the Owens property.

The public is welcome at the 7:30 pm Council meeting and encouraged to speak during the public hearing.

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See previous stories about the Township - Owens Corning grant: