Poggemeyer's Ethics: Should The Planners Resign?

Analysis: Poggemeyer Design Group is in the midst of a conflict of interest entanglement involving three of its clients: the Village of Granville, Granville Township, and Owens Corning. Poggemeyer is in violation of numerous ethical standards, ranging from conflicts of interest to failure to disclose conflict issues to all stakeholders. The conflicts represent serious violations of the American Planning Association’s “Ethical Principles in Planning” and the “American Institute of Certified Planners Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.” Poggemeyer Design Group is a member of both of these organizations.

Here are the facts:

Poggemeyer, a national planning and design firm, has a joint contract with both the Village of Granville and Granville Township to update our Comprehensive Plan. You can view the new Comprehensive Plan here on Poggemeyer’s website.
 

Owens Corning is the largest land owner in Granville other than Denison University. It owns 547 acres, which it seeks to develop into residential and retail use.
 

Poggemeyer took work as a paid consultant to Owens Corning earlier this year to prepare a State of Ohio Job Ready Sites (JRS) grant request. Poggemeyer should not have accepted this job. You can view Granville Township Fiscal Officer Norm Kennedy’s statement that Owens Corning paid Poggemeyer for the $5 million grant application here in an email response to a request from The Granville Press.
 

The JRS grant request, as filed, was at odds with long-standing Granville planning policy. The grant request asked for $1 million for a two-mile sewer line to be constructed by Pataskala-based Southwest Licking Water and Sewer District to the Owens property. Long-standing Granville policy - as reflected in previous Plans, the 208 plan, etc. - has Granville Village supplying utilities so the community can exercise zoning control over development. (Granville already supplies water to the Owens Corning property and has a sewer line on adjacent property.) Click here to view the part of the grant application that details the costs for Southwest Licking sewers.
 

Poggemeyer failed to inform its existing client, Granville Village, that the grant request called for Southwest Licking as the primary sewer provider. The mayor of Granville signed a letter of support for the grant application unaware that the JRS grant application attempted to shut the Village out of utilities.
 

Donald Rector, the director of the Southwest Licking sewer district, told the state in a letter that his utilities were better for the Owens site because they came with no land use or zoning restrictions. Click here to view Rector’s email.
 

Poggemeyer has made specific changes to the draft Comprehensive Plan that provide things of value to its client, Owens Corning. Poggemeyer reclassified the bulk of the Owens property as “mixed use development” - a new town center in the words of Poggemeyer’s Phil Honsey. Second, it added a recommendation that an overpass be built over the soon-to-be four-lane Highway 161 to connect the Owens property to West Broadway leading into downtown Granville. Click here to view the section of the updated Comprehensive Plan that discuses the Owens property
 

Columbus developer Jack Lucks tried to develop a town center on property adjacent to Owens Corning in the 1990s. It faced near unanimous opposition. Granville Township bought that property using open space and general funds. Opposition to a new town center on the Owens property is likely to be just as strong.
 

Poggemeyer failed to consult important stakeholders - the Village, local residents, nearby property owners, downtown merchants, etc. - on the creation of a new town center. Poggemeyer did a “poster board” session at the high school in 2006 to take comments on all important issues in the Comprehensive Plan. No mention was made of a new town center. Poggemeyer presented a preliminary version of the Plan at a public hearing at the high school. It made no mention of a new town center. (A resident of Columbus Road, near Owens, expressed concern that his area was being targeted for intense development; he was told not to worry.) Poggemeyer’s survey of Granville residents shows no support for a new town center. Indeed, the community has been religiously committed to having a single center - downtown - since our first Comprehensive Plan was written in 1964. Few things are more crucial to Granville’s identity than this concept. It is up to ALL citizens in Granville to decide if we get a new town center and where it is. Poggemeyer improperly reclassified property for a paying client without including the issue in its survey, in its board presentation or its informational public hearing. It is too late in the process to add such a fundamental and controversial change to the Comprehensive Plan. To do so to the benefit of a paying client is even worse and destroys the credibility of our Comprehensive Plan.
 

The proposed overpass serves no client other than Owens. Granville has many projects more valuable than this in need of ODOT funding. For example, four years ago, ODOT closed an entrance to Highway 161 at River Road, cutting off hundreds of township residents from downtown Granville. These residents have repeatedly requested an overpass and even conducted a petition drive. Why does a developer get an overpass for undeveloped raw land when existing neighborhoods don’t get the time of day when they request the same? This is how conflicts taint the planning process. The developer who pays the planner gets the overpass in the Plan.
 

Poggemeyer has been hired by Granville Township for $20,000 to rework its zoning laws. The work will likely include writing zoning laws for a mixed use district that covers only Owens Corning’s property. (The township has no such zoning classification now.) Poggemeyer cannot ethically write zoning laws that affect a paying client. You can view Norm Kennedy’s statement that the Township Trustees have hired Poggemeyer to update the township zoning code here in a letter responding to a public records request by The Granville Press.
 

Poggemeyer is seeking a contract to rework Granville Village zoning laws. The firm should not get this contract. Poggemeyer’s work has been hostile to the interests of the Village. Granville Village did not build an over sized, multimillion dollar sewer system so it could sit idle while the author of its Comprehensive Plan tries to help a developer find alternative utilities to avoid Village zoning and taxes. Who’s side is Poggemeyer on anyway?

Poggemeyer got itself mixed up in a decades-old development battle. It should have remained neutral. Instead, it sided with pro-development Township Trustee Bill Habig and a large developer, Owens Corning. It went hostile on the Village, the school system and the citizenry.

Habig is a retired planner turned real estate consultant. He was appointed trustee in October 2007 after a previous Trustee, Jim Havens, resigned following an ethics allegation. Habig had lived in Granville less than two years before his appointment, owns no property here, has never had children in school here and has no political base - outside of developers.

Owens Corning is a beloved local employer. But in its role as a developer, it should be treated the same as all developers - welcomed if it follows Granville rules, but opposed if it does not. Like many developers, Owens Corning doesn’t want to follow the rules that have made Granville different than the rest of central Ohio. Like other developers, it has turned to a local politician who’s promised he can deliver what Granville has opposed for decades. Poggemeyer is enabling that by working to give our largest land owner a new town center and access to utilities that have no zoning rules attached. Poggemeyer has sided with an un-elected trustee and a developer who are trying to cash in on Granville’s affluence and school system.

It is irrelevant whether Poggemeyer believes it is good public policy to have a new town center, an overpass to Owens’ property and a JRS grant for Southwest Licking sewers. The problem is Poggemeyer has a conflict of interest that pits stakeholder against stakeholder.

Poggemeyer cannot represent both the township’s largest land owner and the township on zoning issues.

Poggemeyer cannot represent both a large developer seeking Southwest Licking sewers and Granville Village, which wants to supply sewer.

Poggemeyer cannot work both on Granville planning issues and for Owens at the expense of other property owners. The Kendal retirement community, next to Owens, is scheduled to be reimbursed $225,000 for sewer line expenses if Owens connects to the Granville Village sewer system. If Owens connects to Southwest Licking , Kendal, a non-profit that provides senior housing and assisted living, gets nothing. Does Kendal have to hire Poggemeyer so it doesn’t lose a $225,000 sewer construction cost reimbursement?

Poggemeyer should examine the American Planning Association’s “Ethical Principles in Planning” and the “American Institute of Certified Planners Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.” For example, AICP’s ethics standard A;2(c) states:

“We shall avoid a conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict of interest in accepting assignments from clients or employers.”

It does not matter if a Granville official recommended that Poggemeyer help Owens on the JRS grant. A conflict is a conflict. The genesis of the conflict does not cleanse the conflict. Poggemeyer has the burden of avoiding conflicts. It has not done so.

The proper remedy for the conflict is for Poggemeyer to resign both from Granville’s planning process and as an Owens Corning consultant. Because favors, however well-intentioned, have already been implanted into the Comprehensive Plan, Poggemyer cannot free itself of its conflict problem by resigning from the Granville planning process or reimbursing Owens.

In July of this year, The Granville Press sent three emails to various people at Poggemeyer Design Group pointing out the conflict of interest and asking for comment. There were no responses.

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See previous stories about Poggemeyer, Owens, the Township and the Village: