Title
Notice/Advertisement Title: Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Hearing
Contact Name: Chelsea Golterman
Contact Telephone Number: 614-735-0965
Contact Email Address: CLGolterman@columbus.gov
Body
Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Hearing
Date: April 30, 2025
Time: 3:30 P.M.
Location: Columbus City Hall, Council Chambers, 90 W. Broad St., Columbus, OH 43215
Subject: Proposed code changes regarding energy reselling and pollinator gardens
Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Christopher L. Wyche, Councilmember Otto Beatty
Summary of Minutes:
CALL TO ORDER
Call to Order: 3:32 PM
Present: Councilmember Christopher L. Wyche, Councilmember Otto Beatty, Chelsea Golterman, Emiliana Morales, Joseline Martinez-Cortez, Mark Carter, Nancy Sully, Niyah Walters Grant Ames, Teresa Ringenbach, Dimitri Hatzifotinos, Steve Papineau, Benji Jackson, Karima Samadi, Tanita White, Kellen Calinger-Yoak, Ken Kiesel, Tony Celebrezze, Kyle Kirker, Jenny Pope, Craig Toothman, Laura Fay, Dr. LonDale Towns, Alexis Nelson, Gregory Parker, Ryan Foshee, 67 other community members - names unknown.
INTRODUCTION
Opening Remarks:
[Chair Wyche] Good afternoon everyone! Thank you for joining us today to discuss pollinator gardens and utility reselling. I want to highlight that this is the beginning of the legislative process and the first of multiple hearing on these topics. My hope is that public input will help us get the best policy in place for both proposals. We will start by hearing testimony on utility reselling and then we will move into our discussion on pollinator gardens.
PRESENTATION - UTILITY RESELLING
[Chair Wyche] It has been reported that the reselling of utilities has inflated residential utility bills. At a time when inflation is at an all time high and the cost of every aspect of living is expected to continue to rise, we as elected officials have to do everything in our power to make sure residents of all income levels can thrive in our city.
The proposed ordinance we are reviewing today is a reintroduction from former Councilmember Stinziano in 2017. Since then, more of our residents are living in multifamily units and we are also incentivizing more density, making the discussion we are having today even more important. Banning submetering would not only help with cost, it would also give our residents access to consumer protections, billing transparency, and a way to hold providers accountable. However, I understand that utility reselling provides a service to landlords and that there may be a middle ground that exists where these companies can continue to operate while we also protect our residents. I am grateful to the individuals that have come to this meeting to help us explore what that middle ground may be. It is my hope that the testimony we receive through the committee process will inform the final language that is brought before the full council for a vote.
With that, I would like to start the hearing by calling Grant Ames with the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging to the podium.
[Grant Ames] I'm the Government and Strategic Initiatives Manager with the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging. COAAA serves roughly 11,000 residents across the eight central Ohio counties and provide home and community based services to help individuals that qualify for Medicaid and Medicare programs to stay independent in their homes.Our case managers, who are licensed nurses and social workers, and conducted over almost 47,000 home visits last year to those individuals. COAAA is a lifeline to them in being able to stay independent, socially engaged, and healthy as they remain in community.
Thank for proposing this important legislation tonight. COAAA is seeing housing costs become a major issue in the availability of an access to staying in someone's home. Um utilities are one of the main concerns when we're talking to folks about what that looks like. Over 27% of Columbus residents over the age of 60 are renting their homes and of those folks over 64% of them are housing cost burdened. We know that the average social security award um that folks are receiving in the community uh that are over 60 is about $940 a month. People are often they're having to make decisions between paying for their rent, utilities, visiting family, being able to afford healthy, nutritious food, and making health care decisions, whether that's the medications that they're purchasing, um, trips to the doctor, things like that. So, we really think that this is valuable legislation, to make sure that seniors who are renting have access to programs and supports to make utilities more affordable for them and increase transparency with utility bills.
We also feel I also want to make a plug in regards to the pollinator garden legislation. We work very we work closely with the city attorney's office in regards to abatement cases. For older adults that may have difficulty with maintaining their exterior of their home, we really feel like another option for those homeowners um would be one that they would welcome. Helping them to maintain the outside of their home while we have volunteer programs that certainly provide that support. This additional option we feel like would be welcomed by those folks and would certainly be something that we would be supportive of. With that I'm happy to answer any questions.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you Grant. I do not have any questions, I would like to acknowledge my colleague Councilmember Beatty. Councilmember Beatty, do you have any opening remarks or questions?
[CM Beatty] No not right now
[Chair Wyche] Thank you Councilmember. Next I would like to invite Niyah Walters from Columbus City Council’s Legislative Resource to discuss why this submetering ordinance is important and what it does.
[Niyah Walters] Thank you, I would like to provide a brief overview of what is being proposed and what it means. I just want to start off by setting the floor um so folks that are not super familiar with this topic and have an understanding of what this means and what it is. Submetering is the installation of metering devices with the ability to measure utility usage after the primary utility meter or master meter offering the ability to monitor this usage for individual tenants, departments, pieces of equipment or other loads individually to account for their actual utility usage.
Utility reselling is the practice of third party purchasing of electricity, water, gas, etc. from regulated public utilities and reselling them to an individual consumer. Typically to the third party also administers the billing to the consumer.
Submetering, billing administration and ratio utility billing systems which allocates um the property's actual utility bill to the residents based on the occupant factor, square footage factor or a combination of both.
How can profit be earned in these businesses? It's usually through the equipment sales and installation um the fees and the rate arbitrage. Value of this to property owners the administration and billing is taken over by a third party and property owners don't have to have the administrative overhead.
Currently, Ohio has some regulations in place to limit the ability um for submetering companies to profit from the marking up of the cost of utilities. A 2017 ruling um stated that submetering companies can charge no more than what a regulated utility could charge with limited exceptions.
In 2013, the Dispatch conducted an investigation that details the stories of consumers that were charged between 5 to 40% higher than the average bill from a regulated utility. In 2015, there was a complaint filed with the PUCO against a submetering company on the basis that the company should be regulated by the PUCO as a public utility. In 2016, the PUCO expanded its uh view of what resellers would be treated like as a regulated utilities. However, the Ohio Consumers Council, Ohio Poverty Law Center, as well as some of representatives from the submetering industry have encouraged further clarification on what that regulation looks like.
This is important to the Councilmember's office is specifically to what COAAA shared about protecting our most critically important discount programs for our most vulnerable residents which includes seniors and low-income individuals. Currently the city's low-income discount program is for multi-unit prop properties that are based on a master meter. Meaning that they are not accessible to those that are currently being submetered. So they wouldn't qualify. Additionally, entities that are not regulated do not have the same obligations for consumer protections, transparency, or an accountability mechanism to be held accountable by um the consumer currently. And so that is why this is such an important issue.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for providing the details. I appreciate the clarity. Councilmember Beatty do you have any questions? Next, I would like to invite Teresa Ringenbach
[Teresa Ringenbach] I'm with Nationwide Energy Partners and we are a 25-year-old company who's been offering submetering services in Columbus that entire time. I'm not going to read through everything I provided. I did provide to the Councilmembers a benefits pamphlet and everything else that we're doing. But I do want to address a couple of things.
First is in 2023 the PUCO has most recently issued another order that says that all of the utilities must have a submetering tariff. That tariff also puts in place the bill cap language that is in Senate Bill 108 and House Bill 173. That tariff also requires that any landlord who submeters in the state in a public utility area must also have certain disclosures including what I want to reference next which is there are low-income programs that are available. HEAP is available as long as you have a utility bill, even if it's a separate submetered utility bill. So, HEAP is not available if you are master metered and it's just embedded in your rent and you can't see it. But it is available when you're separately metered and separately build.
Our company does have an entire call center that helps people get in touch with community action agencies, not only for HEAP, but also for other programs that are available. And NEP specifically has other low-income programs that we offer.
PIP however is not. That's only if you are with the regulated public utility. So even the city of Columbus residents cannot access PIP. That is actually by a regulation at the state level which we have actively and vocally said should be changed.
I also want to point out that there's a few other things that are provided when you have a separate submetered bill and what we do up to the cap. So NEP offers properties that are NEP clients, what's called apartment facts, meaning before you sign your lease, you can actually see the usage month by month with an estimated cost for the actual unit that you are going to move into.
So I look forward to more conversations. I appreciate you saying this is the first of many and I hope that we can be an educational resource and just you know as a good business member of the city of Columbus participate in these conversations. Yeah, thank you for being here and thank you for your commitment to kind of engaging in this work. I I feel like sometimes people instantly put up their guard and say we're going to fight to finale against anything you would out ever do. The reality is it seems like there are some in the industry who are like, "Hey, we would love fully established rules. We just need to know what they are and be consistent." So, and our concern is we don't want it to conflict with what we're already complying with from the state level.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for your commitment to engage.
[Ms. Ringenbach] We do not want it to conflict with what we are already complying with at the state level.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for being here, Councilmember Beatty do you have any questions?
[CM Beatty] No
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for being here. Next I would like to call up Dimitri Hatzfotinos.
[Dimitri Hatzifotinos] I just want to say thank you to Teresa for saying all those things way better than I possibly could have because I wanted there to be some kind of mathematical equation behind what I'm going to say in terms of how the regulatory structure for some metering and reselling works because I'm here really to talk more about the legislation that you've proposed and the Apartment Association is a member organization which is comprised of around 250,000 residential rental units around Ohio. And I want to give a big shout out to the hundred or so people that are behind me here that are all multifamily managers in this industry. And the reason they're all here is because the Apartment Association is concerned with this legislation and what it potentially means as a practical cost for the human beings who are here today who are actually in the trenches managing multifamily. So I'm going to talk about four different things. I'm going to start with two things that I think are a little bit negative and then as we move on I'll get positive and talk about how maybe we can collaborate um as an apartment association with the city to try to find some solutions. So the first and most important thing I have to say today is that criminalizing a business practice from the multifamily industry is something that this apartment association can never support. The reason the management teams are here today is because they're the people that would actually be criminalized.
So, for example, you have a water bill from the city of Columbus that's build quarterly. You hire a company to submeter that water bill. That water bill then, you know, gets given to all of your tenants. I happen to live in a condo in the city of Columbus, and here is a Guardian water and power water bill. The water bill has the usage right on it. It doesn't charge anything more than the water bill plus the fee that the city would charge the master meter, but it charges it specifically to the resident, which is me in this case. If that bill is higher or lower because of a mistake, if ratio utility billing is used as opposed to submetering or if it's a flat rate water fee according to your legislation and the water fluctuates and demand goes down, your legislation actually criminalizes a higher bill.
So in commercial settings in multifamily or in the real estate industry you'll see a true up at the end of the year a lot of times in commercial settings because we don't exactly know what our bill is going to be. We bill it every month but then we get build in a rears every three months. So one of the things that happens in your particular legislation is we give you a bill in month one. Columbus gives us a bill in month three. That bill has fluctuated by a dollar to the resident's favor and you've made that a crime. So that incentivizes the lord to take away the water bill or the electric bill or the gas bill and to put it in the rent.
At that point, we've now done something legislatively that is negative for everyone which which is we have disincentivized conservation.
So the second big point that I want to make today is that we want to be partners in conservation. And while solar power is amazing and some of the things that the city has incentivized with new builds is amazing, the people behind me right now are in existing buildings. Those buildings may be doubles. They may be 13 units. They may be 150 units in 15 different buildings. One thing that a lot of those units have in common is that they have one water pipe that goes into all of those units. So if I have one water pipe that goes into all of the units and I don't submeter and I have to pay for the cost of the infrastructure of the submeter, I have to pay for somebody to administer the submetering. Then that master meter gets pushed out to the tenants in whatever way it does. So that conservation piece isn't met by your legislation because you're incentivizing a landlord to not bill separately for utilities and to add it in the rent.
I think that policy decision will actually lead to less conservation, more demand, and ultimately a bad product. We actually want to see more submeters so that we can bring the demand down as much as possible because at the state level a landlord has to pay for their water on their tax bill regardless of whether the tenant pays the landlord back or not.
And then companies like Guardian Water and Power, which bills my particular water bill at my house, um charges a small fee of $5 to administer that because they're experts at the administration. If the landlord has to administer their own submeters, that cost just goes up because landlords don't do that for a living. In addition to the conservation, I want to bring up to a lesser degree that there are already regulations for all of this. Teresa did a much better job than me about talking about the 167 page decision of the PUCO in 2003. A couple things I will bring up just to hit on that a little bit better is it requires disclosure of the measurement of utilities. To me, and I'll talk later about this, that is the most important thing we can all focus on. If a resident who is rent burdened is out there and they don't know how much they're using or how much they're paying, that is the point of frustration in the process. In addition to that, if they don't have an ability to come back to the landlord and say, "Well, I think I paid too much because that's a problem." So disclosure is a big piece of that PUCO decision.
In addition to that, the tariff requires that the rate of utilities is passed through dollar with the same measured fee that a Colombia Gas or the city of Columbus would charge. So no one is trying to charge more than the utility, but there are fees charged for the administration which public utilities charge. Your legislation criminalizes charging those fees that are necessary for the operation of these third party groups that submeter. So that is a problem that the industry sees.
In addition to that, one of the things that the opinion goes through with respect to landlords is the PUCO is very concerned that landlords would be shutting off utilities of residents as a method of self-help. You didn't pay your water bill. It's master metered. I can just shut you off because I'm going to tell whoever the third party biller is to shut it off. I wanted to make a point today to say that the landlord tenant act protects tenants against self-help. And one of the methods of self-help that landlords are required already through the state regulatory framework to hold on to is you can't shut off utilities for non-payment of rent. So you have to go through the eviction process within the eviction process.
We still have impact and some of the federal ERA dollars that are out there administered through the city's department of development. Give a shout out to Kim Stands. They've done a great job administering that money. Utilities can be included in that money. So, if utilities aren't being paid because somebody can't pay, they go to eviction court or they don't. There are there's still city dollars out there that are paying for those utilities now. And as long as we can disclose what they are and measure them, the bill goes to the impact provider of the city of Columbus Department of Development. And then the money gets paid.
So, we still have that piece. You can't just shut it off. In addition to that, and this becomes now a more legal issue. A few years ago, the apartment association went to the state and asked that 532119 be passed, which basically says where a landlord already has an active contract with a tenant, a lease, whatever municipal legislation gets passed cannot interfere with an active contract. So, all of the people behind you are very nervous, which is why they're all here, because they have a pattern in practice of using a lease that has a utility addendum that says this is submetered or this is ratio utility build or this is your water bill or whatever it says.
And if this legislation would get passed as written, that could potentially criminalize an active executive contract between the players in the game. If your lease is over in January of 2026, the next seven months are criminal even though we have a past practice of engaging in this lease for however long. So that is already regulated at the state level. And in addition, 532113 indicates that if a tenant has a problem with something that is unconscionable in a lease, they have a remedy. they can go to court, put their rent in escrow, and have one of the magistrates in municipal court here in Franklin County tell the landlord, hey, that water bill is too expensive. It's unconscionable. I'm tossing it. And they have the power state from the state perspective to do that.
So, in addition to the disclosure, which is one of the pieces of my fourth prong, which is education, I think that so you have a disclosure that's required. If the city wants to require that, that's fine. The state requires that already through the PUCO, but we really need to educate landlords and tenants on the benefits of submetering for conservation, being able to take what we consider a bad apple and figure out a way to make what they're doing in terms of their billing practices unconscionable through the judicial process because that already exists. The city through its housing for all legislation already passed legislation in December that is going to put more money in the hands of uh third parties like legal aid to help expand the legal resources, the bucket of legal tools here in Columbus to help people that might have that burden. So, we need to outreach from the Columbus Apartment Association, from legal aid, from city council, from development, from the city attorney's office collectively to try to get the word out, hey, if the landlord isn't following these rules, this recipe for disclosure and billing practices, you have a legal remedy.
In conclusion is different types of properties in Columbus and different age-old properties have different needs with respect to billing based on the way the pipes were built. So, whatever we strategize legislatively, what we don't want to do is prohibit practices that are bringing down the usage because that will cause inflation. If you push all of the utilities into the rent, you will raise the rent. And the landlords aren't going to raise the rent 80% of what their utility bill could be. They're going to raise it 120% because they don't know what it's going to be. That's all I have for today.
[Chair Wyche] Any questions? Uh not not a question, just a couple comments. So one, I agree like the education piece on how we do conservation is real. I think any home, anyone who lives in a home or is in an apartment, like that is something that we need to educate residents on because we could all be doing our part to reduce our utility usage and the bills that we all end up paying. So, I appreciate you
[Mr. Hatzifotinos] We can provide 6-7 companies that do the billing and providing the meter disclosure.
[Chair Wyche] What does this look like in practice. What is the stick and what is the force to have people comply.
[Chair Wyche] Next, we have Steve Papineau.
[Steve Papineau, Property Owner] One example that has not been covered. Some units have master meters, some units have their own water meter. Units with their own water meter will be billed by the city of Columbus every 3 months, not every month. Submetering allows people to regulate their budget and be billed monthly.
[Chair Wyche] I appreciate you being here. The department is currently looking into monthly water billing. Thank you.
[Mr. Papineau] Thank you
[Chair Wyche] Next, We have Benji Jackson from Star High Management.
[Benji Jackson] I come before you on behalf of housing providers and property owners uh, throughout the city of Columbus who are committed to delivering quality, affordable housing to thousands of residents. I have the absolute joy of overseeing over 2900 units uh throughout the US with uh 1,26 of those units being here in Columbus. And so we of course stand in strong opposition to the proposed language. While we share this city's commitment to fair and affordable utility access, this legislation, as currently written, as currently written, um creates broad sweeping restrictions that will have unintended consequences to both property owners and residents that we serve.
First the ordinance penalizes uh the housing providers who use uh established and lawful submetering practices to promote conservation allocate cost fairly and ensure residents pay for only what they use. Submetering encourages responsible usage and empowers residents uh to control their consumption as NEP stated earlier. Eliminating these tools not only remove transparency, but it increases overall housing costs that would otherwise be distributed more uh equitably.
Second, the claims that residents are being charged more than utility providers would build them directly does not reflect the operational uh realities of multifamily housing. When utilities are bundled into rent, residents lose the ability to see and manage their usage. With utility reselling and submetering, we provide a clear breakdown and the costs in many cases are less than the standard rates, especially when purchasing or competitive supply contracts are leveraged.
Third, the ordinance disregards the infrastructure administrative costs and compliance um requirements property owners must manage. Mandating uh exact parity with utility company pricing without acknowledging these operational realities sets an unfair and unworkable standard. It also contradicts the city's goal of promoting energy efficiency and conservation through accountability and data-driven uh consumption tracking.
Finally, the proposal criminal uh the proposal's criminal penalties for what are standard industry practices is deeply concerning uh precedents. We believe that this will have a chilling effect on investments in new housing, reducing housing affordability in the long term, and adding unnecessary burdens to both providers and tenants. instead of the blanket uh prohibition, we urge the committee to encourage um you know us to be at the table, to sit there and not be on the menu uh because at the end of the day, we know what's happening and what's going on. Uh we welcome the regulations that enhance disclosure, promotes fairness, and prevents abuse, but chapter 11.172 as written overreaches and risk harming the very residents that we intend to protect.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to testify? Seeing none. We will move to the next on to the Pollinator Garden Code Change Language.
PRESENTATION - POLLINATOR GARDENS
[Chair Wyche] This initiative to define pollinator gardens in city code will help residents who are trying to do their part for our pollinators stay out of court. It will also help alleviate the burden on our court system. Many of our pollinators are on our endangered species lists, most people know about our shrinking bee population but there are many beneficial pollinators that are also in danger of extinction.
Pollinator gardens provide food and shelter for many of our pollinators, increasing their chance for survival. While some people do not like the look of pollinator gardens, our very own survival is tied with that of our pollinators. Additionally, they help with stormwater management, reduce the heat island effect, and provide various ecosystem services including beautification and biodiversity. These are just a few reasons why I am excited to bring this code change forward for discussion.
To kick off this part of the hearing, I would like to call Karima Samadi, policy analyst with Columbus Public Health to the podium.
[Karima Samadi] Good afternoon Chair Wyche, and Council Member Beatty, Council Staff. My name is Karima Samadi, and I'm a policy analyst with a focus in food systems at Columbus Public Health. I'm joined here by our policy director, Tanita White. Uh, thank you for allowing us to speak tonight about pollinator gardens and their importance to our community food access. I'm here to urge you to codify pollinator gardens in our city code because these small patches of habitat, as you mentioned, have an outsized impact on our food system and environmental health.
About 75% of the world's flowering plants and 35% of our food crops depend on pollinators to grow our food. However, pollinator populations are declining dramatically due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Without pollinators, our food supply would become scarce and expensive. Much like how a lack of trees and urban heat islands can create a desert of canopy and reduce cooling effects, the lack of pollinator gardens in communities affect the green space, habitat, and ultimately the ecosystem, which lead to a reduced food production in communities that are already food deserts. Creating pollinator gardens throughout Columbus offers a simple but powerful solution. These gardens provide food and shelter for pollinators while creating beautiful green spaces for our communities to enjoy.
Additionally, supporting pollinator gardens directly advances goal area B5 of our Columbus and Franklin County Local Food Action Plan, which aims to quote, "grow capacity and enhance viability of urban agriculture to allow residents to grow food for themselves and their neighbors. When we support pollinators, we make every community garden, backyard vegetable plot, including your own, and urban farm more productive, which by the way, we have over 350 um community gardens in Columbus and Franklin County, which we should be really proud of. I've seen this firsthand at Franklin Farms, where a pollinator pocket garden next to a vegetable plot greatly increases production, allowing for a higher yield of fruits and vegetables to feed Franklin neighborhood residents. The difference in harvest between properly pollinated plants and those without sufficient pollination is clearly visible with bigger, fuller, more nutritious, delicious food. Higher crop yields also mean more residents have food to take home to feed their families. So, we urge you to first clearly define pollinators in our city code, which I know we'll do.
Secondly, reduce barriers that might prevent residents from creating these vital habitats. And third, consider urban agriculture incentives to encourage more pollinator friendly spaces throughout Columbus. This is an opportunity for Columbus to take um a lead on an issue that connects environmental sustainability with food security. And by taking these steps, we can create a more resilient food system that aligns with the mission of CPH, which is to protect health and improve lives. So, thank you for your consideration and time
[Chair Wyche] Well, thank you for the testimony. Um, and thank you for being here as well, as well as supporting our pollinators. We need more folks to do that. So, um, we all always know, my office knows that you're a big champion in this space, and so we're excited that you're willing to come down and kind of speak to that.
Next, we have Ken Kiesel. Mr. Kiesel was the first resident to come before council and bring the concerns around our code and pollinator gardens. Ken was taken to court and made to remove his milkweed, which alerted me to the fact that milkweed should have been removed from the noxious weed list in code back in 2017, but it was inadvertently left in one section of code. We made that fix last year and this is the next step to protect residents and our pollinators.
[Ken Kiesel] Thank you for the swift vote to remove the common milkweed from the places where it had been inadvertently left on the zoning noxious weeds list. Let me start by saying that I have a degree in zoology from the great Ohio State University uh with a uh specialty in reproductive biology and environmental biology. The location of my property in particular is in Clintonville, uh zip code 43202, which is completely within the city of Columbus. It is not subject to the jurisdiction of any other community such as Worthington. So it is completely under the jurisdiction of the city of Columbus.
To take a back step, I just wanted to explain that my home um in Clintonville, the front yard from the front porch to the sidewalk is on a 60° incline. So something very much like this. That's too great of an incline to plant sod because it sloths off during heavy rains down to the sidewalk and makes a mess and it's a very expensive mess. I contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and they recommended that I try uh passionflower which is a native Ohio plant that blooms continuously from June through October. It is very beneficial to pollinators but also is very deep rooted and does an excellent job of holding the soil together and also functioning as a sponge retaining water runoff.
Back in 2022, I met with a group called Project Blueprint here in Columbus, which is trying to save the Clintonville sewer systems. They were very happy with the work that I had done to plant the passion flower, which has done very well.
In May of 2024, I attended an event sponsored by Project Greenspot of the city of Columbus where they pointed out to me that my passion flower patch could be very easily made into a monarch garden. A project that Mayor Ginther has taken very heavily under his mayor's monarch pledge. They handed me a pamphlet explaining how to convert that to a monarch garden which was simply the addition of common milkweed, in addition to the passion flower to make it a monarch garden. I ordered the milkweed online.
I planted it in July and within two weeks I had a notice taped to my front door from the Franklin County code enforcement notifying me that my front yard was now noxious weeds and rank foliage. After having one initial pre-trial meeting, I came here in September and spoke to the council, and that was when Chelsea, issued that, letter that I took with me to the hearing.
I has used Russell Tree Service, oe of the few uh master arborists in central Ohio. He came out to inspect my yard to make sure that there was no actual noxious weeds present in the yard. He's very familiar with the list of noxious weeds by the city and the state, which now matches completely. He accompanied me to the hearing and uh after the hearing was over, I took down a transcript of what had taken place. I'd like to just read that. It'll take just a few moments. So after arriving at the hearing, um we were escorted into TJ and I were escorted into a small meeting room just outside the courtroom.
We met with a Mr. Clark uh who identified him as Judge Mingo's court attorney. I asked Mr. Clark if he was the uh court prosecutor and he said no. He said I'm the attorney for Judge Mingo's court, not the prosecutor. Along with him was the court was the code enforcement officer uh who declined to identify himself. He said, "Judge Mingo's court doesn't require the enforcement officers to uh provide their names." Mr. Clark allowed the code enforcement officer to make the initial statements and he made three statements. The first was, "A pollinator garden is just a homeowner who's too lazy to mow their lawn." The second statement was, "Mr. Kiesel, if it makes you feel any better, I've never seen a pollinator garden yet that I didn't write a violation for. The third statement was, "In August," referring to 2024, "I went to an event at Whetstone Park that was sponsored by the city of Columbus. I spent the day there listening to their suggestions on how to plant pollinator gardens, bee gardens, butterfly gardens. They passed out seeds, and they let me and let me tell you something. every single thing they encourage people to do, I will write a violation for.”
At this point, Mr. Clark, I handed Mr. Clark the letter from Chelsea (CM Wyche’s Aide) and, he read it and uh, laughed. He said, "This letter is about species. We don't use species in Judge Mingo's court. Our code enforcement officers aren't trained in plant species." He looked over at the officer and said, "Do you know any plant species?" The officer shook his head and said, "I'm not a botanist." Mr. Clark said, "We don't know plants. Judge Mingo's court uses the international standard for code enforcement. That means there can be no restrictions on a code enforcement officer's ability to write a code violation."
TJ then asked him, because TJ's business uh does landscaping work, he was very concerned about being there to hear what was the cause of this violation. TJ said, "Then I'd like to see your codes. I run a landscaping business and I need to be able to know what is allowed and what isn't." Mr. Clark responded, "We can't use codes. Codes would be a restriction on the code enforcement officer's ability to write a violation." Suppose there was a code that said you are allowed a certain plant as long as it's less than 20 in tall. And the code enforcement officer came out, saw the plant, determined that it was wrong for the location, but it was only 15 in tall. he wouldn't be able to write a violation and that would be a violation of the international standard of code enforcement. TJ said, "Then how am I supposed to know what plants are allowed?" Mr. Clark said, "We're not botanists. We don't know plants." TJ said, "Well, then how do I know what's allowed?"
And then the officer stepped in. You're allowed grass. Grass is always okay. You're allowed one or two trees, depending on the size of your yard. You're allowed a few bushes, pro provided that they are neatly trimmed and maintained. And you're allowed a few flowers provided they are evenly spaced and of a similar size and color. But if I come out there and you've got yellow flowers and they're this tall and red flowers and they're this tall and blue flowers and they're this tall and they're all mixed together, well, that's a violation every single time because it's a disorganized mess. It's noxious weeds and rank foliage. I had a woman who told me one time that one-third of her garden blooms in the spring, one-third of her garden blooms in the summer, and the other third blooms in the fall. And I told her, "That means that at any given time, two thirds of your garden is noxious weeds and rank foliage." I wrote a violation, and I made her tear it all out.
At this point, I passed Mr. Clark a copy of the mayor's monarch pledge. He read it and passed it to the officer who laughed at it. Then I passed Mr. Clark a copy of the description of a monarch garden as written by the University of Kansas Department of Entomology which sponsors the mayor's monarch watch program. He read it and passed it to the officer. The officer read it, shook his head, and said, "Clear violation." Mr. Clark then said, "Mr. Kiesel, I'm here to explain to you that neither the mayor nor the city council nor the city of Columbus have any authority to authorize you or anyone else to plant a pollinator garden. There are only two people authorized to tell you what you can plant in your yard. And one of them is sitting right here, nodding to the officer. The other is Judge Mingo. So, if you want to go in front of Judge Mingo waving your mayor's monarch pledge, that's fine. But let me explain to you what's going to happen. She's going to find you guilty. She's going to fine you and she's going to order the city of Columbus to come out and remove those plants at your expense. Or you can tell the judge that you will remove them and she will order this officer to come out in 30 days and make sure that's been done and then he will come out monthly to make sure that they never come back”.
TJ then asked, "I'm still not hearing what is allowed and what isn't. The city's codes for noxious weeds match the state's codes exactly. Why aren't you just using their list of noxious weeds? Mr. Clark responded, "Because that would violate the international standard of code enforcement, but you need to understand that neither the city of Columbus nor the state of Ohio have any business writing codes or authorizing plants without checking with Judge Mingo's court first to make sure that what they're recommending is legal.
At that point I did have to take out the milkweed and the passion flour. Which means that I'm now having erosion problems again on the front yard, which is not what Project Blueprint wants to hear.
So, the situation as we see it right now is Judge Mingo's court believes that they are the sole authority on what is allowed to be grown in people's yards and none of the recommendations of the mayor's office, the city of Columbus, or the city council have any value or can supersede their officers in any way. One solution to this, I think, well, obviously there needs to be communication with Judge Mingo's court, to clarify who really does have the authority in this particular matter.
I think it would be a very good idea to allow those individuals (with training) to play a role in registering people's pollinator gardens. They can come up, inspect the garden, make sure that it's compliant with what is needed for the pollinators, and then register it, put up a sign that says this is a registered pollinator garden, registry number, such and such. And at that point, that garden should be hands off to Franklin County Code Enforcement.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for being here and providing that testimony. I think it is an education for a lot of folks on the benefits of having pollinator gardens. It's why we're having this discussion. It's why we're having this conversation. And to your point, there was nothing actually outlining what it was. And so, here is the opportunity for us to kind of provide some clarity. Um, yes, there will be additional conversations with the environmental court. Um, yes, there needs to be training with zoning officers so they know what is allowed and what is not allowed. But again, establishing a framework is what we're here to do today so that going forward we can make better decisions and you don't end up in court having that back and forth conversation. So appreciate you being here. Thank you.
I'd like to hear from Tony Celebrezze, deputy director of the Columbus Department of Building and Zoning. Tony, thank you for all the time you have put into learning about the importance of pollinator gardens, working with community members, and coming up with this draft language. Um, I appreciate your willingness to work with Council on issues of importance to the community, and I'm well aware of all the work that you and your team are doing on a regular basis. So, we appreciate your support in working with us on this language. Floor is yours.
[Tony Celebrezze,] Good evening, Councilmember Wyche and Councilmember Beatty. Thank you all for having this uh this hearing tonight and thank you for bringing this uh this uh subject to our attention. With me tonight is Kyle Kirker. He's one of our code enforcement officers. Help me with some of the more technical things. Our code officers have to know uh multiple titles within the city code that they have to enforce. My name is Tony Celebrezze. Deputy Director of Building and Zoning Services.
Code enforcement is underneath our department and this topic was brought to our attention by you and quite a few folks before that are behind us. I appreciated the informal hearing meeting we had a few weeks ago. It helped give us uh give myself and our team some information to go on.
I also appreciated quite a few of the comments that came back to us because they helped us make it a little bit better. I want to read a little bit of it and talk about a couple of the changes that we made to the language. So we've put this in chapter 709.03 103 which is the noxious weed section and I understand there's some interest in maybe putting it in another section that deals with solid waste and obviously we're open to conversation with that. Basically our mindset for this was to how do we create this in the simplest fashion by right so any homeowner can do this and be exempted from the noxious weed section.
There are six subsections under that exemption including a buffer around the neighbors property trying to respect the property line there. In the second section we added some language so it reads consists of live or dormant native plants to Ohio that do not create a health hazard. Section C talked about uh neighboring property, which we kind of covered in number in section one. So, we're going to suggest that we take that out. Section four does not violate code requirements for vision clearance from the zoning code. That's strictly a safety measure so that people that are pulling in and out of driveways or at corners and traffic is moving along that they can still see from their car and make sure that it's a safe opportunity for them to pull out. The last section the last section six does not occupy more than 50% of the front yard. Part of that came about in our discussion again of trying to balance um uh the neighborhood the neighbors who may not like I said may not appreciate Pollinator Gardens as much. Code enforcement is strictly reactionary. So when someone makes a complaint to 311 that's when code enforcement goes out and inspects and tries to see whether is there a violation if there's not. If there is, they do write a violation to give it to the tenant, landlord, owner, property management agency. That 50% again is trying to mitigate the number of complaints that we're going to get and have to go inspect um and then having to tell folks that complain that no, they're totally good. Now, the 50% does not require somebody put in turf grass. They can put in anything. Quite frankly, as Kyle and I were talking earlier today, they could they could make the whole yard pollinator just put 50% of it below 12 inches. I didn't want to get too fancy with percentages, but again, I'm trying to mitigate um the neighbors and their complaints to us um in this situation. So, I again appreciate you uh having this uh this hearing and I'm more than happy to take any questions.
[Chair Wyche] Well, thank you again for kind of outlining the current language that exists out there. The 50% was a question that we had and I'm glad you're able to kind of clarify that. I do appreciate you kind of outlining what is there and why we're trying to provide some flexibility for code officers who are really kind of mitigating um what could be uh neighbor disputes in this circumstance. So, thank you.
All right. Well, thank you so much. Next, I would like to call Kellen Calinger-Yoak to the podium. Kellen is another resident who was taken to court for her pollinator garden, which helped organize the effort to get a change in code.
[Dr. Kellen Calinger-Yoak] Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Kellen Callinger. I'm a Columbus resident and we are here today because, like Ken who spoke before me, in the fall of 2024 - I found a letter taped to my door from the city threatening to find me up to $1,000 or imprison me for six months if I didn't cut down my garden.
All because an angry neighbor didn't like my Ohio native wild flowers. At first, I thought there must be a mistake. As the violations notice cited me for noxious weeds and solid waste, I scoured my garden looking for a noxious invasive species, but could find none, unless an errant dandelion or two were the issue. I looked for the trash that the code enforcement officers were referring to with solid waste, but I could find none. My garden, as always, was well-maintained and clearly intentional.
When I called the code violations office, I was yet again shocked. I was told that my native plants transition into noxious weeds when they begin to turn brown in the fall. When I said that just fundamentally doesn't make sense because that's not what weeds are and that the preservation of natural areas was important for threatened organisms like fireflies. I was told that doesn't matter anyway because any standing brown stem is considered solid waste.
The next step was to appeal the violation to the city violations appeal committee. I thought my appeal would be a sure thing as the logical inconsistencies and objectively incorrect items in the code were inarguable and obvious. I was wrong. I was told outright by the committee that their job is not to make the law make sense, but rather to enforce it. They directed me to city council as the group who was able to create just and reasonable laws. I've gathered letters from 16 Columbus residents, eight of whom are biologists like me, a county governmental agency, three state and national conservation agencies, and a letter from a city councilmember from a community that has already amended their legislation to be native garden friendly. Their message is clear. Change is wanted and needed.
I also want to acknowledge the culture of fear being created by the obvious preference for conventional lawns that we just heard reflected in the 50% argument. A new neighbor recently moved across the street and after seeing my garden, he told me he wanted to fill his property with native plants as well. Shortly after, he told me he wouldn't be doing this because he had heard about my story and doesn't want to risk dealing with the same threats. To be clear, my neighbor is choosing not to make a garden because he's too scared an anonymous person will use the government to attack him. I prove him right.
So, what are we asking for in this change to city law? We are simply asking to have the same protections as community members with conventional laws. Lawn owners are free to use 100% of their land for turf grass, no matter how unsightly I find it. Lawn owners are free to spray herbicides and pesticides on their grass that have been directly linked to cancer in the name of killing so-called weeds.
Even though I don't want poisons near my children, I'm not even asking for any of that to change. All I'm asking is to be able to plant native species that thrive in Ohio, support biodiversity, and do absolutely no harm to my neighbors without them being able to use the government to threaten me.
We have provided the city council with large amounts of feedback on what this means and numerous legislative examples that have passed in other cities, both large and small. The currently proposed legislation places arbitrary limitations on pollinator gardens because it aims to cater to turf grass owners. It shows preferential treatment to some Columbus residents and active antagonism to others. And further, the proposed legislation handles none of the issues associated with solid waste. I ask that city council carefully consider the feedback we've provided in both previous meetings and in response to these new proposed changes. I thoroughly appreciate your time and I am happy to take any questions that you might have.
[Chair Wyche] Well, do appreciate all the work that you've done to kind of help get us there. There it is an education piece and this is why we're here to one encourage folks to do this, right? If you're seeing it in your neighbor's lawn, hey, why not? And I think we have some photos of your garden so you can kind of share that.
[Dr. Kellen Calinger-Yoak] Yes I sent some to you a while ago. Yep. That's what it looks like.
[Chair Wyche] Clearly there is cues of care, right? There's clearly a path there. It seems like this is done by design.
[Dr. Kellen Calinger-Yoak] There's signage. There's habitats.
[Chair Wyche] There's a lot there. This is why we have to have this conversation to kind of establish the art of the possible.
[Dr. Kellen Calinger-Yoak] It's also far more than 50% of my front yard. So with the current changes, I would be forced to destroy large portions of my garden again to cater to turf grass owners and their visual preferences.
[Chair Wyche] And I understand that. The challenge being any type of legislation is always going to be somewhat of a compromise. There is a preference for turf grass and hopefully with education and a this code change, we can normalize pollinator gardens over turf grass. So hopefully we can kind of figure out something in the middle that works for as many folks as possible. I'm gonna be honest with you, you're probably not going to be 100% happy with what we land on because we have to balance the concerns of all residents of Columbus and everyone is not there. Sadly, I think there's more we can do on the education standpoint to kind of get folks to kind of change their mindset when it comes to lawns going forward. That's a long path that we're going to have to walk to kind of get folks there because as a society we have decided that turf grass is the preference. But again, something we should and want to push back on.
[Dr. Kellen Calinger-Yoak] I'm just curious to know why the preference of some is more important than the preference of others.
[Chair Wyche] I mean, if I had my way, it'd be different. And so that is the challenge when it comes to legislation. One side is probably not going to get 100% of what they want. We have to find some way to compromise. That's just how legislation works. There are nine of us on this body. I think maybe three or four of us are gardeners. Everyone else, not so much. We all have differing opinion on what is aesthetically pleasing for everyone's yard. And so finding that balance so we can actually pass something and get something to start the conversation. This doesn't have to be the only time we look at this code. But it has to start somewhere.
I appreciate your time for both of you and everybody else here. Next we have Jenny Pope, with Franklin Park Conservatory.
[Jenny Pope] I welcome this opportunity to talk to you on behalf of Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. As an organization that envisions a world that celebrates nature as essential to the human experience, we strongly support the changes to the standards relative to noxious weeds. You know, technically a weed is any plant that's growing in a place that you don't desire it to be in, right? The majority of native plants that are available to the public are desirable perennials and annuals, and very few people would recognize them as weeds. If you visit the conservatory, we have gardens that you probably have no idea are native plant gardens. They're designed for pollinators and for the people. The Wells Barn wedding lawn is surrounded by native plants and it's the gorgeous backdrop for many ceremonies. We have a pollinator garden on the community garden campus that delights our parkgoers every single day. And our entire children's garden is one big native pollinator garden that greets over 300,000 people each year. If the proposed changes allowing native plants is passed, the conservatory is committed to educating the public on the importance of incorporating native plants into the landscape and creating a beautiful front yard garden that not only benefits pollinators, but their neighborhood. Thank you for considering the changes that allow native plant gardens, pollinator gardens, and we appreciate all you're doing for the Columbus residents and, you know, for making our place a greener environment.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for what you do as well and for being here and providing that testimony again. And it is education to shift neighbors mind set. If folks have not been to the Franklin Park Conservatory, they should go. It is beautiful all the time. Thank you.
Next we have Laura Fay, Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed (FLOW).
[Laura Fay] Councilman Member Wyche, Council Member Beatty, thanks hosting this. Mname is Laura Fay. I'm the chair of the FLOW. We did a green space plan for our watershed, which is includes way more than Columbus, includes 27 different municipalities. We contracted with Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District to help us pull all their GIS data in to see where our high quality spaces could be and where our protected lands were. We only have like 8.8% protected lands, which I thought was pretty good. A lot of parks along, but some of those protected spaces then are turf grass for kids to play on, roads, parking lots. So, we think we need to do more. But the thing we learned most was 38% of our watershed is turf grass. Turf grass is not native. It has shallow roots. And that's bad. 38% is too high for good water quality. We're trying to encourage people to reduce their turf grass.
FLOW believes the best strategy in this code change should be a is a less is more approach. The more edits and additions we propose, the more difficult adherence and enforcement will be." FLOW’s edits focus on allowing pollinator gardens to be categorized the same as agriculture and horticulture.Wce don't necessarily think it should be about aesthetics. We think it should be about public health and we're not encouraging anything that draws rats. We think some language is too specific, arbitrary, and redundant. And the new section is meant to provide exceptions to the definitions of hazardous and noxious weeds outlined in the existing codes section ABCD. and re-prohibiting them in this section creates confusing logic. The 50% is an arbitrary percentage for the non three-foot pollinator garden. We also request the term shrubs be removed from sections A and B to provide clarity because I think we all have shrubs in our front yard and the law currently prohibits those.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions? Looking forward to working with you. Up next, Craig Toothman, the executive director of Franklin County Pollinator Pathways.
[Craig Toothman] I'm Craig Toothman, Columbus resident, founder, and current president of Franklin County Pollinator Pathway, whose mission is to create and restore connected corridors of native plant habitat happens here has impacts throughout the rest of the county.
These naturalized landscapes represent a new style of intentional property landscaping. These areas typically involve the use of native plants as opposed to more traditional non-native ornamentals and oftentimes replace areas of property previously committed to non-native turf grass. Native plants have significant advantages over their non-native counterparts, not only in the provision of critically needed habitat for our native pollinators and other wildlife, but also in attributes such as drought tolerance, reduced summer watering needs, reduced surface storm water runoff problems and water quality issues, and allow for profound reductions in the amounts of chemical inputs that are necessary for the success of non-native plants in our region.
The use of this newer style of naturalized landscaping is also very supportive to a broad group of other important local goals and initiatives including the city of Columbus climate action plan, the urban forestry master plan, the urban heat island issue along with many others.
The city code standards that are most relevant to this discussion are standard 70703 solid waste, 70903 noxious weeds, 713 rodents, insects, vermin and other pests. 332105 vision clearances and finally 451.377 again dealing with some specifics regarding solid waste. The proposed draft language recently circulated only speaks quite briefly to standard 70903 noxious weeds. We would encourage the city to review these other relevant standards as well, which represents a much broader challenge than expressed by this initial draft and one that will require additional input to address properly.
We fully support the need for any new code standards to be flexible, adaptable, and as simple as possible. We look forward to working closely with you and feel that the city of Columbus and the local conservation community can work together striving to craft code standards that serve all Columbus residents and businesses in an equitable and sustainable manner. On behalf of Franklin County Pollinator Pathway and myself, I thank you all for your time. Be glad to try and answer a question if you have any.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you, Craig. No, no question. Just really a comment again reiterating wanting to have more engagement in the legislative process so we can come to a policy decision that that works that is actually beneficial. We did also receive 12 additional written testimonies from others who also propose different changes that they'd like to see in the legislation. We will take time to review all the testimony and see where we can all come to a consensus. To your point there is no deadline. But to your point, getting to good policy is goal number one. So, the timing is really how long it takes for us to get there.
[Mr. Toothman] I will share just as an off-the-cuff remark that many people expressed to me personally their concerns with the concept of appeasing certain groups of citizens, at the expense potentially of other groups of citizens. Right now a resident without a permit, a design, registration plan, anything can go to Lowe's or anywhere else, buy non-native plants, buy non-native grass seed, do whatever the heck they want to in their front yard, and nobody bats an eye.
Many people that are embracing this much more ecologically sound and beneficial style of landscaping wonder why we can't have those same rights and privileges as other citizens. We're not looking for more, but how can you provide opportunities for one group of citizens at the expense of another group of citizens? That doesn't seem appropriate for a successful code review.
[Chair Wyche] It requires elected officials willing to kind of push the envelope of what the art of the possible is. I mean, we were excited to come in 24 with the stated goal of making Columbus the greenest city in the country. And I mean all shades of green. And in that space is also how we encourage the protection of our pollinators and get folks to rethink what culturally has been pushed on them for generations in terms of what a well manicured lawn looks like. The reality is we are killing our pollinators and ultimately going to harm ourselves and our food production if we continue down this path. But we have to start somewhere, right? We have to make the case of why this is important. Codifying the ability for residents to do this with the hope that we can start to change the minds of those around us immediately, our neighbors, to get more folks to go down this path. I hear you. I do. But the realities of legislation mean I got to get everyone to agree. And sadly, we have not had that mind shift with everyone. We got to start somewhere to get down the path that's going to be more sustainable. We want to take as big a bite of an apple as we can while we have city departments that want to work with us here. But the realities of putting together legislation is real and so balancing that is the challenge we have as elected officials and we will do our best to get the best possible policy.
Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Next we have Dr. LonDale Towns.
[CM Beatty] Chair Wyche, before you call the next witness, could I ask Deputy Director Celebrezze a question? This is just for my own education here. How would legislation like this interplay with residents that are subject to a homeowners association? How does code enforcement even work with those? And this is just for background, not specific to this legislation.
[Mr. Celebrezze] With regards to homeowners association, the city obviously doe snot enforce any of their rules as we just enforce what's in city code. The homeowners association can't allow something that's more that violates the city code but they can require other additional things as per the homeowners agreement. So they can't um allow something that city code prohibits even if it's in the agreements and so forth.
[CM Beatty] In an instance like this, a homeowners association could prohibit, on their own, pollinator gardens for instance.
[Mr. Celebrezze] Correct. A homeowners association could require all turf grass or other certain amenities with regards to how and what is planted there.
[CM Beatty] That would be their choice through their process and that's more of just a point of clarification that I wanted to understand. Thank you.
[CM Wyche] Dr. Towns, the floor is yours.
[Dr. LonDale Towns Sr.] Greetings, Council Batty W, amazing staff, Deputy Director, and all your amazing pollinators and uh future thinkers. Um uh my name is Dr. LonDale Town, Senior. I am the CEO and founder of Lyfe Savers. Councilmember Wyche, I stand as a biologist and also as a minister, right? So, I have two different hats of stewardship that I must, command and stand in agreement with. When I say perceived beauty we're looking at this monoculture type of living versus this pollination gardens. I think we have to take a step back and call this what it really is, which is a moral concern. I say that as a champion for sustainability because we have these called food deserts in our great states here in our great city. But then again, we turn around and we kill the thing that provides the most food. Call it monoculture. Here we have 350 community gardens and after visiting 99% of them what we found out is only 45% of them are growing functionable food that we can consume for nutrients. We can utilize these green spaces and marry them with violence prevention programming to actually serve our children and communities. Thank you.
[Chair Wyche] Well Dr. towns, thank you for taking us to church. And yes, to your point, engaging kids in the process is important to the sustainability of our city. It's one of the reasons I have that garden in my backyard. My kids come out there to plant the seeds so that as they have grown up, no vegetable is weird to them because again, these are the plants that you grew in your own backyard and so they're more apt to try them. the relation to our health and how we have um made rules in our society is constantly in conflict and this is one of those examples. Thank you. All right. I think the last speaker we have signed up so far is Alexis Nelson.
[Alexis Nelson] Thank you so much for your time, Councilman Wyche and Councilman Beatty. My name is Alexis Nicole Nelson. I am an environmental educator, a climate activist, a begrudging social media personality. And this not only is extraordinarily important to me from a more holistic, larger top- down view of what our city could be moving forward, um it is also very personal to me because like a few others who have spoken before me, I don't know what was going on in the water last fall, but I too was hit with a code violation.
So, I live in Franklin, not usually the neighborhood that comes to mind when someone says that they are working on building out a pollinator space. That being said, we are likely one of the neighborhoods who needs it the most. I know that you guys have all looked at the heat island maps everyone did working towards the tree canopy plan that you guys pioneered over the last few years. But Franklin, on average in the middle of the summertime is between 10 and 15 degrees hotter than our neighbors in Clintonville or even our close by neighbors just on the other side of the river in Grand View or upper Arlington.
Another thing that makes us a little bit different is our house plots tend to be a little bit smaller than some of our other Columbus neighbors. If I on my plot was putting a 30 inch margin around all sides, that eliminates a huge amount of surface area on a plot as small as mine. It's amazing that some neighbors with bigger yards are able to do that, able to maintain that space between them and their nextdoor neighbors and still feel like they are making a contribution to the local flora. But for a lot of us in our neighborhood, that's simply not the case. Same goes with the 50% rule. And you know, a jumping off point moving in a very positive direction, but if our yard was suddenly only 50% native pollinators, we wouldn't be doing a whole lot of good work.
Now, I was so excited upon buying my first house with my fiance to be able to garden for the first time since I was a kid growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio. I tried to follow all of the rules to the best of my abilities. I made sure that I got species that would not become too tall or too unruly and species that were beautiful that would flower so that my neighbors wouldn't be bothered with them. and I still got hit with that same code violation.
I would implore the council to continue the conversation just like you're doing right now with members of our community because while I think that this is an excellent start, I definitely think that there is a lot more wiggle room for some of the nuance of your neighbors like me.
Additionally, I agree with Kellen. It is very interesting that we are the ones who are having to jump through so many hoops. And I understand that when culturally you are the new kid on the block, that often comes with the territory. But if my neighbor two doors down with the 40 foot tree of heaven that sends root shoots out, you know, a block in either direction doesn't have to answer to anybody because of that. The fact that my golden alexanders just barely crossed over the 12 inch mark, warranting a $1,000 fine is a little bit confusing to me.
I would also like to advocate for, and I know that this is the biggest stretch, pokeweed possibly not being on the noxious plant list. I'm honestly surprised everyone is backing that up. Thank you so much. I don't know. This is a well informed audience on Pollinator Gardens. In addition to providing an important food source both for the giant leopard moth, one of our nearly endangered leopard moth species and also the ruby throated hummingbird which delights gardeners all spring, summer and fall here in Ohio. It is honestly a beautiful plant that I feel like has become unfairly maligned and with half of my family hailing from the south, it is also a really important part of my food culture. So that's my one little personal flag that I would like to wave on the play.
I would also love to ask and uh you know you don't have to answer right here right now. If there is anyone on the council who you feel like is maybe on the fence or even fully on the opposite side of the fence as a lot of us who have spoken today. Because I would love the opportunity to get to speak with them and I would be very happy to also engage my followers here in the greater Columbus area to be able to give more firsthand experiences than we possibly can in this one meeting. Any questions? I've never done this before.
[Chair Wyche] Well, you did an amazing job. So, thank you on your first time doing this. I will always say if you have other folks who want to provide input, send them our way. I am not one who shies away from people being angry at the podium. I honestly think it helps to strengthen the policy that we have and it also shows how important this issue is for our residents. I sometimes get the bad rap of like the crazy sustainability guy running around the hallways about think about the future, think about the future. But I can only do that if I have people behind me telling me we need you to fight for this issue. So, any additional support or any additional voices you can bring to the conversation, we want to hear them. Thank you. Before I close out the hearing, is there any one else in the room who would like to provide testimony on pollinator gardens?
[Mr. Kiesel] Pokeweed does need to be taken off the noxious weeds list. Pokeweed is also a vital source of protein for our cardinal population. In addition to that comment, may I ask Deputy Director Celebrezze - what is the relationship between the city of Columbus code enforcement and the Franklin County code enforcement? And is it possible that all the good work that we're attempting to do with these changes in code could simply be ignored by Franklin County code enforcement or overruled?
[Mr. Celebrezze] Franklin County is a separate political entity that the city of Columbus is within. However, their um their code enforcement does not extend within the boundaries of the city of Columbus. City of Columbus code enforcement officers cover with in the city boundaries and and apply the city's code to that. Now, we have many challenges whereby we have lots of townships that are completely in uh encompassed within the city of Columbus all the way down to single parcels that are still township. And many times the county code enforcement is their code enforcement for those townships. So, if you want afterwards, I'm more than happy to take your address and I can go do some research tomorrow and reach out to you to let you know because some of the things you were saying is not what I have experienced with my code officers. Doesn't mean someone may not have gone off the reservation there at the environmental court, but at the same time this way we can all have the facts so we know exactly what happened to you and uh we can figure out we can move from there.
[Mr. Kiesel] Thank you
[Chair Wyche] Thank you, deputy director. Is there anyone else who'd like to provide testimony? Can you introduce yourself and spell your name for the record?
[Geoffrey Parker] My name is Geoffrey Parker. And I'm an attorney and a homeowner in Franklinton. I just want to come up here really quickly and make the argument that everybody else here seems to be allergic to. Which is that this is an individual liberty issue. This isn't just an issue about conservation. Although it happens that our interests are aligned in this case, but fundamentally the government doesn't need a reason to let me do something on my land. It needs a reason to tell me not to do something on my land. And there, as everybody here seems to agree, there are no good reasons not to allow pollinator gardens.
The only reason that we've been given the thing that sticks in my mind is the 50% limit. The reason that we were given for the 50% limit for front yards is that code enforcement wants to be able to when they get complaints about these gardens actually act on some of those complaints. In other words, code enforcement basically just doesn't want to have to tell busy bodies no. And that's not a good enough reason to restrict what I can do on my land when put up against especially when put up against all of the very good reasons that a pollinator garden is a good idea. I would recommend that code enforcement and everybody else here get more comfortable saying this is an individual liberty issue because that will carry along people that the conservation thing won't. I welcome your questions.
[Chair Wyche] I appreciate you being here and providing that advocacy. Deputy Director, do you have any comments? Okay, Next, can you please come up Ryan Foshee?
[Ryan Foshee] I'm the co-chair of the Clintonville Green Team, part of the Clintonville Area Commission. I just wanted to add on one last thing. I applaud this effort sincerely. This will protect a lot of people who want to grow pollinator gardens, especially beginners. That's great because a lot of people, like the story we heard from Kellen, want to get started, it's really discouraging to hear that they didn't because of um fear of a ticket.
But if we could do something to protect the leaders in this space as well, some kind of additional exemption, some of the most incredible gardens in our town would remain ticketable offenses and I just wanted to speak up on behalf of those folks because those leaders are the ones that inspire other people to do this work Let's do something somehow to protect those folks. Thank you.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for your continued advocacy and the work that you're doing in the community uh to kind of encourage folks to go down a more sustainable path.
Is there anyone else in the room who hasn't had a chance to testify if they wanted to? All right, thank you.
CLOSING REMARKS
[Chair Wyche] We did receive written testimony as well for both energy reselling and pollinators and it can be reviewed at <https://bit.ly/WycheCBUSCityCouncil>. There was actually a lot of feedback and a lot of technical suggestions that folks sent forward, which we love because those are things that we can kind of work with the department to kind of find a reasonable compromise that works for everyone.
And I have to keep reiterating compromise everybody. I will say if anyone did not get a chance to anyone watching did not get a chance to provide testimony or ask questions, they can reach out to my Aide, Chelsea Golterman at <CLGolterman@columbus.gov>. We'll take as much feedback as we can.
My team and the appropriate departments will discuss the feedback we heard today and possible amendments to the proposed code language. And my office will be in touch if we have any follow-up questions for those that testified.
This committee will reconvene on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:30 P.M. Mark your calendars. It will likely be at an outside location which will be announced a little closer to the date.
I hope you all have a great evening. Thank you.
ADJOURNMENT
Adjourned: 5:45
Visit <https://bit.ly/WycheCBUSCityCouncil> to review submitted written testimony and draft code changes
All Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Meetings can be watched at the City of Columbus Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/cityofcolumbus>
Stay up-to-date by following Councilmember Wyche on Bluesky (@christopherwyche.bsky.social) and on Eventbrite <eventbrite.com/o/councilmember-christopher-l-wyche-81976334423>. You can subscribe to his monthly email newsletter by emailing his Analyst at <EMMorales@Columbus.gov>. You can reach Councilmember Wyche’s Aide at <CLGolterman@Columbus.gov>