Hudson Residents Push Back on Clinton Crossing Home Prices as Council Reviews Drainage and Drilling Plans

Hudson City Council covered a wide range of city business at its August 11 regular meeting and workshop, from a resident pushing back on downtown housing prices to a major update on the Brandywine Creek watershed and new rules for underground utility drilling. Clinton Crossing Draws Pushback on Price During public comment, a Hudson resident told council the current plan for the downtown site now called Clinton Crossing calls for 44 to 46 detached single family homes and 18 townhomes. He cited a 2025 market analysis from Silver Load Consulting showing the city needs the residential portion of the property to gain at least 48.6 million dollars in value to repay costs through a new tax increment financing district, which works out to an average increase of about 900,000 dollars per new home. The resident said an informal poll he posted online in July asked people if they would pay between 785,000 and 833,000 dollars for a home in the 1,800 to 2,200 square foot range planned for the site. Of 302 responses, 282 said no. He said he served on a 2015 comprehensive plan subcommittee for the property and that the earlier community plan called for 188 housing units with none of them detached single family homes. "This project has gone completely off track and strayed very, very far from the vision that this council laid out to the community early on," he told council. Later in the meeting, Community Development Director Greg Hannan gave council a separate project update. He said 230 surveys were completed after a July 22 community event, and design firm RDL is now developing a single preferred plan from that input. A community event on the project site is planned for Saturday, August 22, with a report back to council set for September 8. Survey results showed 90 percent support for smaller single family homes and 79 percent support for townhomes, with support falling off sharply for duplexes, quads and apartments. Council Members Amanda Weinstein and Kyle Brezovec both asked that a proper enclosed playground be included in the final design, and Council President Michael Bird cautioned that public surveys and workshops tend to draw an older, wealthier and self selecting slice of residents. A 24 Million Dollar Plan for Brandywine Creek City Engineer Bradley Kosco and GPD Group water resources engineer Jesse Rufener presented a long awaited watershed study prompted by the August 2024 storm, which they described as a 500 to 2,000 year event that dropped more than 7 inches of rain on the city in about two hours. Rufener said typical storm sewers are built for a 10 to 25 year storm while detention basins are generally designed for a 100 year event, meaning the new projects target smaller, more frequent storms rather than a repeat of 2024. Engineers evaluated 21 alternatives and dropped four for cost or feasibility, including one option near Hines Hill that would have cost more than 60 million dollars. The remaining 17 projects would cost about 40 million dollars combined, with the highest priority group totaling roughly 24 million dollars. Several council members pressed for more clarity on how projects were ranked, and Kosco acknowledged the presented order was not a strict priority list. Council Member Brezovec asked whether a proposed storm basin at Middleton Park could be timed with a 2027 park renovation already planned for the site. "It is like eating the elephant," Kosco told council. "How do you do it? It's every little bite at a time." City Manager Thomas Sheridan said none of the projects have been budgeted yet and will be weighed during the fall budget process alongside other capital needs. New Rules Coming for Underground Drilling Council also reviewed new safety standards for underground utility work, a response to a June fiber optic project incident that struck a gas line and damaged roughly 20 homes in a community north of Hudson. Sheridan said Hudson paused its own directional drilling immediately after that incident and that state Fire Marshal and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio reports on that case, along with a house explosion in Girard, Ohio in late April, are still pending. The proposed ordinance would require vacuum excavation, sometimes called hydro excavation, instead of hand digging near buried utilities, and would expand the required buffer around existing infrastructure from 18 inches to 3 feet where possible. Kosco said the standard was benchmarked against a 120 mile fiber project Summit County completed using similar methods and was reviewed by Hudson's fire and EMS chief and by regional gas utility Enbridge. He estimated the changes could raise project costs by about 20 percent and said construction will likely take longer, at least at first. Sheridan said there will be no exception for permits issued before the new rules take effect. According to the city's website, if council approves the policy August 18, directional drilling could resume in Hudson by late August. Honoring a Longtime Cro