Paris Township goes back to the drawing board on zoning proposals

Fresh from Nov. 6 trustee and zoning board meetings that turned contentious at times, Paris Township trustees on Nov. 20 scrapped current zoning code proposals, as well as changes made in recent years.

Township trustees ended up reverting to Paris’ 2008 zoning code, rejecting the five-member zoning board’s current proposals and those adopted in 2019. Among the current proposals was one addressing safe shooting practices and another related to certain kinds of storage containers on residential property.

Among other stipulations, the proposed shooting provision required people engaging in target practice on their own property to set up proper backstops. It also stated that “not all properties are suitable for shooting activities,” outlined the circumstances when police should be involved, detailed acceptable shooting range locations and set up hunting guidelines.

Concerned that people were going to turn it into a Second Amendment issue, township Trustee Dave Kemble recommended removing the safe shooting provision before the Nov. 6 meetings even started, but people remained fired up. 

The proposal “was based in common sense, but even that’s not in there now,” he said. “The idea was that your bullet is supposed to stay on your property, not fly over to other people's property.”

Kemble said he’d heard of a half-dozen close calls in the township, one of which personally involved him.

“People just go to the edge of the woods and shoot,” he said. “One, my wife was there with me; it was right through my front yard. And they were young men that just had no idea that the bullet don't stop at the target. It keeps going.”

Since the zoning board had only tabled the gun regulations on Nov. 6, James Irvine, a statewide advocate for guns, sent the trustees a letter promising to sue them unless they rescinded the code altogether.

A second red-flag issue turned out to be a 2019 amendment prohibiting unlicensed motor vehicles or trailers to be parked on any residential property other than in a completely enclosed building. The provision included “semi-trailers, on-residence mobile homes, buses, truck bodies or beds, rail cars of any type, automobiles used for storage, or materials left from any [disassembly] of any [of] these items.”

The current zoning board proposed to remove that provision. In a sense, they succeeded: since Paris has reverted to its 2008 zoning code, the township has no regulations regarding such vehicles or trailers.

“We’re a pretty spread-out township,” Kemble said. “For people that own a big property like me, I could put one up there, and you would never know I could have it. Really, what we're looking at is our more congested areas.”

Posted Nov. 20 meeting minutes state that some residents want zoning, but “do not want to be told what they have to do on their own property.” Others called for scrapping Paris’ zoning code altogether.

Kemble said he hoped that such a ballot measure (none has yet been presented) would not see the light of day. He said most Paris residents support zoning, but he acknowledged they may not show up at the ballot box.

“It would open it up to anybody to come in on any street, residential and agricultural. Zoning wouldn’t mean anything," he said. "If somebody wanted to buy a field somewhere and fill it full of junk cars, they could do it. Or if they wanted to bring in an oil processing facility, they could do it. Or any of the other things that most townships don't really want to see.”

Township resident Amanda Suffecool, who is chair of the Portage County Republican Party, a county board of elections member and also a national NRA board member, urged the trustees to reject the zoning proposal altogether and to send it back to the zoning board with a request to review it line by line, with the public in attendance at what would essentially be work sessions.

The trustees unanimously agreed.

“It’s like the constitution. It's a living document,” Kemble said. “There’s a lot of things that have been changed. I just thought there was enough there, they could go back and take a look at it all. We didn't have any public input and that's what the public wanted.”

The next trustee meeting is set for 6 p.m. Dec. 4. The next zoning board meeting is 7 p.m. Dec. 11. Trustees will meet again at 6 p.m. Dec. 18. All meetings are at the Shearer Community Center at Newton Falls Road and state Route 225.