Electric bike riders take notice: Ravenna city leaders are poised to adopt new helmet regulations.
Local law now requires all Class 3 e-bike riders and their passengers to wear helmets. The proposed change would require only minor riders of Class 1, 2 and 3 e-bikes to wear ODOT-approved helmets. Their passengers, as long as they, too, are minors, would have to wear ODOT-compliant helmets, as well.
Ohio law defines three types of e-bikes. All of them must have fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts. When those motors kick in is the difference.
Motors on Class 1 e-bikes kick in only when the rider is pedaling and cut out when the bike reaches 20 mph.
Motors on Class 2 e-bikes provide assistance regardless of whether the rider is pedaling and cut out when the bike reaches 20 mph.
Motors on Class 3 e-bikes provide assistance only when the rider is pedaling and cut out when the bike reaches 28 mph.
“We're trying to protect mainly minors,” Council Member Matt Harper said during council’s Aug. 24 Committee of the Whole session. “Adults at that point should have enough common sense to wear them, but a lot of times when the law even states that they have to wear them, they don’t.”
Council members recognized that Ohio law does not require most motorcyclists to wear helmets. Only riders under the age of 18, those licensed for a year or less and those holding a temporary permit must wear helmets. Their passengers must don helmets, as well.
How police will enforce the new rule is another matter. Helmets may comply with lesser standards but not be ODOT-compliant, and there is no way an officer can tell just by looking at a rider from the street.
Council President Rob Kairis suggested that officers may stop riders for some other reason, and then cite them if their helmets are not up to ODOT standards, or if they are not wearing one at all.
Harper said the helmets are worth the cost.
“I don’t think we can put a price on a child’s brain damage. If you're going to spend the money to purchase an e-bike, dig a little bit deeper and buy that helmet that’s going to protect your brain and skull,” Harper said.
Apartment floor space
Also on Aug. 24, the committee agreed to stipulate new space requirements for multi-family units, aka triplexes, apartment complexes and homes divided into three or more units.
Council Member Carmen Laudato said city code currently stipulates 550 square feet per unit, minus the basement, everywhere but in Ravenna’s business district, where the total ratchets down to 400 square feet.
City leaders now want to adopt what Laudato calls a “bedroom model” that would require 450 square feet for efficiency studios, 550 square feet for one-bedroom units, 750 square feet for two-bedroom units, 950 square feet for three-bedroom units and 1,100 square feet for units that have four or more bedrooms.
Existing multi-family units would be “grandfathered in” and would not have to adhere to the new requirements, Laudato said. Noting that buildings in Ravenna’s central business district are 150 years old or more, Laudato said the city will not require current landlords to reconfigure their rental units.
“This proposal would only be for things that are new or if you’re going to renovate,” Laudato told her colleagues. “I think where these changes are mostly going to impact is going to be people who are buying homes and turning it into multi-family housing.”
The proposed standards comply with those set by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which sets standards for housing tax credits for multi-family units, Laudato said. They also protect housing values while helping Ravenna meet its comprehensive master plan, which includes affordable housing goals, she explained.
Council will consider both issues later this month.
Ward redistricting
Ravenna’s efforts to redraw the boundaries of its four political wards continue, with the city’s planning committee seeking public feedback.
Ravenna’s Planning Commission is eyeing two such forums in September, though no date has been set, said Laudato, planning committee chairwoman.
“I’m interested in the public getting engaged with this because there’s a few people who have reached out to me and said they don't see any reason to do this at all, that it's not going to make much of a difference,” she said.
Difference or not, the city has no choice, Kairis noted. Since 1953, Ohio law has required city councils to redraw ward boundaries every decade, with the borders based on the most recent U.S. Census counts. Ravenna, though, hasn’t adjusted its wards in more than 50 years, with the result that some ward populations are now too big and others too small.
Laudato is working with Jennifer Mapes, a Kent State University assistant geography professor who teaches Mapping, Space & Power and Urban Sustainability and with other tech-savvy city leaders to get a handful of already-proposed maps on the city’s website.
Besides public feedback on those maps, she suggested that people attending the September meetings might have some ward boundary ideas of their own. The committee is willing to consider all serious input, she said.
Kairis said he hopes to have the new map — whatever it may be — approved by January, in time for prospective local candidates to pull their petitions for election.