Twinsburg Church Addresses Lone Resident's Issues Over New Building

Only one resident came forward at Monday night’s public hearing to allow a conditional use permit for the Darrow Road site where plans to build in the future.

Mike Seese was the only person to come forward for good reason.

“I think I’m probably the only neighbor to the property,” Seese said jokingly.

Destiny, which currently holds Sunday services at R.B. Chamberlin Middle School, is proposing a $2.5 million, 20,000-square-foot project in four phases, over a five-to -10-year period.

Seese wanted to be clear that his main concern with this project was not against the church, only the effects it may have to his property.

“I welcome the church to the neighborhood,” Seese said. “I have absolutely no issue with that at all. My only concern is the location of the driveway.”

For many years cars have missed the driveway to the current property because of poor visibility and used his driveway as a convenient turnaround, sometimes at high speeds.

“You don’t have the ability for the proper signage out front, to deter the current problem I’ve been having,” Seese said.

Scott Whitley, the architect representing Destiny Church, said this may be alleviated by a previously proposed extension of Joshua Miktarian Drive. They will also address the visibility issues of the driveway as planning continues, and once the church is built, it will hopefully create more awareness as well.

Whitley also presented the current master plan at the hearing as well as the planning commission meeting, in hopes of gaining approval for conditional use of a residential district for a religious institution.

The church plans to use the existing houses on the property as residence for church use and convert them into offices in the future. They will then build the main sanctuary on both properties of 9597 and 9561 in three years. The next step would be to build an addition to the sanctuary for a multipurpose room and offices. Finally, they would move the offices from the houses into the main building.

Whitley said the church wants to maintain the property, including the current buildings, as presentable as they can.

“We want to keep the site as pristine as possible,” Whitley said. “We want to keep the footprint as small as possible.”

After , Whitley brought forward the issues with traffic and what they intend to do.

“We know that traffic is something we are going to have to deal with,” Whitley said. “It’s something we have to look into and it’s going to be a sensitive issue.”

While he didn’t have specific numbers, he believes traffic volume shouldn’t be a huge issue on Sunday mornings. Proper measures to deal with traffic will be taken once they move further along in the design process.

The planning commission unanimously approved the conditional use, which will go to City Council for discussion in coming weeks.