Record · Local legislation
Middleton Township Trustees — action on Application 2026041 (Liames, LLC), rezoning thirteen parcels in Section 19 to M-1 Light Industrial, 2026-07-07
2026-07-07-liames-rezoning
Fields
instrument
Middleton Township Trustees — action on Application 2026041 (Liames, LLC), rezoning thirteen parcels in Section 19 to M-1 Light Industrial, 2026-07-07
body
Board of Trustees, Middleton Township, Wood County, Ohio
body_kind
township_trustees
subject_matter
zoning
statute
R.C. 519.12
meeting_date
2026-07-07
meeting_kind
special
convened
18:30
adjourned
19:18
application_no
2026041
legal_notice
Published in the Sentinel-Tribune, 2026-06-20, and read into the record by the Fiscal Officer. # [verified]
outcome
approved
outcome_note
[verified] — the minutes state it in terms: "It is noted the application was approved for rezoning. The application will be filed with the Wood County Recorder and also sent to the Wood County Planning Commission."
vote
- motion "to approve the recommendation of the Middleton Township Zoning Commission for the purpose of rezoning thirteen (13) parcels to M-1 based on the details noted in the application"
- motion_moved_by Michael Moulton
- motion_seconded_by Melissa S. Petrea
- the_recommendation_being_approved deny
- roll_call
- trustee Michael Moulton
- vote NO
- trustee Melissa S. Petrea
- vote YES
- trustee Fred E. Vetter
- vote NO
- tally 1-2
- effect [verified] The motion was to ADOPT the zoning commission's recommendation, and that recommendation was to DENY. It failed 1-2, and the minutes record the rezoning as approved.
- press_discrepancy SECONDARY REPORTING HAS THIS BACKWARDS AND SO DID THIS REPO. The register carried "trustees granted it anyway, 2-1 ... Mike Moulton and Fred Vetter in favor, Melissa Petrea against" [reference]. On the face of the minutes the vote is 1-2, and the single YES is PETREA — the trustee reported as the dissenter. Both accounts agree on the outcome and on who was on which side of it; they disagree on the direction of the question. A reader given only the press number would state the tally, the majority and the dissenter's name wrongly while stating the result rightly. The minutes are the record. WHY THIS READING AND NOT THE OBVIOUS ONE. The motion text can be read a second way — "approve the recommendation ... for the purpose of rezoning" as simply "approve the rezoning" — but that reading does not survive its own roll call: 1-2 would then have DEFEATED the rezoning, and the next sentence of the same minutes says it was approved. Only the reading above is self-consistent with the outcome the minutes state. What is NOT resolved is WHY the question was put that way: a deliberate procedural device, an error at the meeting, or a clerical error in the minutes are all live, the minutes give no reason, and none is asserted. The Wood County Recorder's copy of the filed rezoning would corroborate the outcome but not the framing. [open]
parcels
- printed_as The minutes print the auditor's full dashed form (J34-/J36- district prefix + 3-digit map + 12 digits). The committed parcel layer stores the 15-digit remainder — see the deed_id_regex caveat on WOOD_PARCEL_SCHEMA — so both forms are carried.
- from_zoning
- R-4 Residential
- A-1 Agricultural
- to_zoning M-1 Light Industrial
- stated_purpose "construction logistics" — the applicant's own words, as recited by the Wood County Planning Commission's 2026-06-02 agenda; at the hearing counsel framed it as creating "a contiguous M1 zoning for the parcels owned by Liames, LLC". # [verified]
- list
- auditor_id J34-611-190000008000
- parcel_id 611190000008000
- acres 1.59
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J34-611-190000009000
- parcel_id 611190000009000
- acres 1.01
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J34-611-190000010000
- parcel_id 611190000010000
- acres 1.01
- cama_deeded_name SIMON JAY
- auditor_id J34-611-190000022000
- parcel_id 611190000022000
- acres 2.05
- cama_deeded_name PINE APARTMENTS LTD
- auditor_id J34-611-190000025000
- parcel_id 611190000025000
- acres 0.5
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J34-611-190000026000
- parcel_id 611190000026000
- acres 1
- cama_deeded_name P&J THAYER FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSH
- auditor_id J34-611-190000027000
- parcel_id 611190000027000
- acres 2
- cama_deeded_name P&J THAYER FAMILY LTD
- auditor_id J34-611-190000028000
- parcel_id 611190000028000
- acres 4.39
- cama_deeded_name P&J THAYER FAMILY LTD
- auditor_id J36-611-190000033000
- parcel_id 611190000033000
- acres 3.89
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J36-611-190000034000
- parcel_id 611190000034000
- acres 2
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J36-611-190000036001
- parcel_id 611190000036001
- acres 3.33
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J36-611-190000035000
- parcel_id 611190000035000
- acres 1.53
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- auditor_id J36-611-190000037000
- parcel_id 611190000037000
- acres 7.52
- cama_deeded_name LIAMES LLC
- acreage_reconciliation [verified] The thirteen deeded acreages sum to 31.820 — the Wood County Planning Commission's "approximately 31.82 acres" to the hundredth. The 31.82 figure had been carried as press [reference]; it is now a measurement against the auditor's own layer. The eight Liames-name parcels carry 21.37 ac and the other five 10.45 ac.
- ownership_caveat FIVE OF THE THIRTEEN DO NOT STAND IN LIAMES' NAME IN THE COUNTY'S PARCEL LAYER, AND THAT IS A STATEMENT ABOUT JULY 2025, NOT ABOUT THE HEARING. The `cama_deeded_name` above is from a live query of Wood County's Vision_Parcels layer on 2026-08-05, which returned the same 73,839 rows and the same maximum Sale_Date of 2025-07-25 that #1436 recorded — zero rows transfer after that date, so the layer has not been refreshed in more than a year and any transfer after 2025-07-25 is invisible to it. Applicant's counsel told the trustees the parcels are "owned by Liames, LLC" and that "structures on the properties have been razed." Two readings survive and neither is adopted: the five transferred after the snapshot, or Liames applied over land it does not hold of record (which R.C. 519.12 permits — an application is not limited to owners). The Wood County Recorder is the instrument that settles it, and it is logged as a blocked route in record-watch.yaml. What IS established is the identity of the five: an individual owner served as SIMON JAY (1.01 ac, owner-occupied — the tax mailing address IS the situs, which is what identifies it as a residence rather than a holding entity; the layer serves an individual's name without saying which token is the surname, so it is carried as served and never re-ordered), Pine Apartments Ltd (2.05 ac at 21332 Dixie, CAMA use class 401), and the P&J Thayer Family Limited Partnership (three parcels, 7.39 ac). The register previously carried these five as [open].
recommendations
- body Wood County Planning Commission
- date 2026-06-02
- recommendation approve
- note [verified] as recited by the zoning inspector in these minutes ("voted on June 2, 2026, in favor of the rezoning request"). The 6-2 tally is [reference] press; the Planning Commission's own minutes for 2026-06-02 were not published at capture time. Its AGENDA is captured at data/documents/bowling-green/planning-commission/.
- body Middleton Township Zoning Commission
- date 2026-06-10
- recommendation deny
- note [verified] "the Middleton Township Zoning Commission (MTZC) voted on June 10, 2026, to deny the request." The 0-4 tally the register carries is [reference] press.
appearances
- applicant_engineer Barge Design Solutions
- applicant_counsel
- name Chris Ingram, Esq.
- firm Vorys
- note The same firm that appeared for the applicant before the county commissioners on the CRA in September 2023, where the minutes name "Chris Knezevic of Vorys". Two different lawyers, one firm, across three years and two boards — [verified] on each name separately; no claim is made that they are the same person.
- township_counsel
- name Julie Dannon, Esq.
- firm Brosius, Johnson & Griggs
- note THE MINUTES SPELL HER NAME TWO WAYS ON THE SAME PAGE — "Julie Dannon, Esq." in the attendance recital and "Julie Donnan, Esq." / "Ms. Donnan" in the review section. Both are carried verbatim; neither is corrected, because the record does not say which is right.
- township_zoning_inspector Kip McDowell
- fiscal_officer Laurie L. Limes
public_comment
- format Three minutes per speaker, questions gathered and answered together. [verified]
- township_residents
- name Patricia Fugee
- of Dowling Road
- concern the concrete plant, future use of the properties if rezoned, buffering for Dowling Road
- name Tim Hainen
- of Devils Hole Road
- concern that the rezoning is unnecessary and "would set a precedent to allow M-1 next to residential and for future development south of St. Rt. 582"
- non_township_residents
- name Leatra Harper
- representing Fresh Water Accountability
- concern "the companies do not know what they are doing with the land and the complex does not need to get any bigger"; stated the group is fundraising and "plans to employer [sic] lawyers to help assist with their efforts to stop the growth"
- note THE REGISTER CARRIES A "Leslie Harper" AS THE REFERENDUM DRIVE'S COORDINATOR, sourced to press [reference]. The primary record here says Leatra Harper, of Fresh Water Accountability. That is a likely identification of the same person and it is NOT made here — the two names are recorded side by side and the identity stays [open], because nothing in the corpus links the speaker at this hearing to the petition organizer.
- name Chris Coultrip
- of Thompson Road, Perrysburg Township
- concern limiting the megawatts; the ODNR dewatering process
- name John Zanfardino
- of Cambridge Boulevard, Bowling Green
- concern the 'devastation' of the development; that trustees should vote with citizen sentiment
- name Beth Cole
- of Dowling Road
- concern opposition to future development; stated the concrete plant sits on A-1 land
- name Kathy deAlmeida
- of Lyn Road, Bowling Green
- concern acreage owned and buffer zones; that the parcels could be zoned to keep a parklike setting
disclosures
- id ADDITIONAL-NW-PARCEL
- tag [verified]
- statement Applicant's counsel "informed the Board that an additional parcel is currently being reviewed by the Wood County Planning Commission for rezoning from A-1 to M-1 that is located at the northwest corner of the complex."
- reads_on The A. Schaller Limited Partnership 39.265-acre application, docketed by the county for the SAME EVENING (WCPC agenda item 4.b, 2026-07-07). The two boards were sitting on the two halves of this assembly at the same hour.
- id MERCER-ROAD-NOT-USED
- tag [verified]
- statement An exhibit shown at the hearing "shows constraints on St. Rt. 25, noting retention ponds in place, development standards in place due to the M-1 zoning and noted that MERCER ROAD IS NOT BEING UTILIZED FOR THIS PROJECT."
- reads_on The 2023-03-29 Getz rezoning was argued on the ground that using that acreage would mean "the concerns about road access onto Mercer Road could have less impact." Three years apart, the same road, the same answer.
- id PETREA-PARCELS-NOT-IN-PLAN
- tag [verified]
- statement "Mrs. Petrea also stated the initial plans for the data center complex do not include the parcels under review."
- reads_on A trustee's characterization, not a company statement — but it is consistent with the applicant's own stated purpose ("construction logistics") and with the register's reading that these thirteen are a fringe, not campus core.
- id DEWATERING-UNFAMILIAR
- tag [verified]
- statement A resident raised "the ODNR dewatering process"; the minutes record that "Mr. Ingram noted he was not familiar with the dewatering concept."
- reads_on Construction dewatering is an ODNR/Ohio EPA matter that this repo tracks at other sites. No dewatering instrument for this campus is in the corpus. [open]
- id ODOT-CONTROLS-ENTRANCES
- tag [verified]
- statement Trustee Vetter stated "that ODOT, not the township has control over the design or location of the entrances and new entrances may be needed to help with the traffic flow".
- id FIRSTENERGY-ENFORCEMENT
- tag [verified]
- statement "Discussion was held with regard to the FirstEnergy power facility and the continued work by the township to enforce the township zoning regulations."
- reads_on A township enforcement posture toward a FirstEnergy facility, unresolved in these minutes. Note the register's separate finding that the FirstEnergy/ATSI transmission tract (72.43 ac, 22105 Mercer Rd) shares a 0.0 m boundary with the assembly. What the "continued work" is, and whether it is the substation or something else, is [open].
⚠ Gaps in the record
- The tally recorded here (1-2 against a denial recommendation) is the inverse of the tally in circulation (2-1 in favour). Cite this record, not the press number.
- `cama_deeded_name` on the five non-Liames parcels is a ~2025-07-25 snapshot, not a statement about who owned them at the 2026-07-07 hearing.
- The R.C. 519.12 referendum window on this action closed on or about 2026-08-06 and its outcome was NOT captured. See record-watch.yaml → MIDDLETON-REFERENDUM.
Where it connects
bowling-green/middleton-township/2026-07-07-liames-rezoning.resolution.yaml · p.1 · bowling-green