Granville hires first planning and development director as it prepares for Intel
As the Village of Granville deals with growth in addition to the Intel Corporation's upcoming development in Licking County, it's hired someone solely dedicated to planning and development.
Darryll Wolnik, a Cleveland native, started May 10 as the village's first planning and development director.
While this is Wolnik's first time in a director-level position, he has plenty of planning and leadership experience.
More: Granville aims to attract more commercial business, grow tax base as Intel looms
He spent a decade as a municipal planner in both Utah and Colorado while earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He returned to Ohio as an Ohio State University doctorial student, but ultimately decided to return to the field before earning a degree in city and regional planning.
"I was really happy to take the job," he said. "I'm grateful for the opportunity to put my director hat on."
Granville Village Manager Herb Koehler said Wolnik's leadership experience comes from serving as a corporal with the U.S. Marines, which included time overseas in combat, and as a SWAT team leader while he was a police officer. Koehler, who is an Army veteran, said the skills Wolnik developed working with small teams will translate well as he leads the three-person planning and development department.
"I will always give a veteran applicant a chance to interview just because there's that intangible skill set you just don't see in a lot of the population that I'm familiar with, but I know that pays big dividends," Koehler said.
The new position was created, Koehler said because the village has set records each of the last two years for the number of planning and development applications received. It got to the point the department couldn't the workload as a two-person team.
By creating the director position to handle the administrative management, it frees up Village Planner Debi Walker Yost and Assistant Village Planner Jennifer Rubal to address the day-to-day applications, Koehler said.
Wolnik is prepared to deal with growth and wants to ensure the village handles it properly. The city he previously worked for, Johnstown, Colorado, rapidly grew from about 3,000 people in 2000 to more than 17,000 people, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
"My last job I worked for was growing fast and things had sort of got out of control for them," he said. "Having a place where everything was established, all the frameworks, the ordinances were already there and just need tweaking appealed to me."
And with Intel's computer chip manufacturing facility about 13 miles away, changes will be coming to the area.
"You don't have control over whether it happens because it's going to," he said. "You just have to establish your frameworks, establish your boundaries, create good plans to make sure that you can see this stuff happen the way you want it to in line with what you already have."
As someone who is new to the area as well as his experience working in other planning departments, Wolnik said he brings a fresh perspective to Granville.
"We can make little tweaks to things," he said. "They don't have to be overwhelming changes, but we can make changes here and there to make it so that the planning process can move faster for folks."
Wolnik will adjust the village's processes so that when someone wants to make a small change, such as adding porch handrail, that the village can administratively approve it instead of sending it to the planning commission.
"We can apply the same standards that planning commission would apply while getting her approved faster, and also not burdening planning commission with those micro things because their job is to look at a macro level, 30,000-foot-view and create plans, look at big projects," he said.
Another aspect of Wolnik's position is economic development, something the village has not had a dedicated person to address, Koehler said.
Wolnik said as planning and economic development go hand in hand because as a planner, he knows the requirements and zoning and can guide new commercial developments through the process.
Wolnik said the village wants to be stringent on its rules, but transparent with them so people understand what's expected.
"If you have good plans in place, good comprehensive plans and your ordinances are good, if you stick to those guns and stick to what's worked in the past to give you this beautiful community that sets a hard standard that folks know they can't cross that line and they know what's expected," he said. "There’s serious expectation that you either meet it or you don't."
He said when communities waiver in their standards, that creates confusion. Wolnik is creating an application checklist so people know exactly what's needed.
"We want it to be easy to come to us and talk to us. We want to be accessible," he said. "The rules are strict, possibly. But the information is open and easy to understand. That's what we're going for."
mdevito@gannett.com
740-607-2175
Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Granville hires first planning and development director as Intel prep
