Bath Township, OH

Bath Township is an affluent bedroom community close to Akron in northeastern Ohio. It is also within commuting distance of Cleveland (about 20 miles). The setting is a glacial valley with a rural atmosphere, containing rolling woodlands and agricultural land, but with increasing commercial growth and housing developments. The majority of Bath Township lies in the Yellow Creek watershed. Yellow Creek is 10 miles long and flows into the Cuyahoga River in Akron, which then flows north through the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park up to Cleveland and into Lake Erie.

The issue in Bath Township then is not necessarily an excessive growth rate; it is that the citizens of Bath Township place a high value on natural features. In this primarily rural area, the community (which has had many longtime residents) has always been sensitive to the creek. Most of the township obtains drinking water from wells, which are recharged from surface water in the watershed.

What is unusual about Bath is that it was the first township in Ohio to pursue riparian zoning. Several incorporated municipalities in Ohio had adopted similar programs before Bath did, but riparian protection was initially not considered to fall under a township’s state-designated zoning authority. Because of this, Bath Township’s program was controversial at the time. Since 2000, riparian protection in Ohio has become more accepted as a township zoning activity for public health and safety reasons—namely, flooding, erosion, and water quality.

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