Foraker

Reducing excess capacity also decreases maintenance costs. Every government project should include an analysis of the next 20 years of maintenance costs. But ribbon cutting is far more fun than maintenance, so yes, politically not likely to happen. If only there were politicians who understood fiscal responsibility.

I like this condition specified in the approval: https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/10494/Planning-Commission-Actions-February-9-2022?bidId= Also note that the approvals require construction to be complete within 36 months -- so we have the beginnings of a timeline -- approximately 2/2022-2/2025!

As others have noted, there is a lot of greenspace in this area (Cain Park, high school, Fairfax Elementary, Shaker Lakes, not to mention that the development also includes added green space and public gathering space, just not what the park proponents want). If CH is going to invest in a new park, it should be north of Mayfield. There's not as much green space between Forest Hills and Denison. But also, the city has been struggling to maintain the parks that it has -- there is no money to invest in something that is going to increase their maintenance budget.

1. Chelsea Dr. (7:00 mark) (between Mayfield and Monticello) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDp8Thlvcs 2. I don't know -- but she was a vocal opponent of Top of the Hill, (and almost everything else in the city). I think the city has done a much better job with community engagement on Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook than it did on Top of the Hill -- much more open process once Eric Zamft took over Planning.

I think that they SHOULD raise the $18,000 to cover the cost (if they can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a park, surely they can raise that amount, right?) -- but the City will have to pay for it if the petitioners ask for it to be put on the ballot after the City Council declined to do so. They have some number of days (10? 15?) to make a formal request, and Fran Mentsch has said that they would be doing so.

Cedar/Lee/Meadowbrook is moving along! A traffic and parking study has been completed. Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) approved the project on January 19, 2022. Planning Commission expected to approve the project on February 9, 2022 (second meeting on the project). Architectural Board of Review (ABR) had a first meeting on the preliminary design in December, and will meet to consider and approve the project plans on March 1, 2022. https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/9557/Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook-Framework-of-Meetings-Framework_20220126?bidId= It looks like a March groundbreaking might be possible. City Council rejected the petition to put the 1-acre development-killing park on the ballot; ballot proponents say that they are going to ask to have the initiative put on the ballot. But they did not raise the $18,000 it will cost the city and have not announced any funds raised for construction or maintenance on their proposed park design. In declining to adopt the petition, City Council noted that the ballot initiative would conflict with an existing city contract with Flaherty & Collins. Let's hope the ballot initiative goes down in flames so that we avoid any further litigation on that point. The City bought the former animal hospital property, and is in the process of buying the former beauty school property on Cedar. (I thought that had already been done, but at the City Council meeting on February 7, 2022, I thought the Mayor said that they were still negotiating on the final price for the beauty school -- can anyone confirm?)

Good idea. Funding is the issue. Low-income housing requires government subsidies and there just isn't a lot of money. Cleveland is doing this -- see this article about Woodhill Station. https://neo-trans.blog/2021/08/09/circle-square-ohio-city-van-aken-district-woodhill-station-show-whats-possible/ Cleveland needs to be doing a lot more TOD. And that TOD should include low-income housing, but financially it's more likely to be mixed-income (and that might be a good thing -- as long as the volume of low-income housing units is significant).

While use of eminent domain has been restricted, if they do find unpaid taxes that exceed the appraised value, a long-term vacant building, and a failing (and hazardous) parking garage, then eminent domain may very well be in order here to address those problems. Who is responsible for maintaining the parking garage? I don't know what Macy's objections might be, maybe they are just not paying any attention to this property as Htsguy said. It would be interesting to see what the "construction, operation and reciprocal easement agreement" says, maybe that would give us some clue about what Macy's is aiming for if not just neglect.

I'm willing to consider alternatives, particularly at a lower cost, but we really need a better Amtrak station, and getting to the current location is made far more difficult by the Shoreway being a limited-access "interstate" rather than a boulevard. So "basically leave the shoreway the same" gives me a lot of concern, but maybe you've got a solution. How do you envision a new train station and access to it in your "just widen E9th" plan?

How are you defining "region"? Seems like the Cleveland-Elyria MSA continues to lose population. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CVLPOP

Ohio voters asked for fairer districts, and Republican politicians decided otherwise in a move reminiscent of "poor winners" in Little League. It will be interesting to see what the Ohio Supreme Court says about these new maps. Will they look at all of the proposed maps that have been shown to be compliant and force the Republicans to choose? Will they throw up their hands and say "we can't legislate from the bench?" Will they reject these maps and ask for another redo? (My bet is on #2) Race issues are yet to be litigated in the federal courts, and that may yet toss out these maps. What a mess.

Unlikely. As Boomerang_Brian noted the 3C&D route is well to the west of New Albany. But maybe Columbus could be convinced to run a (light?) rail line from a downtown 3C&D station to the airport and then out to New Albany and Newark. That airport connection would probably be more valuable to Intel than a rail connection to 3C&D.

I would add that we had a harder time retaining new hires when everyone was remote. Onboarding is hard enough, and with the lack of in-person contact I think you lose any sense of loyalty to a particular company that you might gain from being there and building relationships with coworkers. It will be interesting to see if studies show more turnover in remote workplaces.

Agree 100%. We were fully remote for months, but our office downtown has been back to full occupancy since June. Masks in common areas, as required by the building, but masks off at workspace, everyone vaccinated. Thankfully, (knock on wood) we haven't had any serious illnesses. The elevators are still empty -- seems like we're the only floor in operation in the building. Still some grumbling about being in the office, but it's far easier to just stop by and "bounce ideas" around in person than via a remote call (where everyone turns their camera off and you know at least half of them have tuned out).

Ohio isn't the only train-incompetent state -- Wisconsin-bought trains for high speed rail eventually sold to Nigeria instead. “It's kind of an absurd ending to an absurd tale,” [Milwaukee Alderman Robert] Bauman told Wisconsin Public Radio. In recounting the decade-long saga, Bauman wondered, “Who buys a set of train cars, refuses to complete the contract, ends up getting sued, settles, pays out another $50-some million in damages, and then you don't even get the cars?” https://www.wpr.org/trains-intended-unbuilt-milwaukee-madison-high-speed-rail-line-going-nigeria

Thanks for that summary. If you are going to raise the rail bed at Red Line stations to accommodate lower-floor LRVs, couldn't you also move the tracks closer to the platform to reduce/eliminate that gap with the platform edge?

I don't see a link -- can someone provide a link to the survey?

Yes, a lane is blocked off. No, it hasn't been terrible for traffic. But then how many people are now (temporarily?) working from home? I do agree that a road diet, some traffic calming features, and wider sidewalks would be great for the business district.

Another article about the ballot initiative. https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/news/local_news/cleveland-heights-residents-fight-for-park-on-site-of-proposed-development/article_c1df4ffa-73a8-11ec-b9b9-9f2110072157.html

The political perspective is an important one, but it's not at all clear how that would impact this particular issue. The pro-park group was spearheaded by one person who was very, very committed and determined to get this issue on the ballot. When a potential petition-signer couldn't be convinced of the virtues of the park over the development this person would say "signing the petition just puts it on the ballot and lets voters decide" -- and this person was very persistent. (In my opinion this person could be an asset to the community if all that energy were put toward a more productive goal.) This situation stands in contrast to the situation where there is a groundswell of popular opinion across a diverse cross-section of a community that leads to the ballot initiative. I would bet that a lot of people do not know the ramifications of this initiative and haven't been paying much attention to it at all -- but I fully expect the City and other groups will be ramping up the presses now and the public is going to be hearing a lot more about it between now and the election.

I agree with everything you said but this. F&C would only have to go to court IF the City tried to enforce the ballot initiative. If the city lawyer issues a legal opinion that the initiative is unconstitutional, that suggests that attempting to enforce it would create a liability for the City, and the Mayor could take the position that he cannot enforce it for that reason. Council could pass legislation overturning the ballot initiative (although I don't know whether legislation can overturn a ballot initiative) or a resolution supporting the Mayor's decision not to enforce. Yes, if the ballot initiative passes the mess only gets deeper and smellier. That's an understatement. Any rumors on the Taylor-Tudors RFP/RFQs?

Thank you for that explanation. What a mess. What's the best path forward? I assume that they should act quickly and allow the measure to go onto the ballot (and avoid the added expense of a special election), campaign against the measure and hope it fails. But if it passes, the city could just ignore it -- we have a legal opinion that says the law is unconstitutional, we cannot enforce it. Let Madam Mench go to court to try to enforce it. Am I missing anything?

Thank you Yabo for acknowledging that BLM protesters had genuine grievances. Many Conservatives refuse to admit this fact. Many Conservatives also refuse to acknowledge that almost all of the BLM protests were peaceful. To say that the Left is condoning or dismissing that violence is not based on facts -- Democratic Party politicians have come out almost uniformly against rioting. Riots did take place in some places after day-long peaceful protests, but they were almost universally condemned, on both the Right and the Left. The Democrats can say "I understand why you are angry" and also "but you still have to face the consequences of your actions" -- just because Democrats understand the frustrations that lead to BLM protests does not mean Democrats support or accept rioting. In fact, most Democrats called out the rioters and agreed with Republicans in saying that they should face consequences for their destruction. The attack on the Capital was intended to use violence to disrupt a government function -- that's a completely different animal. I agree with Yabo here -- Dolan is the only reasonable option and despite early optimism I have been very disappointed in Timken and Gibbons.

No. The Right does include libertarians, but the Republican party is not anti-government intervention. Remember the Republican push for the government to intervene on behalf of Terry Schiavo? And the ever-present intervention of the government between a woman and her doctor on abortion? Gay marriage? The Republican Senate candidates are all asking for more government action to keep out immigrants, prevent women and doctors from abortions, and to favor oil&gas subsidies over renewable energy industries. Oh, many of them want to prevent government from even asking citizens to take any care for their community by masking, vaccinating, or social distancing. (Shame on Governor DeWine!)

And John Cranley announced that Toledo-area senator Theresa Fedor would be his running mate. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/01/ohio-democratic-governor-hopefuls-john-cranley-nan-whaley-unveil-running-mates.html