Brutus_buckeye

who said they were speculators? A lot of times they may have inherited the property from family or come about it through other means. These owners are often teachers, fire fighters/policemen, union workers, nurses, etc. who look to grow their nest egg or at least preserve it because they may not trust the market. They are every day individuals. If you have been around Cincinnati for a long time and remember the Rookwood exchange development, were the many holdouts who refused to sell for that development speculators? Some owned the property for 50 years, others bought as a small rental but that even when the neighborhood changed, they still did not want to sell. These are not speculators who came upon the property with the hope someday that it would turn into the next "it" development. Many of the small owners in OTR, and Prospect Hill purchased their properties many years ago, long before the prospects of OTR became what they became today. They had no idea this area would appreciate like it has. They are not speculators. They were just fortuitous. The developer will make a lot of money on their project anyway. Policies such as the ones proposed will just squeeze the little guy more and reward the deep pocketed and politically connected developer. Don't get me wrong. There is obviously a benefit to developing properties and making a walkable community. there is a benefit to keeping blight away and parking lots certainly do not fit that goal. However, policies like this are not as simple as they are presented and they do have unintended consequences. One of those unintended consequences is the redistributive effect to the detriment of lower to middle income property owners to the benefit of wealthy developers. This is clearly a policy that will have that effect.

But the issue that is being overlooked here is which party gets harmed the most by this. I know there are a lot of members on city council that pretend to care about the little guy and minorities and love to virtue signal on that stuff, but this is a perfect example of that in action. The issue is there are a lot of small time owners who are barely holding on who may have a hovel or two in the area or who may have had family who grew up in that building years ago and have passed ownership along through the years. Many of these individuals are likely minorities. They may no longer live in the neighborhood but live modestly elsewhere in the city. they have held on to the property for numerous reasons one of which is that the property is a small asset they have and use as a nest egg for their rainy day or to send their kids to college. These individuals are not millionaires but just regular individuals. These policy essentially destroy their wealth or what little wealth they have and transfer it to the pockets of a larger developer who can better develop the property or who can land bank it for years in order to create a larger development. So yes, from a pure land use policy, it may seem appealing, but the reality is that it has a disparate impact on poorer landowners with little wealth and transfers the benefit to richer developers.

This is not a good plan and it will in the short term diminish the value of land in the city. Yes, parking lots are not great uses of property but, they are meant to generate some income for short term periods while a developer can put together multiple parcels to make a larger development. While this may seem minor, all these restrictions make development a much harder hurdle to achieve in the city. Also, the thing is, it will only harm the little guy, or even the minority property owner the most. There are a decent amount of run down properties in the area that individuals may have purchased cheaply decades ago or they inherited from their families and the property is essentially a nuisance they cannot get rid of now. Such restrictions only diminish the value that a developer or other investor will pay this individual for the ability to purchase and hold the property because it created higher carrying costs for the developer. The loser in this is the small property owner who takes less money because the developer who will buy it has more limited options on use. Temporary parking lots are not the worst things in the world.

It is interesting here because I have seen some working papers about a broader move to crackdown on street parking and parking congestion in the area. Everything is preliminary right now but there are obviously tensions between businesses and rsidents regarding the lack of parking in OTR namely and the continued development of the area with higher end housing without parking and having residents cars fill the streets and clutter things up. IMO it is a good problem to have, but I guess they are gathering ideas on how to deal with this, some good, some bad have been discussed from what I have seen (from lowering the available density in the area)

let me rephrase. While I would have thought a project would have happened by now, in the current financing environment, I can see how it would be difficult given the economics of such a build to happen.

South Bend has morphed over the years. The economic drivers of the town are the hospital system and Notre Dame which is NE of downtown. As seen the last few years with COVID, there is not the demand for a huge concentrated job base in downtown towers anymore. This is playing out even more so in 2nd tier cities like SB, Dayton, Fort Wayne, etc. The large admin staffs that filled up the glass towers can now work remote or even international.

I am surprised they have not announced another apartment complex at the Banks across from Radius. You would think the demand is certainly there.

absolutely. Sticking it to the libs is actually sticking it to McConnell.

You have to wonder if Trump’s big plan with his endorsements is meant to keep McConnell from becoming majority leader again. If GOP right wingers win and deny MCConnell Trump gets what he wants. If Dems win and McConnel is denied, Trump also gets what he wants

I do find those ads to be a bit clever and I laugh at how many words beginning with "T" can be strung together at one time.

While that idea makes complete common sense and should be a no brainer to try and accomplish, I am sure there is going to be a lot of red tape and bureaucratic issues with the licensing that would prevent this from ever happening.

They should expand the Brady a bit and make it a sportsbook. It would get people down there 365 days a year, and really make days when there are sporting events going on even more busy.

Chatfield was not a fit for the neighborhood anymore. They would be better off in the west end or over in price hill

The governor polling was not spot on. IN 2018 you had an incumbent in the Senate who was popular in the state and was easily able to win. Given that it is an open seat with less name recognition on both candidates, I would tend to think it is going to lead to more variation.

In Ohio, it seems like based on recent poll history, unless the polls are a D+3-D+4 I would tend to think the Republican is winning.

The only thing I was disputing was that it erodes the separation of powers. I disagree as it created a stalemate. My main point was that if anything, it calls into light the constitutional amendments passed by voters that often are poorly drafted and do not provide adequate mechanisms for resolving such disputes.

Not really. Remember the court cant legislate hence, they could not make the decision to draw the lines themselves or provide the guidance on what that would look like. That would be legislating by the court. They can only invalidate a law. Hence the stalemate. Both branches are exerting their power to their authority and refusing to back down. Now maybe the executive branch could have broken the tie and sided with the Court but they were likely to side with the legislature given the makeup. So ultimately, the final artibers on this would be the voters who choose the governor/SOS/etc. Also, the law was clearly not drafted well. Otherwise, there would have been a better way to resolve the matter

It can enjoin an unconstitutional law. In this case, it ruled the redistricting unconstitutional. It told the commission to go back and rewrite it. The commission did that. The court did not like it. The commission made tweaks again, the court did not like it in their opinion. The court did not have any power to force the commission to come up with a map that met the court's satisfaction. They could only say no. All they could do was create a stalemate.

It is poorly written enforcement clause. They may have the power to decide if they are constitutional, but they do not have the power to actually force the legislature or redistricting commission to comply with the vision that they feel is constitutional. They can order them back to the drawing board, numerous times (which is what happened), but beyond tweaks that were not sufficient to the visions of some members of the court, they really had no other power to force the commission to bend to the court's will which created the stalemate you saw last year. It was pretty much inevitable.

The court has a lot of power on numerous matters. It can enjoin, it can throw people in jail, it can do a lot of things. The problem here is their decision is one of those items that crosses from the judicial to legislative and they do not have the power to force the legislature to do something. They can invalidate the law but they do not have the power to force the legislature to come up with a new law that suits their preferences. They cannot tell the legislature or redistricting commission to write the law to conform with the interpretation of Plan A or Plan B. The court cannot decide that matter, which effectively makes their decision political. Their whole problem with the pissing match that occurred over the last year was that the only realistic outcome was the outcome that came from the decision.

I have always felt they should put a spur to the Casino but maybe they should continue it up Gilbert to Walnut Hills vs going up the hill to Clifton by UC. There are certainly benefits to going to the UC area as it connects to the huge population and business in that area, but Walnut Hills along Gilbert is a much easier grade and that area is really coming on strong. Plus, if they go up Glibert, you connect to the Art Museum (possibly Playhouse with the stairs at the bottom of Gilbert) and you can get pretty close to the innovation district. It also encourages more development on the other side of 71 with the link to the streetcar in Walnut Hills. You connect the Spur to Museum center and now you have FC Stadium, Museum Center, Casino, Art Museum/Playhouse, Reds stadium, old arena, Wash Park, Music Hall, Aronoff, Findlay Market, Library, Kroger, SCPA, Rhinegiest and OTR, and Courthouses along the streetcar line. Run it up the hill on Gilbert and you connect to thousands of people living there who can take it downtown to their jobs. How many urban circulators or even light rail lines in cities have connections to that many cultural/entertainment destinations in their city. As someone living in the burbs, this gives me a reason to park on the fringes of town and take the streetcar when I go to an event downtown. RIght now, it just does not offer enough destinations to connect with. The only key destination that would not be connected to the line is the Convention Center. Look at Cleveland, Buffalo, or St. Louis. Those lines may run through town but they do not offer the connectivity to as many key locations as the streetcar could if they built an additional east west spur.

because the Ohio Supreme court really did not have the power to actually do anything about it. They may not have agreed with the redistricting commission but beyond the giant pissing match that it had devolved into, they really did not have much power to do much about it. It was like the public school funding decision from 25 years ago. They ruled public school funding in Ohio was unconstitutional, but nothing actually came of it. Same thing here.

I have worked with small towns, townships, and cities. It is so much easier to get things done through the small town if it is outside the box than in the big city. I do not like dealing with city administration on projects because too often than not the elected officials get in the way (of course i have been jaded a bit by the last 4 years in cincinnati with their corrupt council),

Why preserve the grandstand for no purpose. It seems like it could quickly become an eyesore.

But at least with small towns there is more accountability and you know where the buck stops. Big cities have too many layers and there is the opportunity for plausible deniability by corrupt leaders. It is harder to keep them in line. Small towns are just more plentiful and you have to deal with a lot more people who are in control of their fiefdoms but that is often easier than dealing with the large city bureaucracy