02/11/1997 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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it is bad to begin with, and these traff'ic experts, are trying to tell the residents that it will not be worse if they put in a Home Depot and a Home Place and a couple of other stores. In read.ing the minutes of the meeting, Mr. Wentzel stated that there would be a 3% growth. Since he did not understand this, he checked with the city traffic expert, Mr. Griffith, because they (the traffic consultants) had talked with him. He advised that they are referring to figures that are put out by Cuyahoga County who had figured out that on an annual basis there is an average increase throughout the cou.nty of 3.5% automatically every year, 3.5%, not 3%. Mr. Griffith went on to say that this is not spread out evenly, what really happens is that in the high impact areas with a lot of traffic, that figure slioots up much higher than 3.5% and in the areas like the westem end of the city there is hardly any increase at all. Mr. Wentzel fiurther said that in addition to the annual automatic increase there would be an increase of 6% from the retail development that would go on Parcel "E". That is probably a 10 to 12% increase iu traffic in an area that is all ready a higln impact area according to the figures that he just presented. He advised that there are times when the residents of Park West cannot get out of either Mitchell or Westview Drives onto Columbia or Lorain Roads because traffic is backed up at Lorain and Columbia all the way down to Brookpazk Road, and there have been times when it went arou.nd the corner down Brookpark Road toward Grace. On the other side of Lorain Road, the traffic backs up at that intersection all the way back to the Baptist. Church. A driver cannot get through there as easily as before, even with the new signalization and who knows how much the State is spending on the signalization, the computerizing of the traffic signals; it is worse now than it has ever been. This intersection is one of the highest accident sections in the city and the county. The developers have the gall to say that the residents are not going to see any impact of any more traffic by rezoning this land and developing it for retail. Who is kidding who, let's face facts. Mr. Richardson also said that retail is North Olmsted's economic background. Mr. Skoulis disagreed. He stated that he misplaced his figures but that he talked to the Finance Director who told him that in 1995 the city collected a little more than 8 million dollars in real estate taxes from all real estate. When he broke the figures down, it turned out that the residents paid the bulk of that and the commercial paid a smaller portion, 20 or 30%, but he forgot exactly what it was. Then he went on to say that they collect 8 million dollars in city income tax from the residents and people who work here. Take that 16 million dollars and compare that to the portion of that 16 million that was paid by the commercial interest in the city, the figure came out to 17%; in other words, the citizens are paying 83% and the commercial interest are payiug 17%. He asked who is the backbone of the city using those figures. He also asked what it costs to have all this commercial development, what is the cost to expand the Fire Department because of the increase in fires and the Police Department because of the increase of traffic, the cost to send police to the court house to prosecute people they have arrested for various things. As Mr. Barnett said, has anybody stopped to consider what the cost is to the homeowner because of the loss of value to their homes because we have all the commercial development and the other communities do not. He pointed out some very interesting figures. If a resident sold their home today and went to buy a similar home in Westlake or Rocky River, or any place else, it would be dollars out of their pocket. They would have to go mto deeper debt to buy that home. There are a lot of people living in their development who are old and ill, and if this land is rezoned they would want to move away from here. They cannot move because they are living on fixed incomes, and it is not fair to them. Mi. Corsi had stated that at the time the Corporate Center was sold the vacancy rate was 15% and it had never had over 80% occupancy: He did not thiuk this sounded right because 15% and 80% made 95%, not 100%. He pointed out that last July, Duke Realty of Indianapolis started buying up office buildings all over town. They are buying all kinds of property one the east side, and now they have come over to the_ west side. They purchased Corporate Center I and II, and in five months time, Duke Realty, accord.ing to Crain's Cleveland Business Report, had reduced the vacancy factor down to 3% and Corporate Center I and II are making money, and Duke Realty was so enthusiastic about this area being good for office buildings, they agreed to buy the 12 aeres of empty land behind the Moen 16