11/10/1998 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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the things he told them was simply follow the law. Mr. Thomas was interested in Council imposing an 80,000 thousand square foot limitation on shops within this shopping center. Mr. Dubelko specifically told Mr. Thomas that the Planning Commission could not make that a condition of approval. Why is that? It's because we are a City of laws and when we restrict any property owners whether residential or business, the use of their properties, you have to do it through laws. We don't have anything in our laws that restricts this property owner to 80,000 square feet. Mr. Dubelko, futher told Mr. Thomas that he was free to make recommendations to Council, but with respect to their own obligations to approve or disapprove a proposal, they should follow the law and approve it or disapprove it based upon it's compliance with the law. That was his advice to them. The reference you made to Mr. Gareau's comments in the news paper Mr. Gareau is entirely correct there is a voluntary agreement between the property owner and the residents, and he knows there was some talk back in 1994 of an agreement between the developer and the residents, and he thinks it's referenced in the minutes that the residents stated they would drop their objections to the store going in if the developer would impose a restriction covenant upon the property, and he doesn't know if that came to pass or not, even if it did, it is not something the City would enforce. The City's job is to enforce the zoning code. If the residents had any type of agreement with the developer, that is not something the City can be involved in and that is something he would leave to the property owners. The residential property owners and the business property owner to resolve in their own fashion. That is not something the City of North Olmsted can rest upon. Our obligation as a City is to enforce the laws. There have been a number of comments and they are fair comments, that the residents deserve consideration from the City. The way residents get consideration is to have a zoning code in place before property owners come in to use their properties. Once those property owners come in and ask to develop, we must ensure that the City enforces the laws as they are written, and as fare, as he can see, this Planning Commission is going to enforce the laws of this City as far as this development is concerned. Mr. Dubelko apologized that his answer was so long, but he hoped it answered Mrs. Herbster's question. Mrs. Herbster remembered coming to those meetings and discussing combining two stores and how all the residents were totally against making two stores into one. Furthermore it was her understanding it would never happen. She thought the stores that were going to go in there were going to be in there five, six or more years, and one of them wasn't even in there a year, now the other ones are leaving after a couple of years. Mrs. Herbster indicated she just didn't feel it was right having a big store there on one dinky little street, one two lane street, and a four lane street that can't take the traffic as it is. Ms. Kummer who lives on Porter Road indicated the Law Director NIr. Gareau was nice enough to call me and explain to me what was in those minutes and exactly what happened what you started to say, but she is not sure if a lot of the residents are aware of this, and indicated Giant Eagle still doesn't have a representative here and they still wont know. She was hopping they would be here because they are in Pittsburgh and don't know anything about what we have been going through for the past four years. These residents contributed donated hundreds of their own money to print up flyers and inform their neighbors because no one wanted to generate all this traffic they spent countless hours coming up here to these meetings saying the same things were say now. They worked so hard when Wal-Mart decided to build over on Brookpark Road many of the same people kept coming back to ensure that what went into Water Tower Square was appropriate for that site that bordered on their back yards. Carnegie Management proposed this dead restriction at a Planning Commission meeting 10