05/17/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Council Minutes of 5/17/2005 the community, otherwise we may as well throw away the Planning Commission and other boards. A person who presents a plan is asking for permission to go through with the plan and offering something in favor of the permission. It is a full contract and in force because law recognizes tape recordings and documentations of the meetings as contractual. Those individuals who came in from Carnegie Mgt. presented a plan some time ago and, after a lot of compromising on both sides (residents compromised also) to make this plan go and a lot of struggling and effort, they finally came up with a plan to agree to do something. Mr. Schiely brought a lawyer to the meeting who referred to the program as though they were giving something back because in their original proposal they had gone beyond the minimum requirements of city codes to add some buffering and a little bit farther parking lot. Now, they want to take it back. As far as he is concerned, when the developer presented the original plans and made a contractual agreement with this community to do that, all those other minimums are out of the mix. The only way they can change that minimum is to come back with an argument that is so strong that Council has to look at it. 1Vir. Gareau asked the proper question-what is it? Is it about the money? Carnegie management never came in and said yes it's about the money nor did they bring in some form of documentation to prove they would lose a lot of money without changing the plans. They came in with nothing but that they wanted to change it. Realistically, there would have been grounds to deny approval. If the city wanted to spend the money to take that forward into court, the developer would have a hard time proving he didn't contract with this community. Sometimes you have to take the risk for the residents you represent. He is sorry that was not done. It's unfortunate because in goes another piece of retail into an area that's probably 65% supporting retail and '/o of the residents in this community. Law Director Dubelko answered that the city does not have a contract with this developer, and the rights and responsibilities are not those that are governed by contract as it is in many other instances. Relationships are governed by law, and it is governed by the Zoning Code. This is a matter of private property rights. When cities desire to restrict a private property owner's use of a property, they have to do it through their laws. Primarily, through their zoning code. He has a lot of sympathy for a lot of the issues that have been raised, and he has sympathy for Mr. McKay's issue of how many times do we have to suffer a developer to come back and propose amendments. We don't have anything in our code that limits the number of times they can propose amendments. When they do propose amendments, they've got to be within code. We do a little more in North Olmsted than some other communities. Not only do we require they be at code minimums, but we also require they show that there is no adverse impact on certain areas. When a developer comes back and submits a proposed amendment, we have to treat it the same way if it was the first, second, third or fourth time. When we say we're going to restrict that property owner from developing, whether original or as amended, we go by our codes-not by the fact we believe we have a contract relationship. Sometimes the word "contract" is used in a figurative sense. Legally speaking, we have no contract with the developer. We have codes we seek to enforce in restricting their use of private property. ® Councilman Gareau said he agreed with Mr. Dubelko's comments. There is no such thing as a contract in this. There are representations. The developer has rights that are granted by the code. Our code for this situation calls for a suitable screen. We need 12