Eminent domain revisited, and why simply passing Issue 16 isn't enough.
As I wrote the other day, citizens in our fair city of Sylvania, Ohio will soon have the opportunity to terminate one of the more flagrant abuses of political power in recent memory. The City Council has begun eminent domain proceedings to seize land owned by a local church, on which the church intends to build a school expansion. Citizens for Sylvania has gathered enough petition signatures to obligate the City to place an issue on the November ballot: Issue 16. A yes vote, which I am hopeful will be the result, will obligate Council to abandon its eminent domain action. This would be good, but by itself it will not be the end of the story.

The process of building most anything in a non-rural community involves two distinct steps, handled by different parts of the city or township government. The first is to obtaining zoning approval (which may require any number of combinations of Planning Commissions, Zoning Boards of Appeal, and City Council approvals to obtain, depending on the community and circumstances); the second is to obtain a building permit. Building permits are easy to get, and the biggest source of rejection is incomplete engineering drawings. This step is sometimes tedious, but the outcome is rarely in doubt.

Zoning approval is different. Each community one works in will have greatly varying zoning laws and processes for obtaining this approval, but the goal is the same: to ensure that new construction is appropriate for the neighborhood it’s being built in. This has some good intentions behind it and is probably indispensable; it’s the zoning process that prevents noxious industrial facilities being built in the middle of residential neighborhoods or downtown commercial districts, and constructions similarly offensive to existing neighbors.

Most cities have a dozen or more zoning designations: several each residential zones; agricultural zones; commercial zones; industrial zones; and one called Planned Unit Development. The last one is used in special cases which would otherwise require a zoning variance, and is extremely restrictive of future changes which might be considered by the owner.

The property the Lathrop House currently stands on is likely zoned either Residential-1 or Residential-2 (both medium density residential). Typically R-1 and R-2 have permitted uses which include single family dwellings (SFDs); accessory outbuildings like garden sheds; and public utility lines and wires and so forth. A building like a school would likely be a conditional use, meaning the zoning approval should eventually be issued unless, well, there’s a good reason not to.

Now with non-permitted uses either a zoning variance or a zoning change would be required, neither of which is usually easy to get, and it's often more sensible simply to buy a different property to begin with. A conditional use zoning approval is much easier to get, but unlike a permitted use, it’s not a slam dunk.

To get a conditional use permit, it’s necessary first for the Planning Commission to review the application and vote to approve it. In most cities the Planning Commission can only recommend, not grant, approval, and the matter is ultimately decided by a vote by the City Council. Council, in my experiences, has much of their own political agenda tied up in how they ultimately vote on the matter; whether the review of the facts by the Planning Commission resulted in a favorable or unfavorable vote often isn’t primary. Even if the use is conditionally permitted, and the Planning Commission recommends approval, Council can overrule them and deny the permit if they are disposed to be hostile to the applicant, and if they can find a good reason.

Those “good reasons” are pretty easy to find. Most city ordinances allow for the rejection of an otherwise acceptable conditional use application for any number of reasons, often including a catchall judgment provision at the end. If Council concludes, without proof, and solely in its judgment, that the issuance of the conditional use permit would have some adverse effect on the neighbors or the neighborhood, or that nearby property values may be diminished, it can reject the application based solely on that.

This means that the passage by the voters of Issue 16 won’t really be adequate by itself. After being thwarted by the church’s appeal over Council’s head, I rather doubt that Council would be inclined to approve the conditional use permit. If Council thinks that Lathrop House is really a historical treasure, surely they would be likely to conclude that approving the church’s conditional use application would have an adverse effect on the neighborhood if the approval is granted. In that case it could take a long court struggle to get the rejection overturned, even if the effort was ultimately successful, which it likely wouldn’t be. The church isn’t likely to gain approval in that environment for a conditional use permit any time quickly.

I’ve exchanged a couple of interesting emails with a gentleman who has been in a position to be familiar with the ongoing negotiations in the matter, from St Joseph’s side of the table. Once I realized that the project would still be in jeopardy if the current council members had any say in the matter, I asked for a few details about the positions of the individual members. Much of what follows below was gleaned from this correspondence, for which I am grateful.

Sylvania City Council is comprised of seven individuals: Keith Haddad; John Billis; Todd Milner; Bonita Scheidel; Read Backus; Patrick Kriner; and Barbara Sears. My first question was whether Council had acted unanimously throughout the proceedings over the past two years, making all members equally complicit in this fiasco. Here’s a crib sheet for interested voters considering their Council votes:

All seven members of council unanimously approved the eminent domain proceedings.
Haddad, the Council President, has supported the City’s actions at every step.
Billis has supported the City’s actions at every step.
Milner has supported the City’s actions at every step.
Scheidel has supported the City’s actions at every step.

Backus, Kriner, and Sears are somewhat less complicit than the above Gang of Four, who I believe should be voted from office with extreme prejudice for their roles in this mess. The other three have some reduced culpability, though none is blameless:

Sears made a motion to reconfiguring the city’s negotiation team with the object of getting an agreement before the election, which seems to represent a final good faith effort to solve this amicably. The Gang of Four, above, voted it down by a 4-3 vote, preferring to stay their course.
Sears and Kriner both say they are sympathetic with the church’s position, and find the proposed move to be an acceptable outcome.
Backus is not opposed to the move in principle, but finds the particular site proposed as the house’s new location to be objectionable.

From all this I conclude that a vote for Haddad, Billis, or Scheidel, is a vote for aggressive, bullying, busybodying in our City government. I recommend you do not vote for any of them. Milner is not standing for re-election on this ballot, so we will have to wait till next time to try to unelect him.

Sears, Kriner, and Backus, all of whom have conducted this business basically acceptably, are not standing for re-election this time.

Of the four challenger candidates on the ballot, three have specifically endorsed a termination of the eminent domain proceedings and a Yes vote on Issue 16. They are Doug Haynam; John Borell; and Patrick Flynn. I recommend a vote for all of them, and only these three. Voting for a fourth candidate dilutes support for the only three on the ballot who have aligned themselves with responsible limited government.

More, surely, to follow on this business as it evolves with only a week to the election. Please vote!

JKS.