Dear Editor,
I attended the Mansfield City Council meeting on Oct. 27 after getting a scant six days notice of the proposed meeting concerning the re-zoning of 65 acres of the residual Raemelton (Black family) property on Cook road from residential to “planned unit development”(PUD).
With such short notice, I rescheduled my patients, and my wife and I canvassed the homes most immediately affected along Cook and Woodland roads, while passing out copies of our notice.
To my surprise, not one of the four residents that we found at home knew anything about this proposal. After this, I contacted my lawyer, who suggested that I call Jay Allred to get word of the meeting out on Richland Source.
Fortunately, this seems to have been effective, as evidenced by a roomful of outraged citizens.
After hearing the two developers from Columbus bloviate for an unlimited amount of time, the Mayor, Jodie Perry, informed the citizen-packed meeting that we were then allowed three-minute statements about our concerns ( a time limit which she had no compunction about enforcing).
I was somewhat taken aback by the Mayor’s obvious approval of the developer’s speeches, which she encouraged to prolong, despite apologies from both speakers themselves.
I was somewhat amused, and somewhat baffled by some of the developer’s comments. One developer stated twice ( as also stated in Richland Source), that they intended to save the trees on the northern edge of their development. As the trees in question are on my property, planted by my son and I over 20 years ago, it is a bit hard to grasp how this is one of their proposed benefits to the community.
The idea of a huge unneeded “skilled nursing facility” makes one truly wonder what would possibly be built there instead. Their statement that they want a variance for fewer parking spaces to “reduce excessive asphalt coverage” is obviously just to save money and to cram in more space for apartments, as is another variance for their three-story multi-family housing.
Where are all these people going to park? They want to pretend that their retention pond is just part of their beautiful landscaping and required open space, a “visual amenity” which would be ruined by required fencing; a small price to pay for the occasional apartment child drowning.
No one on the city council, nor Jodie Perry, mentioned the obvious issue of even more traffic, noise, garbage, and light pollution when all of the other as yet undeveloped, but already zoned business, land is inevitably built on Trimble and even Marion Avenue.
After the first eloquent citizen statement by Dr. Reidel on the actual purpose of zoning, Ms. Perry admonished the crowd for clapping; her reasoning being that “we will never get through this with all this delay [meaning the 15 seconds of applause].”
Her demeanor at this time changed from obvious encouraging smiles and nodding approval of the developers to bored acquiescence and even disdain.
After the speakers from the outraged audience were allowed to make their feelings on the matter known, we were all treated to a short and demeaning lecture by Ms. Perry on how these things always have naysayers despite the overlooked, but obvious, benefits that apparently only she and the developers are capable of understanding.
In talking with the other participants immediately after the meeting, as well as in the following days, I have heard a universal feeling of futility in preventing this from proceeding.
I have been told that Jodie Perry is very excited about this, and that she has been working on it for some time.
Unfortunately, she naively sees this as an exciting pet project of economic development, while in reality it is just the opposite.
This project wedges unwanted businesses, traffic, noise, garbage, and light pollution into an established middle class neighborhood where people have lived for years, and where new families bought homes feeling assured of the surroundings. Trashing a neighborhood is not economic development, it is just the opposite.
The homes directly adjacent to this mess, and all along Cook road, will immediately lose tremendous value, and everyone that uses Cook, Trimble, and adjacent roads will suffer.
The population of Mansfield is shrinking, not growing, and the apartments which Ms. Perry feels she will somehow control, will quickly change their character as the alleged price point drops over time, despite multiple assurances that this is not “subsidized housing.”
Ms. Perry disingenuously states that this (PUD) will give the city ultimate control over what is built, even down to the aesthetics of the buildings, while decrying the city’s lack of control over what she imagines would otherwise be a neighborhood of apparently ugly single family homes.
She even attests that she lives in the Woodland neighborhood as well, though where she lives would have no obvious detrimental consequences (except if she ever has to use Cook or Trimble, and as long as she doesn’t mind the disintegration of the home values bordering her otherwise protected part of the neighborhood).
One of the developers actually encouragingly proposed that a pizza parlor could be one of the new businesses across the road from the homes on Cook; I can only imagine his horror of this happening across the street from his home!
But that is the point: it is not his home, and he really could care less. He is only in it for the money. It shocks me that the Mayor of Mansfield apparently feels the same.
I will continue do every legal thing in my power to fight this travesty. As Tip O’Neill famously stated, “All politics are local.” (That’s) something to keep in mind during our next local election.
David A. Brown, M.D.
Mansfield, Ohio