YOUNGSTOWN Board mulls tower at golf course

The park board agreed, for a second year, to support a YMHA land swap plan.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Park board members want to see what it will look like before allowing a cell phone tower on city-owned Stambaugh Golf Course.
The board tabled the idea Thursday until next month so the members can look at the site.
Suggestions including painting the tower to blend in better and landscaping around the 8-foot-high fence.
Sprint PCS wants to put the 120-foot tower near a rain shelter where the golf course, Liberty Township and Forum Northside Medical Center meet.
The company would pay the park department $800 a month on a five-year lease with four renewals, with rent increasing 12 percent every five years. Sprint would need a city zoning variance because the tower would be too close to the golf course's back property line.
Redevelopment: The park board agreed, for a second year, to support a Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority plan to redevelop the lower North Side. The plan involves securing up to $20 million federal dollar to rebuild the area that used to be Westlake Terrace. That includes mixed-income housing and parks.
The park board would turn over half of Evans Field to YMHA, plus the area including Chase Pool. YMHA would give the park board nearby land around Otis Street in return.
All the plans are contingent on YMHA's getting the federal grant to redevelop the area, called a Hope VI grant. Hope grants are the federal government's primary redevelopment funds for housing authorities.
YMHA has been gathering community support for redeveloping the neighborhood.
The project would eliminate many of that city ward's problems, said Councilman Richard Atkinson, R-3rd.