Council members want another look

Council will consider approving legislation related to this project next week.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- With opponents to a plan to link Youngstown State University to downtown becoming more vocal, some city council members want to take another look at the proposal before approving it.
Councilman Artis Gillam Sr. organized a Tuesday meeting to discuss the Lincoln-Rayen-Wood development district. On council's meeting agenda for next Wednesday is a third and final reading of four pieces of legislation related to the plan.
The plan takes in 38 acres bounded roughly by Commerce Street as well as Lincoln, Fifth and Wick avenues. The city wants to turn the area into a development district with a $30 million new YSU College of Business Administration on Phelps Street as the area's cornerstone project.
The proposal would also extend Hazel Street to provide another connection between YSU and the downtown area.
The development district designation would give the city the power of eminent domain to take property needed for this project if owners don't agree to sell. The city's planning commission recommended May 16 that council approve the designation.
Four measures on agenda
The four pieces of legislation to be considered next Wednesday would permit the city's board of control to advance $2.5 million to fund the Hazel Street extension with most of the money coming from a federal grant obtained for YSU to improve pedestrian and vehicular access, to permit the city to negotiate agreements with landowners in the area, to enter into professional service contracts, and to sign a development agreement with YSU.
Gillam, D-1st, said the legislation needs to be amended only to spend money to study the Hazel Street extension proposal, and to start negotiating with landowners to purchase property.
Gillam, whose ward includes that part of the city, also said he wants to know why the entire area needs to be rezoned when only 12 or so parcels are part of the redevelopment plan, and questioned why Hazel Street needs to be extended.
'Moving way too fast'
Councilman Rufus Hudson, D-2nd, attended the meeting and said the legislation's language is too vague.
"This is moving way too fast," he said. "The ordinances are pretty broad, open-ended and loose. When we're talking about people's livelihoods, I'd like to see something more concrete rather than something written so abstractly."
After attending the meeting, Councilwoman Carol Rimedio-Righetti, D-4th, said she wants to know why council is moving ahead with any legislation related to this project without first adopting the planning commission's recommendation to make the area a development district.
Business owners in that area are concerned the city or YSU would take their property through eminent domain or that zoning changes there would devalue their property.
Carmen S. Conglose Jr., the city's deputy director of public works, said it is way too early in the process to even consider that.
First step
If council and then the board of control gives the green light to move ahead with this project, the first item to be done is a study to see if the Hazel Street extension plan is viable, Conglose said. That study would take about six to eight months, he said.
Before Gillam's meeting, Jim Villani, spokesman for the newly formed Front-Lincoln Property and Merchants' Association and owner of the Pig Iron Press, said the group strongly opposes this plan because it would adversely affect their businesses.
Villani's business isn't in the 38-acre area, but he says that the plan could hurt his bottom line and that he's concerned about other business owners.
skolnick@vindy.com