Court fight to test ruling
Property owners and the private developer have not been able to agree on property prices.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A court fight over redeveloping a sagging riverfront bar district will test an Ohio Supreme Court ruling over when governments may seize land for private developers.
The Port Authority, working with the city and a developer, is set to argue in court this week that it has the authority to take nine properties in the Cleveland Flats area because they haven't been able to negotiate a selling price with the owners.
If Cuyahoga County Probate Judge John E. Corrigan rules in the government's favor, a jury would set the price.
The property owners say they haven't been offered fair prices for their properties to make way for the 230 million Flats East Bank Neighborhood, planned by developer Scott Wolstein.
"Unless I'm satisfied, we'll take it as far as we can," property owner William Droe said.
Droe wants 5 million for his land, he said Friday, despite having once dropped his asking price to 3.5 million. The port started its offer at 1 million and raised that to 1.7 million.
What's behind this
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can take land for shopping malls or other private development -- but left room for state courts to restrict government property seizures based on their own constitutions.
Ohio tightened that provision last year when the state Supreme Court ruled that private development on its own -- even when it will improve economic conditions -- isn't a public use warranted under the Ohio Constitution. That case affected a plan by the city of Norwood near Cincinnati.
Both sides in the Flats case say the Norwood decision supports their position.
The property owners say the plan is solely for economic development and to help one developer profit. But attorneys for the port argue that the plan would benefit the public with new streets and utilities, housing, a park and a marina, plus end blight and pollution.
The arguments also hinge on what constitutes blight -- a key point in the Norwood case, in which the justices said the city's definition was too vague.
The Flats property owners say the standards by which the city declared many buildings blighted are vague and arbitrary.
They also argue that the port's appraiser, Charles M. Ritley Associates Inc., was not independent because Ritley previously worked for Wolstein. The property owners say Ritley's estimates of the values were higher before the port hired him.
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