City’s comprehensive plan nearly complete — and in need of a name

By Ed Runyan | July 16, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

WARREN — When city council began a two-night process Wednesday of reviewing the nearly complete Warren comprehensive plan, it became clear that something was missing — a name.

While Youngstown’s plan several years ago had the recognizable name “Youngstown 2010,” Warren’s plan developed by the Poggemeyer Group of Bowling Green is still without a label to capture the public’s imagination.

Charlene Kerr, principal owner of Poggemeyer, said Wednesday that during these final weeks, participants need to agree on a name while reviewing the document. Kerr’s own suggestion was “Raising Warren.”

Kerr and the members of council’s Strategic Planning Committee will continue the discussion again at 5 p.m. tonight in the Municipal Justice Building, 141 South St.

Kerr said the plan’s draft is available at www.warren.org under the link for “Strategic Plan Documents,” and she urged council members who have not done so to at least review Chapter 3 — the market study done by the Columbus company Boulevard Strategies.

“If you folks don’t read anything else, read that,” she said.

The market study tells where the city stands in comparison to the rest of the state, especially in terms of its housing stock.

The study says Warren lost 30 percent of its population in the past 35 years and is likely to have 4,000 vacant homes by 2018 at the current rate, which would give it a vacancy rate of 18 percent — well above the 8 percent forecast in Ohio as a whole.

The study gives the city a plan and some options for how to use the vacant properties that will result after the city uses its $1.4 million in federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program money to demolish a significant number of homes over the next four years.

Kerr showed a graphic to council members that shows a key component of the plan: the Side Lot Program. It takes city blocks that now contain about 14 homes on 50-foot-wide lots and reduces them down to four, two or one “estate-sized” properties.

“What we’re doing is asking [property owners] if they want to buy the vacant lot to put on an addition or whatever,” Mayor Michael O’Brien said.

That process will present its own challenges, said Dan Crouse, a councilman and real estate salesman. Just because a home is demolished doesn’t mean the city can sell it to a neighbor.

Pieces of land that formerly contained homes have little value, but a financial institution and the county treasurer’s office usually have liens on the property that prevent it from being sold, Crouse said.

Kerr said she is hopeful that the federal government will provide a way for communities like Warren with vacant lots to sell them.

Discussion of what the comprehensive plan should say about the former Western Reserve High School prompted Kerr to ask council members to decide soon whether the community can save the building from the wrecking ball.

“Every day that passes, the door is getting further shut,” Councilman Andy Barkley said. Without a plan for an alternate use, the Warren Board of Education will have the building demolished in a fairly short time, Barkley said.

Larry Dueber, a member of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, said the cost for utilities on the building — around $1 million per year — might make it too expensive for anyone to convert the building to another use.

runyan@vindy.com