Civil lawsuit filed to stop extension of Hazel Street

The city hasn’t shown a need for the street extension, the complaint says.

staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — The owner of a downtown business has filed a civil lawsuit asking a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge to block the city’s plans for a northward extension of Hazel Street.

On Monday, James Villani, owner of Pig Iron Press, 26 N. Phelps St., filed the complaint against the city. Villani’s complaint seeks a preliminary injunction from a judge to halt the street extension project and a jury trial on the merits of the issue. Villani filed the lawsuit himself, without the aid of a lawyer.

The city plans to extend Hazel Street from its current terminus at Wood Street to Lincoln Avenue in conjunction with Youngstown State University’s $34.3 million business school building, for which construction began this spring.

In his complaint, Villani argued the extension should be canceled because the city hasn’t shown a need for it, the financially-troubled city can’t afford to build it and there hasn’t been sufficient public discussion of the proposal.

The need for the extension was affirmed by measures city council enacted late in 2007, said Atty. Dan Pribich, a deputy city law director. “That’s where the debate should have been. We’re way past debating,” Pribich said.

Using eminent domain, the city has seized the Grenga Machine and Welding Co. storage building at 128 W. Rayen Ave., which lies in the path of the proposed extension. The city plans to demolish that building after a jury trial set for later this month, which will determine just compensation for Joseph Grenga, the company owner, Pribich said.

The city deposited $205,000 in escrow with the court to buy that property, but Grenga rejected the city’s offer to buy it for that sum.

Villani filed two friend-of-the-court briefs on Grenga’s behalf in Grenga’s unsuccessful court battle to resist the city’s seizure of his property.