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Pond along Fifth Ave. didn’t have proper OK, official says
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POND MIXUP: Youngstown’s engineering department approved construction of a detention pond a short distance from the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue where a drugstore is being built. The department, however, didn’t require the developer to first get the location approved by the city’s design review committee.
YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s engineering department approved building a water-detention pond a few feet from the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue, where a CVS store is being built.
The engineering department can require the pond to be built to control potential flooding on the property.
But it overstepped its authority by not requiring Orion Development, the project’s developer, to get that location first approved by the city’s design review committee, said Bill D’Avignon, that committee’s chairman and head of the city’s community development agency.
The 6-foot-deep pond, still under construction, is to be 30 feet by 15 feet.
“The committee would never approve that,” D’Avignon said of the pond location and size.
What makes the approval of the pond ironic is the person who signed off on it is Charles T. Shasho, the city’s public works deputy director and a member of the design review committee.
“It’s on [CVS’s] property, and there is no zoning requirement” as to where the pond can be located, Shasho said. “But I can see why [D’Avignon] is concerned. I wasn’t aware it’s in violation” of DRC policy. “We can still have discussions on an alternate design.”
There are two key issues with the pond’s location: safety and aesthetics, D’Avignon said.
“It’s only a couple of feet from the sidewalk, and it’s six feet deep,” he said.
The committee, which oversees exterior work in downtown and its surrounding area, required CVS to make changes to the color of the building and locations of its loading docks and garbage storage areas before approving the project.
“It’s the city’s mistake; the city approved it,” D’Avignon said about requiring Orion to return to the design review committee to get the OK on a detention pond.
Attempts Wednesday by The Vindicator to contact Orion officials were unsuccessful.
But D’Avignon said he spoke Wednesday to an Orion official who told him if the city recommended a smaller pond be built, the company wouldn’t object.
The ponds are designed to temporarily hold water from rainfall and then move the water through pipes to the city’s stormwater system.
“They can lessen the size and make the pond barely noticeable,” D’Avignon said. “In a particularly hard rainfall, [flooding] might be an issue. But a smaller size would be safer, look better and be less expensive.”
The design review committee could consider a smaller pond for the CVS property at its next meeting, Oct. 6, he said.
Construction on the 11,945-square-foot CVS store began in June and is expected to be done in November. The project’s cost is about $5 million.
When opened, the store will employ 12 full-time and 10 part-time employees with an annual payroll of $850,000.
skolnick@vindy.com