Tensions on Council arriving as Reaser Pointe Crossing vote approaches

Elyria is closer than ever to approving the Reaser Pointe Crossing mixed-use development, but the project has created tension amongst some Elyria officials and City Council members which was on display Monday night. Following its regular meeting Monday, Council adjourned into a Strategic Planning Committee meeting to discuss a development agreement for the proposed 422 town home project on the Reaser Pointe Crossing connector road. At the conclusion of the meeting, a 5-5 vote led to the current draft proposal of the development being sent to a full Council vote under a minority report, meaning it comes without the specific recommendation of the committee. The vote places the development agreement formally before Council, after years of litigation and a major change to the original project, which is being proposed by DBR Commercial Realty. Its approval would allow the Lorain County Port Authority to provide public funding for some of the project's infrastructure through bonding and a tax increment financing agreement, or TIF. Under the TIF, the Port Authority would sell bonds and use that money to the developer, DBR Commercial Realty, While the project is closer to the finish line, the split vote only scratches the surface of the division over the project on Council. When the strategic planning meeting began, Councilman Phil Tollett, D-at-Large, announced that DBR had removed the final piece of language in the agreement that the city's attorneys and some of his fellow Council members had expressed concern over. The language would have required Council to accept the certain proposed infrastructure work as public improvements, meaning the city would take ownership of them. This point is important because the TIF only pays for public improvements, so if the work is not accepted by the city there is no mechanism to pay back the bonds. The meeting had been called to ask certain city officials questions about the proposed design plans, but Tollett said that because the concerning language had been removed, the meeting was unnecessary and the committee should simply send the agreement before Council for a vote. "It's my understanding that that (language) was totally withdrawn by DBR — removed from the development agreement," Tollett said. "If that is the case, there would be no need for us to ask questions of the Building Department or Engineering (Department) regarding the development agreement… With them withdrawing the one remaining issue, there should be nothing that we need to ask for engineering. It doesn't matter at this point." Council President Vic Stewart, D-at-Large, replied that he respected Tollett's thoughts, but disagreed. Stewart and several other Council members have expressed concerns about certain aspects of the preliminary plat, a planning document, for the project. Namely, certain members of Council have said they are not in favor of the city accepting the project's streets and right-of-way as public improvements because they are more narrow than city code allows. The preliminary plat, which was approved by Planning Commission more than a year ago, contains roads which would later become public which are only 22 feet wide, while the city requires a minimum street width of 28 feet. Councilmen Kenny Oswald, D-4th Ward, and Chad Schneider, D-at-Large, both stressed during the meeting that they were uncomfortable with roads of that width becoming the property of the city. "The size of the roads are right in the plan. This Council (that) is sitting up here has passed this size of road numerous times going forward," Tollett said. "One is public, one is private. The fire department and the police department respond to both, they go down both. So that's number one. The development agreement is what the majority of this Council said we would be voting on tonight. … That will be my motion right now, that we take the vote on the development agreement now." Law Director Amanda Deery quickly responded that she advised against Council voting on a development agreement when members had not seen the final draft. She said that the agreement was still undergoing small revisions by both sides as of 2 p.m. on Monday. Councilwoman Mary Siwierka, D-3rd Ward, seconded the motion, which she said she did for discussion purposes. "I think what's happened here is a case that, you know, Mr. Tollett and the administration has been pushing this agenda all the way through, making phone calls this whole weekend," Stewart said. "And an understanding that … an agreement in principle was arrived at at the umpteenth hour and making phone calls to kind of get this pushed to a vote. I think it was wrong. We had all these people planned out (to attend) this meeting tonight, and now everyone's going to try and circumvent that. I think it's wrong that, no we are just going to make a motion to go ahead and do it." Mayor Kevin Brubaker has been a vocal proponent of the project since he took office. DBR supporter Dan Reaser was a major supporter of Brubaker's candidacy in 2024. Councilwoman Brenda Davis spoke up to request the city's outside legal counsel, attorney Russ Balthis, provide an update on the agreement. Balthis said that the preapproval language had been removed, but he suggested that Council should be sure that it is comfortable with the proposed development before approving the agreement. "If Council passes the development agreement and implements the TIF, they should understand that they are approving this project as presented," Balthis said. "They are incentivizing this project as presented. If they are comfortable with that, that is good. They can go for it. That's how it works. ... But, if there is real risk and concern, (if there are Council) members not willing to vote to accept them as public roads, I would caution them." Balthis said if Council votes to approve the agreement but then does not accept the public improvements, "As sure as I am standing here, it would lead to litigation." Among the members of Council who expressed concerns over the project, the width of the roads was a central issue for all of them. Tollett maintained his argument that the city has allowed streets of such width to be built by other developers in the past, so there was no reason for concern over DBR's proposal Later in the meeting, City Engineer John Schneider said that the city had approved streets that were 22 feet wide in the past and that there were many such streets, though fewer than 100. However, he added, in his 24 years with the city all such roads had been built and owned privately, never transferred to the city. The city's fire department has repeatedly expressed disapproval of any streets in the city being narrower than 28 feet, because of the possible difficulties operating and turningfire trucks on them. Councilman Schneider said that in addition to street widths, he had concerns about drainage, the width of the right of way and a lack of buffering between commercial and residential areas. "This has become a development agreement and a full plat approval and there are way too many items on this plat that I'm looking at that I have concerns over that can be addressed," he said. Councilman Brad Armstrong, I-5th Ward, expressed frustration that the design plans were being discussed at all, because Council was ostensibly only meeting to discuss the development agreement itself. "While (this meeting) is not a formal plat approval, you cannot divorce the two," Deery said. "When you do an economic development incentive, like a TIF, essentially as a council, you are saying, 'We like this project, we are incentivizing this project, we are good with this project.' … The bonding entity and the developer are going to rely on Council passing the TIF and the development agreement, the build is going to happen based upon us passing this, even though the final plat approval doesn't come until the end." At one point in the meeting, Tollett asked David Seed, an attorney for Elyria Schools, how much property tax revenue the proposed development would create for the district, adding that he believed it was roughly $1.2 million. Seed said that $1.2 million was the most recent number he had seen, but that had been presented some time ago and the schools and DBR had not reached a compensation agreement yet. A compensation agreement would be needed because under the TIF, all property taxes in the project would be paid towards the TIF until the bonds were paid off, rather than directly to the schools. DBR owner Dan Reaser has expressed willingness to pay the district the full amount it would be owed under normal property taxes, but this plan has not been finalized. In an emailed statement David Lum, an attorney for DBR, said that he felt the Strategic Planning meeting was a further example of DBR providing a concession to the city only to be met with further complaints. "We were under the assumption that if we resolved the last issue (and deleted the offending phrase) that City Council would take up the Amended Development Agreement and actually vote on it," Lum wrote Tuesday. "Again, this was our attempt to move this project forward and get it in front of Council. Unfortunately, we were stifled again… Rather than discussing the merits of the ADA and the proposed development, the Strategic Planning members wanted to talk about items that had been discussed and resolved over a year ago in front of the Planning Commission." Balthis said during the meeting on Monday that the approval of the Planning Commission had given DBR the right to build the project, but that the development agreement and TIF were an incentive which was up to Council to grant. Deery said Monday that the amended agreement would be prepared for a potential vote before Council on Monday, Aug. 11, if the body chooses to hold a special meeting. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.