Chestnut Ridge retail development returns to Council

A request to rezone a former church on Chestnut Ridge Road for commercial development is set to return to city hall on Monday several months after it was rejected due to concerns over increased traffic. According to the agenda for Monday's meeting of the Elyria City Council Community Development Committee, the committee will hear a proposal for the request to rezone the property of the former Chestnut Ridge Baptist Church from a residential to a business district. Requested by Florida-based Luv Retail Development, it is the same rezoning that was rejected by Planning Commission in March over concerns it would exacerbate existing traffic issues near Chestnut Commons in southeast Elyria. A follow up meeting in February was cancelled after Luv withdrew its application and agreed to participate in a larger traffic survey of the area. Mayor Kevin Brubaker said that study is now complete and it will be presented to the public at the Community Development Committee meeting on Monday. Councilman Ed Doehne, D-3rd Ward, who represents the neighborhood of the proposed rezoning, made a post to his own Facebook page and several community pages on Friday informing residents that the issue was going back before Council and inviting them to attend Monday's meeting. "My biggest reason for posting today (Friday) was just to let the people in my ward know what is going on," Doehne said. "One of the biggest things I ran on when I was campaigning for this position was to be fully transparent… If you read the comments (on Facebook) people are saying 'Oh I thought this already got turned down' or 'I thought we weren't doing this anymore.' Well, in reality, what happened was people were just making changes in the background, now it has popped its head back up and we are going to have to vote on it." Members of the public will not be allowed to speak on the issue at the meeting on Monday because Council typically does not invite public comment during committee meetings, said Councilman Chad Schneider, D-at-large, who is the chairman of the committee. Schneider said if the issue is voted out of committee, residents will have multiple chances to address council on the rezoning because it will be required to undergo three public hearings before Council as a whole before it can be voted on. Brubaker said on Saturday that according to the city's traffic study, the proposed Luv development would add minimally to the existing traffic problems in the area, and could actually provide an opportunity to tackle the issue. After Luv had presented its original traffic study, Brubaker said that the city had felt the need to pursue a wider traffic study surveying the entire area around the Chestnut Commons shopping center and the Chestnut Ridge Road and state Route 57 intersection. "We got that (study) back and it shows that 90, maybe even 95 percent of the problem over there is already existing," Brubaker said. "What they (Luv) are doing would add very little to the issue at that intersection… When we paused this rezoning several months ago, we said if we are going to do this, we are going to do it right. We know we have an issue there, and this is going to help us address the issue that is already there." Brubaker said that the area around the intersection needed to be reworked regardless of the result of the Luv development, and he estimated that the work could cost upwards of $5 million. If the Luv development moves forward and is granted a tax increment financing agreement, or TIF, then the money raised by the development could be used to help pay for the traffic improvements across the area. The work will have to be done either way, and Brubaker said the city was already planning to use money from the TIF previously granted to Chestnut Commons, but additional income from the Luv development would help. If the Luv development does move forward, Brubaker said that it would be limited to right turn only both in and out until after the traffic improvements are made. Doehne said that he believes his ward needs development, but that the existing traffic issues in the area made it hard for him to see a way for him to support the project. "The truth is there is nothing in that traffic report that can make me feel good about the traffic on (Chestnut Ridge) Road," he said. "Let's stop kidding ourselves, this is the same mistake that has been made three to four times around the Chestnut Commons area. I love that businesses want to come to Elyria, but not right next to our residential houses." Doehne said that he would prefer to see the area developed with residences. He added that he planned to canvas the neighborhood around the proposed site on Sunday to inform residents of the meeting on Monday. Luv retail purchased the property from the church last year after it was annexed into the city from Eaton and Carlisle townships. Luv has shared plans to build a commercial development on the site featuring five commercial properties: a gas station, a Take 5 oil-change shop, a Panda Express, a Chipotle and a Chick-fil-A. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.