Belle Avenue To Be Bulldozed

[Bill Call]

Synonyms

3. browbeat, cow, bully, hector; tyrannize

People at City Hall are using the "4 acres for development" mantra to put a positive light on the destruction of Lakewood Hospital.

I don't think there are 4 acres available after you give three acres to the Clinic for its minute Clinic. The City has just set aside $5 million for land acquisition. What do they have in mind?

Does it make sense to destroy one of Lakewood's finest streets to make way for a recreation center? Do the people on Belle know their homes are in the cross hairs?

We just spent $30 million on a new Emergency Room. Is that going to be torn down to make way for the new emergency room? Is it going to be torn down to make way for a recreation center?

[Amy Martin]

I am not surprised. They took one of Lakewood's finest streets and put a dollar store and Drug Mart at the end and property values plummeted. Of course, when I brought this up to Shawn Juris at a neighborhood meeting, he was aghast . .. "I'm so shocked you feel that way, this is one of the nicest developments in Lakewood in recent memory"

[m buckley]

Amy, thank you for your concern regarding Grace Ave. However for most of us on Grace the battle was never about property values or the merits of Family Dollar and Drug Mart. The discussion centered around scale and encroachment. A valid discussion, that if you lose, you move on from. What you don't move on from is an administration that was willing to deceive it's constituents and manipulate a process that should have been fair and transparent. If you read the timeline in Colleen Cotter's article you'll see that Mr. Siley was guilty of both and that Ms. Madigan was unwilling to call him on it. Mr. Summers, Mr. Siley and Ms.Madigan decided that in securing Drug Mart's interests the ends justified the means. Having been entrusted with power they were willing to use that power to subvert the process. For me that is the critical lesson learnt from the experience. Hopefully it will resonate while sorting out the Lakewood Hospital mess and for as long as those three remain in power.

[Bill Grulich]

Add St. Charles to your list. From Cleveland.com

http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index ... _lake.html

[Bill Call]

Add St. Charles to your list. From Cleveland.com

http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index ... _lake.html

See this:


http://www.onelakewood.com/pdf/Lakewood ... erview.pdf

One idea being floated is to demolish all the homes, the existing 6 story office building, the parking garage, the existing Family health center and all those homes for some mystery development.

It's all very odd.

Normally a developer comes up with a "brilliant" idea that will propel (insert City name here) into the 21st Century. Then they seek the best place to build and then they tear down some existing businesses and homes. In Lakewood the first step is to destroy an

existing business,
existing homes
lose
$150 million in economic activity
and then think about what you want to build.

I don't have a graduate degree in urban planning but I think they have it ass backwards.