Hotel Bruce

Welcome to the Bruce blog—a weekly update on news, events and issues affecting life in Cleveland. Reporting as it happens on transit, development, planning, environment and arts & culture.

Basically, we write about creative ideas forming, talk to the people who have an inside track on the issues, and sometimes offer a commentary of our own. (For disclosure purposes, Bruce blog is a local, independent writer who also works part-time with nonprofit organization EcoCity Cleveland. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of EcoCity or any other organization).

Last Monday, Bruce blog appeared on WCPN 90.3 at 9. This is the talk show of April Baer, who was surprised by one of her call-in guest’s announcement on the air that Baer’s planning on leaving her job and the city of Cleveland.

The dynamic journalist and Cleveland-native has accepted a position to host the morning drive time slot at the National Public Radio affiliate in Portland, Oregon. Baer is looking forward to the challenge of getting out from the anchor desk and doing more reporting—she leaves at the end of January. Although she seemed bittersweet about the move (talking off-air about how her current slot was ideal in many ways), she also left the door open to returning to Cleveland, where her family still resides. Her hard-hitting yet thoughtful interviews will be missed...

More about the Bruce blog radio experience…it felt like a coming of age for Hotel Bruce which was happy to be invited to speak about interesting things to do in the Greater Cleveland area. Bruce blog hopes that some listeners gained a new point of view on being able to use Cleveland as a resource for entertainment, dining, shopping, socializing, and living. To expand on a point made on WCPN, Cleveland has a lot to offer—just enough new things added to the old neighborhood markets, pubs and ethnic eateries which are a real pleasure (and so affordable) to explore. A note to all the hipsters who complain that there’s nothing to do in Cleveland—we have a list of things to do in Cleveland. Bruce blog says, you’re not really a hipster if you complain and then leave the city in order to find things to do (although you are if you return with new energy and ideas).

Environmentalists and conservationists continue to fan the flames of discontent over the city of Cleveland’s plans for the future of Dike 14 as park. After a rumor surfaced in early December that the Port Authority is considering reopening Dike 14 for more river dredge disposal, environmentalists have mounted an offensive. The latest bomb comes from The House Wren, the monthly bulletin of the Audubon Society of Greater Cleveland, which claims that, “Mayor Jane Campbell, despite plans announced earlier this year to include Dike 14 as one of two parks in the city’s Comprehensive Lakefront Plan, is now dropping Dike 14 from the lakefront plan and proposing reusing it as a site for dumping dredging deposits.” The item stresses the importance of Dike 14 as a bird habitat, stating that Audubon members have sighted at least 278 species of birds at Dike 14 (66 of those species are ‘high conservation priorities’ as listed by the state).

While its not clear where the organization received its information, it may be from language in a letter that the citizen’s Dike 14 Committee is asking people to send to the city. The sample letter addressed to Mayor Campbell contains the following inflammatory passage: “Dike 14 was recently dropped from the City's comprehensive lakefront planning process, phase three, and that there seem to be proposals and discussions going forward to re-open Dike 14 to the deposit of additional polluted dredgings.”

In the face of these volleys, the city remains mum on plans for Dike 14—not officially stating that it is dropping Dike 14 as a park, nor confirming that its proposing to reuse the site for dredge dumping. At the same time, the city has invited such speculation by not outlining an official policy on its plans for Dike 14.

A sign, perhaps, that the city is still considering Dike 14 as a park came in mid-December when the city applied for a grant from Ohio’s Coastal Management program to study current soil conditions and to develop plans for future use for Dike 14 and Gordon Park (no word yet on if the grant has been approved). The city’s grant application could indicate that the door is open for Dike 14 or that the city is preparing to back out of Dike 14 as a park and, instead, is eyeing the restoration of Gordon Park. Stay tuned…

Comparing new housing starts in Cleveland versus the 8-county Greater Cleveland area obscures the larger picture of the region’s development patterns. While its undeniable that a larger proportion of new housing starts are occurring outside the city of Cleveland proper, the statistic that new housing starts in Greater Cleveland outweigh the city’s at 3:1 should be tempered by a comparison of sprawl versus infill housing development.

Many of the new housing starts not occurring in Cleveland proper are occurring in developed areas including Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, and the city’s inner-ring suburbs. In addition, new housing developments in Lorain—such as the housing complex under development at the former LTV ore docks (which is new land made available because the operations are being moved to Cleveland)—or near downtown Medina is a cause for celebration because they support core metropolitan areas.

Cleveland doesn't necessarily compete against Lorain, Elyria, Akron, Medina, Cleveland Heights, etc. for new housing starts. Admittedly, large-tract housing developments built on farmland at the metropolitan fringe is a problem for Cleveland because it requires billions of dollars in infrastructure, such as new highways and sewer systems, while draining vital resources such as taxes and consumers from the city. But, should we knock the city for trying to assemble land for 1,500 new houses each year, or should we advocate for a change in state policy that offers a balance of options to the private developer including incentives? One important factor may be finding more opportunities for home builders in Greater Cleveland’s urbanized areas at the scale that they are accustomed to building…

In order to stem the flood of speculative subdivision housing on farmland, states around the country, such as Maryland, Oregon, Michigan—and Ohio—offer incentives to protect farmlands. They include purchase and the transfer of development rights, which allow higher-than-normal development densities in some parts of a community in exchange for preserving land in other parts. Purchase of development rights programs include Ohio’s $25 million Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (AEPP), which granted $6 million last year to pay farmers to permanently sell the rights to develop their land. The state pays the difference between the value of the land for agriculture and the value of the land for what is considered “highest and best use” which typically means residential or commercial development. The farmer/landowner still retains all other rights to the land and can sell the land in the future.

Purchasing development rights makes economic sense considering that developed land costs an average of $1.35 per acre for community services compared to $0.25 average for farmland, according to Scott Everett, the American Farmland Trust's Great Lakes regional director. Everett thinks that purchasing development rights will work in Northeast Ohio because the area has a strong housing market, i.e. demand for new housing is strong in the area including in the city.

The program, part of the Clean Ohio Fund, is a good start, but the state had to turn away hundreds of applications last year because there wasn’t enough money. An article in this Sunday’s Plain Dealer calls the Clean Ohio Fund (which includes funding for brownfield redevelopment) the largest of its kind in the country. Yet, even with a boost to $9.4 million this year for agricultural easements, the farmland preservation portion of the Ohio program isn’t enough to save Ohio’s farms. From 1950 to 1997, Cuyahoga County lost 92 percent of its farmland. Geauga County lost 67 percent and Summit County lost 84 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

In Ohio, farmland preservationists are trying to bolster the state's $25 million program with county sales tax levies. While Medina, Lorain and Wayne counties failed to pass ballot initiatives for farmland preservation tax increases in recent years, officials in Geauga County have considered mounting an effort to raise $10 million to purchase farmland through a five-year, 0.25 percent sales tax increase. The tax proposal originally was to have been placed on the November 2002 ballot, but proponents decided to wait until a broader public discussion occurs. In order to protect the “rural character” of these counties, levies and expanding the state’s agricultural easement program is essential.