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Proponents are already setting the table for taxpayer handouts. Mayor Bibb and City Council are joining in the exuberance, as if any new entertainment, development or construction will actually benefit residents.
As entertaining as these diversions can be, they DON'T necessarily bring a significant number of full-time, living-wage, family-sustaining jobs with benefits here. If these types of developments were truly economically beneficial to all residents, Cleveland wouldn't remain one of the poorest big cities in the United States.
Our county, city and civic "leaders" need to get a grip on priorities: 1) poverty, 2) poverty and 3) poverty. Make progress there, and many other good things will fall into place.
When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Our "leaders" are too scattered and running in six directions at once, and wasting time and money flitting around country and world pretending to be working.
Professional soccer is a seductive distraction. Let its fans, boosters and investors carry the ball, and foot the bill.
So, no taxpayer subsidies and no free or cheap land, no city backed low interest loans, no tax abatement and no TIF to private money-making schemes that just end up keep our poor people poor.
Respectfully Submitted,
Josh Friedman
W 9th Street Resident
The Complaint Inspections page of the City of Cleveland website states, "Complaint Inspections are an integral part of the housing program. It is the policy of the Inspectional Services Division to investigate all citizen complaints regarding potential violations of the Housing Code." As I have reported several times, there are outstanding and compounding violations that were identified during these complaint inspections, which include:
1. Original inspection date 6/15/23: #4 - Properly repair. OVEN DOOR INSULATION IS LOOSE AND FALLING OFF AND BOTTOM BAKE TRAY IS NOT SECURED AND UNLEVEL Section: 1351.23, 1369.02
Current concern - the oven door is not properly insulated and the exterior surfaces exceed 250 degrees F. Property manager informed us to replace it at our own cost on August 10, 2023.
2. Original inspection date 6/15/23: #11 - Properly caulk/seal at:. WINDOW UNIT SASH AT WINDOW FRAME AND PROVIDE SCREEN Section: 1351.23, 1369.02
Current concern - the window no longer closes to catch the lock latch, and we have an unsecured window on our first floor.
3. Original inspection date 6/15/23: #12 - Properly repair. LOOSE STEP TREADS, DAMAGED RISERS (REPAIRS ALREADY MADE ARE UNSATISFACTORY), AND FLOOR BOARDS AT TOP LANDING Section: 1351.23, 1369.02
Current concern - the second step tread is still broken and is getting worse.
4. Original inspection date 6/15/23: #15 - Repair/replace door to properly close. REPAIR DOOR JAMB AND REPLACE MISSING STRIKE PLATE Section: 1351.23, 1369.02
Current concern - the door jamb was never repaired as instructed
5. Original inspection date 7/7/23: #3 - Replace missing pull chain to light fixture. 's Section: 1351.20, 1369.09
Current concern - this work was not completed, there are still lights we can't turn off
6. Original inspection date 7/7/23: #7 - Replace damaged/missing area(s) of ceiling in a workmanlike manner. Area to be finished and painted to match existing ceiling.. CLOSE OFF OPEN SECTIONS WHERE 1ST FLOOR CAN BE SEEN Section: 1351.27, 1369.06
Current concern - this work was not completed, not all open sections were closed.
7. Original inspection date 7/7/23: #8 - Secure loose floor covering. CARPET Section: 1351.27, 1369.06
Current concern - no repair attempt was made, and problem is getting worse
8. Original inspection date 7/723: #15 - Replace damaged floor covering. OR REFINISH FLOOR (REPLACE MISSING FINISH TO FLOOR AT BARE WOOD) Section: 1351.27, 1369.06
Current concern - We keep cutting our feet on the floors. No repair attempted, informed by property manager on July 20, 2023 they will not repair at this time.
9. Original inspection date 7/7/23: #19 - Replace damaged floor covering. OR REFINISH FLOOR (REPLACE FINISH TO BARE WOOD) Section: 1351.27, 1369.06
Current concern - We keep cutting our feet on the floors. No repair attempted, informed by property manager on July 20, 2023 they will not repair at this time.
10. Originally identified on point of sale inspection - Garage. No work to address the garage has been completed since the removal of the tree on July 11, 2023.
In addition to the outstanding violations, there are a few new concerns that we have:
1. The sink in the downstairs bathroom is about to collapse off the wall. We believe it was damaged by the property manager during the attempted repairs to the window in the same room.
2. The handrail to the basement is positioned too low to be effective, and it does not extend the full length of the stairs.
3. The floor in the 3rd floor bedroom south is in worse condition than the other rooms identified. Long splinters, broken boards, and large holes in the floor.
4. There is an active leak in the master bedroom ceiling.
I am very frustrated by Chief Housing Inspector Messina's response that these issues are "aesthetic" when they clearly are far, far worse than that. Moreover, the taking as satisfactory evidence of the property manager's word that these repairs were complete and now the refusal to perform an inspection does not speak highly of the commitment "to investigate all citizen complaints regarding potential violations of the Housing Code." Moreover, as a result of these ongoing violations, the property managers are engaging in increasingly retaliatory behaviors, some of which are verbally and physically aggressive, which make us feel even more unsafe in our home. We reached out to the Housing Department to help us address these issues, but by ignoring them, it is contributing to this ongoing behavior.
Additionally, the traffic light governing this segment's exit has a right-turn light. As a pedestrian, I am worried that turning right is still seen when the red light is on.
The tree canopy helps to protect urban residents from the dangerous effects of the climate crisis. We know the tree canopy can lower ground level temperatures considerably, by as much or more than 10 degrees F.
We know the dangerous effects from the climate crisis preferentially target urban neighborhoods like Cudell, whose residents are in no position to endure the urban “heat-sink” effects of rising climate crisis temperatures, which are highly likely to get much worse. And we now know full well that the climate crisis is here.
So it makes no sense that the tree canopy in this park will be substantially reduced, especially in an area where residents and elementary school age children will recreate and seek shelter from the unreasonably hot days we know are ahead.
How is it that decisions were made to remove the protection those trees provide in Cudell Commons Park? Were those protections understood? If not, why not? Was the effect on residents of destroying the tree canopy understood and ignored or thought to be inconsequential? Would the same decisions have been made in any Cleveland neighborhood, or is Cudell somehow unique?
The thinking behind the decision is not just breathtakingly illogical, given the climate crisis, but appears to be driven primarily by concerns about construction cost. What about the cost to the quality of life of neighborhood residents, elementary school children and park users, given that these urban residents will preferentially suffer the dangerous effects of the climate crisis?
It indeed looks a lot like an assault on the Cudell neighborhood residents: removing protections they will desperately need to help withstand the dangerous effects of the climate crisis, and putting their health in more peril than it otherwise would be.
Yet this development project process and its predictably contentious outcome is very typical of the way property development is done in Cleveland and helps explain why the protective tree canopy here has been devastated, especially in disinvested neighborhoods, and why the project to restore the tree canopy is so far behind schedule.
This city just does not properly value its trees and their health benefits for neighborhood residents. Trees do require maintenance, and city budgets are constrained. And property development here is conceived, designed and accomplished with lowest possible cost as the primary driver, so resident needs and preferences tend to be given lip service, at best.
Destroying mature trees is the easy and least cost option for development, despite the many health benefits mature trees provide to the people that live, work and play near an urban green-space like Cudell Commons Park.
And, painfully, public engagement with transparency and detailed information comes so late in the development process, it’s hard or impossible for residents to have an impact on the project. One has to wonder if that’s intentional.
Because this development scenario repeats itself again and again throughout the city. Property development processes are opaque, inscrutable and impenetrable to the lay public. The processes are shrouded in mystery and secrecy, with the public invited in only occasionally to see conceptual pretty pictures and hear meaningless sales pitches marketing flimflam.
Key decisions are made early in the process behind closed doors without effective public knowledge, understanding and input. Official meetings at the city are held when people have to work, and public comment is highly constrained. Then, at the 11th hour, the neighborhood gets a data dump about what is about to happen to it, and is asked for its opinion, which will have zero practical effect on the project.
Over and over the bureaucratically esoteric, development-centric, tone-deaf, top-down, inequitable process repeats itself. And when the community routinely reacts with outrage at the manner with which they have been disrespected, misled and ultimately bullied, development proponents react with indignation, attacking and blaming the neighborhood residents for being NIMBY’s, or for not paying attention, or not participating or not understanding the convoluted process whose effects they will be forced to live with in their neighborhood. Accuse the accuser. A very typical, reflexive and predictable bureaucratic misdirection used habitually by development project proponents in this city.
But that’s the way property development is done in Cleveland, and that’s exactly what has happened in the Cudell Commons Park planning to build an elementary school. The project as proposed will destroy 40 mature trees that protect the public, and the neighborhood’s residents are quite understandably pushing back.