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JUSTIFYING EMINENT DOMAIN
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Photo by Robert K. Yosay
SPRAWLING CAMPUS: In conjunction with the new $34.3 million Youngstown State University business school to be built on the vacant land in the foreground, the city seeks to seize and demolish the small brown brick machine shop at 128 W. Rayen Ave., which has a brown garage door, for a proposed Hazel Street extension, which would curve around the Diocese of Youngstown office at bottom left.
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Video: Grenga
Magistrate to decide fate of city machine shop
A YSU trustee says extending Hazel Street is unnecessary.
YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s attempt to seize and demolish a machine shop under eminent domain for a proposed street extension near Youngstown State University is on the fast track for a magistrate’s decision.
The city seeks to take the Grenga Machine and Welding Co. machine shop and storage facility at 128 W. Rayen Ave. so it can extend Hazel Street in conjunction with YSU’s new $34.3 million business school. The university broke ground for the new business school this fall.
Magistrate Dennis Sarisky of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court visited and inspected the vicinity of the machine shop immediately after a Wednesday court hearing in the case.
Sarisky said he expects to decide the case early next week. The magistrate invited shop owner Joseph Grenga, who is representing himself, and lawyers for the city to submit to him by 4 p.m. Friday proposed texts of the ruling they think he should make.
In a Vindy.com video interview, Grenga said he would like to build a two-story building for his company’s offices at the Rayen Avenue location and incorporate the current structure into it if he is allowed to keep the property. If he has excess space, he said he might rent it out.
“We need room,” Grenga said, adding that the shortage of space is “choking us to the point it’s hurting our business.” Grenga said he has lost business because the uncertainty over the status of the Rayen Avenue building has made it impossible for him to commit to a four- or five-month project.
Grenga has a prominent and influential ally in his battle to keep his property.
YSU trustee and former state Sen. Harry Meshel of Youngstown, who was seated on a visitor bench in the courtroom, said after court that the street extension is unnecessary and undesirable.
“I’ve always opposed the indiscriminate use of eminent domain,” Meshel said.
“They don’t need more traffic going into the Youngstown State campus. They don’t have room for more traffic to go into Lincoln Avenue,” he said.
“The use of eminent domain historically in this country has been that there has to be an overwhelming public purpose to be served,” Meshel observed.
The U.S. Supreme Court has, in recent years, greatly broadened the authority of local governments to take private property by eminent domain. In its June 2005 Kelo vs. New London decision, the high court upheld eminent domain as an economic development tool.
In that case, the top court ruled 5-4 that a city may seize even nonblighted private property for a private economic development project, which officials think might benefit the public.
When the city filed its petition to appropriate Grenga’s property in January, it deposited $205,000 in escrow with the court and attached a city council resolution and ordinance in support of the acquisition.
Grenga rejected the city’s offer to buy the 102-year-old, 10,515-square-foot building for that amount.
Grenga purchased the building for $95,800 in 2001.
If the city acquires Grenga’s property, Grenga has a right to a jury trial to determine how much the city should pay him for it.
Anthony Coyne, a lawyer for the city, urged Sarisky to issue a writ of possession to the city.
“This section of Youngstown is part of an improvement project consistent with the Youngstown comprehensive plan,” and YSU’s Centennial Master Plan, Coyne said.
The city’s attempt to seize the property is part of a community development plan spelled out in a March 2008 memorandum of understanding signed by officials of the city, YSU and the Diocese of Youngstown.
The plan’s stated goals are to remove blighted or underused property in the Lincoln-Rayen-Wood Urban Renewal Area, relocate nonretail commercial uses and extend Hazel Street to the northeast to link YSU with the city’s downtown.
The plan calls for the northward extension of Hazel Street beyond its current terminus at Wood Street, so it would curve eastward around the Diocesan headquarters building and toward the university campus.
Under the agreement, the city, the university and the diocese are to share the $487,500 in real estate acquisition costs for the project.
If the city decides not to extend Hazel Street, “the diocese and the university shall have the exclusive right, but not the obligation, to purchase the city parcels in such proportion as the diocese and the university shall agree,” the memorandum says.
Sarisky allowed the memorandum into evidence but only as it pertains to Grenga’s property.
“The project is ready to go, and it would be important that the city be allowed to proceed with installing the roadway improvements,” Coyne said.
Grenga, however, told the magistrate that the city has abused its discretion and failed to negotiate with him in good faith.
“I firmly believe the city has no intention of building that road,” Grenga said.
“They have not presented a plan. They have not proven the need for this road,” Grenga added.
SEE ALSO: What is eminent domain?
milliken@vindy.com
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Comments
YSU doesn't need to have Grenga's property - they can go around it. They should let him keep his property.
Knock the piece of sh** building down. Youngstown needs improvements, not another building rotting to the ground.
all the g-d empty lots in this city and these morons want to push out a business to take over that property? pathetic.
That is so wrong.
Plow down the abandoned properties to improve the town, sure. There's no need -NONE- to be tearing down a working structure.
Did they even offer to buy him out first? This shouldn't be allowed. Eminent Domain is an excuse for some large entity to bully a smaller entity out of something they own. Might not have started that way, but that's what it has become.
They need to pay the guy not what some jury thinks it's worth. They need to pay the guy what it costs to get new, better property with brand new building and all the fees and moving costs PLUS extra to compensate for any lost business during the move. And even then only if the guy agrees to it.
Bullying on a municipal scale.
Youngstown politics as usual. Sounds like someone has it in for him.
Not for nothing, turning a $109k investment on a 102 y/o building you paid less than $96k for 7 years ago isn't too bad, especially in the current economic climate. I realize there are additional factors for the business-owner to consider but in terms of the property itself I could think of worse deals.
The continued development of the University is in the best interests of the community as a whole. This is where finesse as a leader is valuable. He is being offered what is probably above fair-market value. Perhaps he could be also offered a deal on land elsewhere in Youngstown at a great deal and where he has the ability to expand his space. With the proper terms, maybe eminent domain wouldn't be necessary. If he rejects such reasonable terms..tear the mutha down...
This is what happens to law-abiding citizens that own businesses in this town. When you don't "grease" the politicians pockets, they label you as unpatriotic and not supportive of their forward-movement agenda's. We've lost all of our manufacturing base in Ohio, so lets uproot one of the few remaining small businesses that actually produce a product just to extend a street. Sounds like the Chamber of Commerce should step in to RETAIN regional development. Typical Planning mindset for this community. I have a great idea; why not somehow get the building on the Historic Registry; then they can't touch it.
Doesn't our tax base depend on the success of businesses? Why aren't we more outraged over putting another businessman out of business because his location is inconvenient for YSU? At least one business had to move to make room for the convocation center. Is this really the time to appear hostile to businesses?
He's probably a non-union shop and that will sound his death knell. To the people who think he has received a fair market value for his property have you considered the losses he would take having to move a going concern to another location, the lost wages to his employees and the loss of tax revenue to the city while this man considers relocation, if at all possible? It might be an old building, I don't know, but he has the right to keep his business and YSU can stuff it. I see a lot of boarded up crack houses that can be torn down and yet a slum lord has more value than a business owner. So much for logic in Youngstown.
Hpw adre they say tere is no activity going o nthere! They relayy expect people to think they are not doing any busniess there1 Give me a break,that a sack full of crap right there. YSu des nott contro lyoungstown and their bullying of peole out of ther way is jsut plain worng. bet the city is egtitng sometihn out of this too so what do they acre about a busneiss that opend in the 1930's before zoning laws were enfocred. I tohught that meant any buusness there ebfore that was not able to be enforced. I would stand right i nfornt of that wrecking ball and let them run me over!
here is a business owner in the city over 80 years paying taxes to the city, state and federal government and this is the way thanking a business; who toughen it up in ytown, while other businesses left ytown for greener pastures. what will happen if a near-by city in another county offers the grenga machinery a lucative economic business deal to the ytown and mahoning county? I would say a lost of revenue dollars to the said city and county. Everyone that is for the taking of the property are you ready for loss of revenue for ytown and mahoning county? Are you ready to tighten your finanicial belt and live with less government services that is incurred with this loss of revenue? Think about it? Grenga machinery company since it conception employed men with union wages while training other men and women to become machinist tradesmen/women in this field where they can go anywhere in the world to become productive in their lives, their communities and their financial stability. Did you know that the Grenga family DONATED THE LAND FOR THE MILLCREEK SCHOOL to sister Jerome to fillful her mission to the needy children with sevre handicaps? Did you know the Grenga machinery DONATED THEIR TIME AND LABOR to fix the YSU scoreboard two days that was installed improper by the manufacture of the scoreboard before it was going to be dedicated at the first home game?
What has Jay Williams and his family and friends done for the betterment of this community at the magnitude of the Grenga machinery and family.
gave them the short end of the stick. they have other plans and if it inloves making some people upset and bulldosing their home or busniess what do they care.