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Hospital objects to proposed Solon rezoning
(by Sue Reid - September 15, 2010)
Hospital objects to proposed Solon rezoning
By SUE REID
A representative from University Hospitals Health System spoke in opposition to recommendations within the City of Solon's master plan at Monday's City Council meeting.
Robert V. Secrist Jr., director of real estate for University Hospitals, said he wanted to state on the record the hospital's opposition with the proposed consideration to reclassify zoning of its land on Solon Road. The land currently is zoned C-3, the city's most intense and permissive commercial retail zoning, and the proposal is to change it to O-1 office zoning.
"We believe that the present zoning classification of the UH land is not inconsistent with the use of the surrounding parcels of land, with industrial neighbors, freeway visibility and minimal residential contact," Mr. Secrist said. University Hospitals' 20-acre tract at 34350 Solon Road lies between Erico Inc., an industrial use, and Sedlak Interiors, a commercial use, east of SOM Center Road (Route 43).
"The adjacent residential uses to the south can be well buffered with setbacks and careful site-work management, as it is with respect to the Sedlak and Erico parcels, to continue to provide for a C-3 classification, which does not unduly impact the adjacent residential area," he said.
Mr. Secrist also noted that the UH land is the "only parcel whose ultimate value is devalued" by the change in zoning classification.
"The adjacent commercial properties, currently zoned I-2 and C-6, will not experience a significant reduction by virtue of the passage of the master plan. UHHS feels somewhat targeted in this regard, even if this is not the city's intent," he said.
"I simply wanted to make this known on the record before you deliberate on the master plan."
Mr. Secrist said he realizes that there is no proposal before the city at this time and that it's something to be considered further down the road. He said he has met with Solon Planning Director Robert S. Frankland at length on the hospital's concerns but wanted to be sure council is also aware of them.
Mr. Frankland said there is a very "unusual zoning pattern" in the area of Solon and SOM Center roads. "It doesn't follow any type of rational planning theory for laying out zoning." Going east from SOM Center Road on Solon Road, the zoning is low-intensity office then very high-intensity industrial, and then it progresses to the city's highest-intensity commercial retail zoning, then to industrial zoning, he said.
"It's not a defensible zoning progression," Mr. Frankland said. "If a court was asked to explain rationale behind it, you could not explain it."
In putting together a master plan, "you are trying to represent ideal zoning for the future," he said.
"What you want to have in a master plan is, what would be the ideal situation? The reason that it makes sense in this area to say it should be office zoning is that it is a logical transition between the commercial uses on SOM and the residential uses as you head down Solon Road to the east," Mr. Frankland said.
"It's something that's better suited to the street infrastructure in the area, and, perhaps most importantly, since we have commercial zoning in that area and good highway visibility for that land, if we don't have a recommendation to change zoning to a specific zoning classification like office, we can face a hostile attempt to impose commercial zoning on us."
If zoning remains as is in that area and part of the master plan, it cold be overturned and challenged in the future, Mr. Frankland said.
He does not think the city intends to change the zoning in that area in the coming years, "but to protect the city, it is practical we show this as office zoning," he said.
"The concept would be that, if zone changes were to occur in that area, that the zoning would be office. Since the city is not requesting that immediately, that request is most likely to come from an outside developer," Mr. Frankland said.
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