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EAST LIVERPOOL --The Thompson Avenue Neighborhood Group meet Tuesday with the East Liverpool City Council Licensing/Economic Development Committee to continue discussion on its desire to have a portion of their neighborhood designated as historic.
The group decided to pursue a local historic designation since that would be the easiest to obtain as opposed to a state or national designation.
According to Tracy Hyatt, who heads the neighborhood group, the group had a lot of questions on going all the way to a federal designation with the certain requirements and properties plus people not being able to meet requirements with painting and similar upkeep. Based on that group members needed to know what their expectations are and if they just want to be called a designated neighborhood and work through the process for three-to-five years down the road.
Council member and Committee Chair John Mercer said that is the amount of time it would take for a state or federal designation --local is the easiest to acquire. But there are requirements that need to happen for that one as well.
Mercer referred to East Liverpool's Ordinance Chapter 1185.09 which is about the establishment of future preservation districts and landmarks.
Mercer noted the first step is to establish what the group was looking at area wise. Once that was done, he would have to submit their request to the Design Board which would determine to move forward or not. Then the Planning Committee would look at it before advancing to council for a vote. The county auditor would also have to be notified.
The Design Board consists of Mayor Greg Bricker, Planning Director William Cowan and Susan Weaver. Members of the Thompson Group asked if they could have representatives from their neighborhood sit on the Design Board. Mercer responded that legislation would have to be amended for that. Members of the board are appointed by the mayor.
"It's not just a matter of us saying 'yeah, let's do this,'" Mercer said. "There are steps you have to take. So, the next step for us, I think obviously concentrating on local designation is the easiest and fastest thing to do. So, we just have to determine what that area is and start writing up the process."
Mercer said he didn't think getting the historic designation was impossible and believes that it could possibly be done by the end of year.
Mercer also noted that getting the designation was not going to force anybody to do anything to their property or stop people from doing anything to their property.
When Mercer asked if the group had discussed what borders they wanted in the neighborhood to be designated, Hyatt said they definitely wanted Thompson Avenue because that is the most historic.
After much debate and discussion among the members of the group present, the group came to the conclusion that the area it wanted designated as a historic neighborhood would be Pennsylvania Avenue at College Street to the dead end; the 100-400 blocks of Thompson Avenue; and the one block of Vine Street between Pennsylvania and Thompson Avenue.
Mercer said prior to the next meeting he will have a map created of that area.
Hyatt was asked if she feels other residents would step forward in fixing their properties.
"What's the goal?, the goal is to beautify, to improve and to encourage people to improve," Hyatt said. "This would stop people from moving in that don't want to…
"We want to raise the bar in East Liverpool, Ohio. We want to raise the bar in our neighborhood," sne said. "Anyway we can try to do that. We are raising the bar, and we don't work for the city."
There was much discussion over who can enforce regulations regarding the upkeep of houses and the shortage of staff members to do the job and lack of a zoning inspector due to lack of funds to hire additional staff.
When group members started to comment on the issues of junk cars and unkept properties, Mercer told them they have to have someone to go around and see the junk cars. Hyatt volunteered to do this. Mercer told her she couldn't.
Members of the group suggested having people focus on the outside of their homes before focusing on work on the inside of them.
Mercer noted that properties values increase in neighborhoods that have the historic designation. When asked if property taxes would increase along with the values, Mercer responded that the county auditor would catch up.
"We know this is a long process, but I think our goal, we talked about this on Sunday, if we just get the chatter out there it raises the awareness that we are passionate about our neighborhood and we want it to improve and we don't want built on houses to be triplex or duplexed and all those sorts of things, " Hyatt said. "If they are a single-family dwelling, we want to keep them that way. There are good things happening in our neighborhood and we want to keep that momentum going. People are doing things every day to their properties spending lots and lots of money."
During a discussion regarding the neighborhood group meetings, multiple comments were made that the group did not see tenants showing up to the meetings and that they are tenants for a reason.
Mercer said what he hoped would happen in the neighborhood is that --even if they remain rentals-- there would be a different kind of person who would rent eventually if someone wanted to rent in that neighborhood.
The next meeting for the committee is Sept. 21 at 6 p.m.
kgarabrandt@mojonews.com