Plans for school face critiques

Residents opposing plans for old Browning Elementary School building

In his 23 years of being a Willoughby resident, Larry Luciano cannot remember a time when Ward 5 residents and his neighborhood in particular were so united.

“If you walked our neighborhood and interviewed people, I would wager nearly everyone you would talk to would tell you they oppose this idea,” Luciano said.

The idea they are against is developer Dave Knott’s proposed plan for the former Browning Elementary School building that would include 26 apartment units in total, with 21 units being onebedroom apartments and six being two-bedroom. The rent would range from $1,400 to $1,800.

“When Browning, including the park with a playground, ballfields and basketball court, was a school and a senior center, it had community value,” Luciano said. “It brought life into our neighborhood and city residents benefited form its existence.”

More than 130letters have been written to the Planning Commission, as well as a petition submitted with more than 300Ward 5signatures in explicit opposition to the Browning Place proposal. The community also has also posted more than 100 “No Browning Apartment Complex” signs in their lawns.

Now that those purposes have since been gone, Browning is simply “an old building that has served its purpose,” Luciano described.

“There are options for the applicant to proceed in a manner that will ensure he makes money on his investment, as he rightfully should,” Luciano said. “He should not have the right to do this at the expense of the other nearby landowners, however.”

Knott has said he is looking at an upward amount of $3 million for the investment into the building restoration.

“We’ve put in a great deal of effort and hard work to

come up with a plan to upgrade the entire school,” he previously said. “The Browning Place will remain as is. There are no additions going onto the school. We’re going to upgrade certain exterior items bringing it back to a much cleaner look and appearance.”

Knott’s plans were put on hold last month when the city Planning Commission granted his request to table the matter. There was no further discussion.

Speculations as to why the applicant tabled the item cannot be made, Luciano said. As of now, the conditional use permit is still on the agenda for the meeting next week, he said.

“The applicant has made no indication that he plans to withdraw or change his proposal,” Luciano said. “Perhaps he needed the

time to address the multitude of issues that were raised at the meeting and bolster his case.”

According to Mayor Robert Fiala and Luciano, there have been more than 130 letters that have been written to the Planning Commission, as well as a petition submitted with more than 300 Ward 5 signatures in explicit opposition to the Browning Place proposal.

The community have also posted more than 100 “No Browning Apartment Complex” signs in their lawns.

“I counted 344 signatures. We have bought and distributed 180 yard signs and could have used more, but felt our point had been made,” Luciano said. “When I spoke to the law director, he told me there had been 157 letters submitted.

The overwhelming majority were in opposition.”

While he cannot speak for other residents, Luciano feels that most people feel like a multi-family home complex does not belong in the middle of a neighborhood, he said.

“The area is zoned residential, R60 and R80, and it has been since the neighborhood was conceived in the 1920s,” he said. “The vicinity is meant to have homes. Putting a commercial operation into the middle of this neighborhood is not appropriate.”

After it closed as an elementary school, the Browning building became the city’s senior center, as well as a daycare facility, Fiala said. The city never owned the building, but it was leased from the school district, he said.

“It was also a polling location for several elections,” the mayor said. “The building does not exist in our historic district and it does not have a plaque.”

In the past, the city has always honored a request to table a project, Fiala said.

“I can’t think of one time where a developer for any project has been denied a request to table,” he said. “There’s such a range of emotion about this and for a while, I was getting several emails a day, four letters a day with concerns.”

Fiala said concerns in regard to traffic, the density of having a number of units in a single family, detached neighborhood and the changing of the neighborhood’s character, which is predominantly single family, owner-occupied homes, have come up. The park is

also another big concern.

“The park was owned by the school district and while we put a play structure in the park, the residents did much of the upkeep over the years, so they have a love for that park,” Fiala said. “They’ve invested themselves, they’ve painted the fences, they look care of the ball diamond, so they have a sense of ownership of that park. That’s a big concern.”

“My sense is that owneroccupied (homes) brings with it a sense of investment within the community and that rental housing doesn’t do that,” Fiala continued. “I think when you kind of burrow through it, that’s where it gets to. The single family dwellers in that area would prefer to have people purchase a house.”

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