The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Different views offered on Champion Farm
The former Champion Farm in Perry Township and Village had been a bank-owned property for seven years when the 232-acre parcel was purchased by the Perry School District in 2017.
That property was acquired by Perry Schools with the intent of redeveloping the land with a mix of primarily commercial, medical, office and/or light industrial uses. It’s hoped that these new tenants generate payroll revenue and strengthen the community’s tax base within the established Perry Joint Economic Development District, according to the recently unveiled Champion Farm Joint Land Study.
The 33-page study highlights strengths and weaknesses of the Champion Farm for future economic development and offers sitespecific recommendations on the best ways to redevelop this property.
It’s interesting that at a recent community meeting during which the study was presented, the first comments and questions from an audience member didn’t concern any future recommendations in the study. Instead, the topic focused on the purchase of the Champion Farm by a government entity.
What ensued was a spirited debate on whether the best way to redevelop the Champion Farm was for local government to own or zone that property.
Perry resident and former Lake County Commissioner Ray Sines said at the meeting that he objected to Perry Schools purchasing the Champion Farm because it was done without input from taxpayers.
“The taxpayers paid for this,” Sines said. “There’s not any other person paying for this property other than the taxpayers of this community.”
Since the Perry School Board made a decision to buy Champion Farm with the School District’s money, residents’ tax dollars actually were used to fund the purchase, he said.
Perry School Board in 2017 approved the district’s purchase of the Champion Farm from Fifth Third Bank for $536,088. The school district, in turn, is leasing sections of the land to the township and village. About 80 acres — the northernmost section of the property — are located in the township, while the remaining 150 acres are in the village.
Perry Schools will be paid back in full for the property through lease payments from Perry Village and the Perry Joint Economic Development District, where the township’s section of Champion Farm property is located. Repayments to the school district are scheduled to be completed by May 2022, Perry Township Administrator Karen Sundy said .
When it comes to Champion Farm, Sines said the wiser course of action would have been to simply zone the property in the way that local government officials wanted to see it developed.
“This community could have done this exact plan through zoning versus buying it,” he said.
Jennifer Syx, a consultant who helped produce the Champion Farm study, responded to Sines’ claims during the meeting. She said the owning the site should enhance prospects for development.
“When you don’t own it, you don’t control it,” said Syx, who is president of InSITE Advisory Group of Fairlawn. “If you own it, now you can do a planned-unit development, get a larger master developer or two and make it work.”
In her experience of consulting with communities on similar projects, Syx said there’s a fear that “If you don’t own it, you are subject to having it parceled out 1 acre, 3 acres 5 acres . ... ”
Sines delivered a quick reply.
“That’s rezoning. You rezone that, which is fine. If it’s commercial zoning, it’s commercial. If it’s industrial, it’s industrial. If it’s agriculture, it’s agriculture.”
Syx replied that the idea proposed by Sines could “tie the hands of any developer who wanted to come in.”
“If you are so prescriptive in your zoning, nobody will want to develop there because government makes it too hard.”
Syx also referred to the mixed-use overlay district adopted by Perry Village earlier this year for its portion of the Champion Farm property. In approving the district, the village seeks to achieve “the goal of creating a destination ‘Village Center’ that reflects the Village of Perry and its focus on family and community,” according to the Champion Farm study.
“What this is meant to do, with the mixed-use zoning district already in its overlay stage, it allows some flexibility,” she said. “You still have the underlying zoning, but now the communities can control what is going to happen. If you did nothing, chances are nothing will happen.”
But Sines was not swayed by Syx’s claims.
“You only control by zoning,” Sines said. “I am just opposed to government buying property that should be in the private sector.”