Lorain Council OKs Stoveworks plan, says neighborhood needs work | Lorain County

Lorain’s city administration will move forward on a plan to redevelop the former Stoveworks site with 70 new owner-occupied homes.

But Lorain City Council members say the administration and staff must turn attention to the surrounding neighborhood as well.

On June 7, Lorain City Council voted 11-0 to concur with the conceptual site plan for 1200 Long Ave., the former National Vapor Stove Company.

For years, it was a dumping ground bordered by Long Avenue, railroad tracks to the north and West 13th Street to the south.

The latest plans for revitalization show a new neighborhood with 41 three-bedroom houses about 1,200 square feet each and 29 four-bedroom houses, each about 1,500 square feet in size.

Council speaks

Council members agreed the plan is a good one, but should be part of a larger plan to tackle code enforcement and poverty in the blocks around it.

“We probably should be considering strong enforcement around that area as the area does need some attention, and some offering of our programs to help some of those neighbors, you know, improve their housing,” Ward 3 Councilwoman Pamela Carter said. “Otherwise, I believe that all this hard work that we’re putting into this is going to become more of the same.”

The city should start a neighborhood improvement project “yesterday,” and asked for a project schedule, Carter said.

Council approval is the end of the first step of the process, said Max Upton, director of the department of Building, Housing and Planning.

City staff hope Council considers authorizing a request for proposals for a development partner, before Council’s August recess, Upton said.

In the fall, city officials could select a developer who could break ground in late 2022, with homes built and residents moving in late in 2023 or early 2024, he said.

“That’s going to come by real fast,” Carter said, and now is the time to start talking to neighbors about improving housing.

Check on the neighbors

Ward 6 Councilman Rey Carrion praised the project and the city staff for changing plans from home ownership and rentals to home ownership, a drastic change.

Carrion asked about possibilities for developing healthy food options for residents and connections for walking and cycling around there.

Nearby, the vast majority of houses are rentals, said Councilwoman-at-Large Mary Springowski.

Visiting that neighborhood on a regular basis for church, the road surface is rutted and needs repair, Springowski said.

The neighborhood appears to be one of the poorest in Lorain and city officials should take a hard look at the conditions of property there, she said.

“I don’t know how we can expect to build new beautiful homes, and expect people that are going to maintain them, to move into them, when the rest of the area looks like a war zone,” Springowski said.

She asked about what “affordable housing” means for the project.

If a solid middle class family can buy the homes spending 30 percent of their income, that would be affordable, Upton said.

The prices likely will be in the low $100,000s range, he said, with city financing to drive down costs.

Councilman-at-Large Mitch Fallis agreed with Carter and Springowski and called for a strategic plan to address the streets and how the city could help housing conditions there.

Fallis also praised the project for limiting blueprints to owner-occupied houses, not rental units.

Springowski pressed the point that city officials and staff should get into the neighborhood to examine the conditions there, especially for the rental homes.

Carrion agreed on a realistic approach, but said the neighborhood needs a key driving project to move forward over time.

In that area, the streets are in deplorable shape, so city leaders should get the street and utilities staff to upgrade the streets, sidewalks and infrastructure around there, Fallis said.

He suggested such a plan as a second phase of the project.

That will happen in part due to Lorain’s spending plan for Community Development Block Grant.

City staff are looking for tax delinquent parcels and will work with the Lorain County Land Reutilization Corp. to acquire land around the site.