contract
Please note in the John Bain letter posted on teh our pages side the words, ''pre-annexation agreement CONTRACT'' I hope the attorneys litigating the contract zoning issue in the courts against the city are getting a copy of this letter. Contract Zoning is illegal under current Ohio Law. It seems everyone is referring to these agreements as ''contracts'' except the city!
I attended a council meeting in December of 1999 and heard Mr. Postage tell the room that city council will NEVER pass a zoning as an emergency, never has, never will! A funny thing happened after that meeting, Nearly every single zoning legislation issue since that date has been passed as an emergency including the acceptance of this annexation and contemporaneous rezoning the land to R-4 as stated in the pre annexation agreement. If that would not have passed as an emergency, the referendum would have occured on the zoning at that time. Nobody wanted to wait until the platting phase. Council's deliberate use of emergency legislation to circumvent referendum is why the action has occured so late in the game.
I think Homewood has weaker attorneys than Dominion. Dominion inserted language on the Diley Associates land, pre annexation agreement, stated that the annexation would not take place if any challenge of the zoning by referendum took place. They laid it out right up front for everyone to see who council was supporting with their votes. Homewood's pre-agreement lacked such statements and that is why Mr. Bain is forced to grovel to the city now.The city who continues to act against the will of the residents of this community. If they (council)were in touch with what people wanted in this community, they never would have allowed this development, in this manner, in the first place.
Homewood has brought us many of the developments in the Tussing area, including an action to disturb and relocate a pioneer cemetery in the area. They moved the gravestones to a new location so they could build there, but somehow forgot to move the remains of those who were founding pioneers in this area. The remains were discovered when they began to dig for a single family home basement, the contractor had no idea what lay below the dirt.
Is this the kind of developer you trust with ''protecting'' the Pickerington Ponds without iron-clad contracts dictating what protections they will provide in their development of this land? Can you trust them to honor their word or any promise they make to the community, city or school officials?
Homewood, just go away, you have made millions here, on the reputation of our school system and you continue to market the people who live here and the quality of life we bring to the community in your own interest.... period. WE deserve a say in what the heck you do next to a fragile ecosystem and how much we want to pay to educate the children who will move into your community since your donation will not cover the impact of such. Don't try to sell your side of the story by telling anyone that you do anything in the best interest of our community! We are not fools. The only foolish thing we did is let you run rampant over this community for so many years! We have had enough.
