By Hannah Poling
Staff Writer
The property at 400 Alton Darby Creek Road was discussed at the April 20 meeting of the Westland Area Commissioners.
The developers, Redwood Apartment Neighborhoods, wants to rezone this 42-acre property so it can build 228 rental units for senior citizens.
The Big Darby Accord met to discuss this proposal earlier in the month.
“They didn’t want us to approve or disapprove it, they just wanted our opinion on it of what it would take for us to approve it,” said Commissioner Ashley Hoye.
According to Hoye, there is a lot of flooding off of that property. Officials from Prairie Township attended the meeting and relayed that they were against the project unless the developers could get the water off of the property.
Jeff Brown, a zoning attorney, said they are not yet done with the studies regarding the flooding. The potential of running the flood water into the wetland and then back out is against the Big Darby Master Plan. The only option would be to run it into the wetland and turn it into a pond and not a run off.
“Water cannot go into a wetland and then out of the wetland. It’s not meant to be a run off situation,” said Hoye. “I don’t see how it’s going to pass the Big Darby Accord.”
The applicant is planning to go back to the Big Darby Accord in May after taking their comments.
Fresh Market Food Pantry
The Mid-Ohio Foodbank is opening a Fresh Market Food Pantry at 620 Norton Road in Columbus.
It will be located in the old Kroger building that was previously on the property.
According to commissioner Nancy Day-Achauer, “Fresh Market will be like shopping in a super market. You check in like at the normal food pantry but you get a shopping cart and you can pick out the items that you want.”
The market will be open for limited hours six days a week and will also have a private area available to help sign individuals up for benefits.
The grand opening of the center will be on May 9. This market will replace the current monthly food distribution, which has previously been held at the Prairie Township Fire Station, at 123 Inah Ave.
All individuals moving forward will be transferred over to the Fresh Market Food Pantry.
“I am happy to be replaced by a better program,” said Day-Achauer.
Recreation
The push continues to get a recreation center on the westside however, commissioners are looking at other options in the interim to get the families some programming and activities in the community.
“Kids aren’t frozen in time,” said Melissa Green with the Department of Neighborhoods. “In 10 years the kids who are here in Westland are no longer going to be children they will be adults.”
Getting funding to rent a location to hold community events, or getting funding to pay staff for after school programs were both concepts put on the table to consider as more short term solutions to a long term goal.
In the meantime, the parks and recreation committee will continue to look for potential locations, and connect with the people that they need to make their recreation center a reality.
Green will be connecting the commissioners to the Neighborhood Design Center who can create potential mock-ups of the recreation center to create a visual that they can use for future presentations for their advocacy.
