Jason Williams | Cincinnati Enquirer

Mark Wert/The Enquirer

Sam Greene

Cincinnati, it's time to have a come-to-Jesus conversation about everyone's role in urban development projects.

That is, if the city wants to keep growing.

The utter chaos and extortion efforts that threatened to torpedo the $500 million Children's Hospital expansion and $200 million FC Cincinnati stadium projects call for a sense of urgency to address how development is done here.

Urban redevelopment opportunities are going to keep happening, and those who have a direct interest and legitimate concerns need to be heard. What can be done to ensure neighborhood residents and developers work together and self-serving outsiders looking for a handout stay away?

"This is scary," Mayor John Cranley said. "I'm glad we won both of those battles, but this can't keep happening. I'm very worried."

'An era of unpredictability'

It's Cincinnati, so we're always going fight. But several community, business, economic development and political leaders told Politics Extra they've not seen extraction attempts like this before.

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In fact, local economic development consultant Doug Moormann said he's not seeing problems of this magnitude happening in other Midwest cities that Cincinnati competes against for jobs.

There's been buzz recently about the need for a solution. No one has an answer yet, but they better start figuring it out. Does City Council need to go to districts so neighborhoods are better represented? Do community councils need to have more uniform structure so everyone is clear exactly who is representing the neighborhood?

Every potential investor wants to know the rules upfront before taking the risk.

"Developers are concerned about the way things are changing in Cincinnati," said Moormann, vice president of Development Strategies Group. "The boundaries are changing, but we don't know where they are. Where does community engagement end and community input begin? It's lending itself to an era of unpredictability in Cincinnati."

FC Cincinnati and West End stakeholders on Wednesday struck a deal on a community benefits agreement, ending a painstaking process that at one point had a group demanding the soccer club hand over a $50 million check. It's a soccer franchise, not a bank, and FC Cincinnati rightfully told the group to go pound sand.

The deal came nine months after some politicians and so-called community leaders demanded Children's hand over up to $27 million to Avondale. The hospital did give the neighborhood $11 million, separate from the expansion project.

In both cases, most of the loudest critics didn't actually live in the neighborhoods. Some of those critics, however, would argue they were standing up for poverty-stricken neighborhoods and wanted to make sure developers respected the residents and understood the history of gentrification.

Frankly, Cincinnati is fortunate Children's Hospital and FC Cincinnati were so committed to the urban core. Children's, which didn't receive public money, could've easily gone to Liberty Township. FCC could've gone to Newport. The next developer might not even bother with the city.

Who will step up and start the conversation?

It'd be a good issue for Cranley to tackle. He fancies himself a pro-development mayor, but he believes he's doing his job by supporting projects.

Cranley led the effort to get $35 million in city money for stadium infrastructure. He contends it's mostly on City Council to take the lead on addressing the community engagement problems.

FC Cincinnati and West End Community Council entered a so-called CBA, a legally binding agreement that partly requires the club to pay the neighborhood $3 million over 30 years for community projects.

The deal raises questions whether Council should require community benefits agreements for all projects. In theory, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. Developers have their eyes on places like Walnut Hills, and they shouldn't be given carte blanche to do what they want.

Residents are genuinely concerned about losing their homes. Gentrification is a sensitive issue, and we need to look out for the best interests of all residents.

CBAs 'extort money, not good government'

But there's a downside to a community benefits agreement. Competition for projects is cutthroat, and developers could see it as a roadblock that they wouldn't have in, say, West Chester, Indianapolis or Columbus.

Community benefits agreements are more common in major U.S. cities on the east and west coasts, heavily populated urban centers where available land is scarce. But they're not real popular among politicians and business leaders.

Neighborhood representatives in a CBA sometimes don't always represent the community's interests, law professor Edward W. De Barbieri wrote in New York City-based Cardozo Law Review. That was the case a decade ago on a Brooklyn arena project.

“I’m violently opposed to community benefits agreements,” then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the Brooklyn Paper. “A small group of people, to feather their own nests, extort money from the developer. That’s just not good government.”

Enquirer file