Something Smells Funny
Little Italy Master Plan Homeowner Survey — General Comments
June 2021
Something smells funny, and it’s not the marinara sauce. There’s an abundance of gourmet marinara sauce to be enjoyed in Cleveland’s Little Italy. That said, the story of the avalanche of recent development in and around Little Italy is not so appetizing to those of us who own homes here.
We moved to Little Italy eight years ago after living in Cleveland Heights for over 40 years. We downsized into a very cool townhome that sits up high over Murray Hill Rd. We have a great view of the horizon, looking north to the lake, and our townhome is beautifully designed and is the perfect set-up to display Joan’s spectacular artwork.
There’s a lot to like about living in Little Italy, to be sure. The walkable proximity to University Circle, Coventry Rd. and the Cedar-Fairmount neighborhood is fantastic, and we’ll admit we love the Italian food. The restaurants are incredible; it’s no lie. We have issues we’d like to see improved or fixed like the dangerous speeders that drive up and down the hill by our house all day long, but on balance we really like the Little Italy neighborhood, the people that live here and our neighbors.
But something totally weird has happened since we moved here in 2013. And while we aren’t smart enough to understand exactly why this has all taken place, it just hits us and a lot of people we know here in a bad place. Something just doesn’t feel right.
When we moved here we were aware of certain stereotypical reputations Little Italy had, probably not deserved, but reputations nonetheless. People talked about crime being an issue. Race relations were strained at one time. (The neighborhood is welcoming to all now, we feel.) It’s impossible to park here. Stuff like that.
We did consider all the pluses and minuses of living here as one would with any neighborhood, and one stereotype that we checked out was the common slam that Little Italy was mostly rental properties with landlords that generally didn’t live in the neighborhood. What we were told when we asked around was that Little Italy had a Master Plan for development that recognized the value and preference for owner-occupied housing in the community. Cool, we thought, they are on top of the issue.
Now eight years later, the neighborhood and the areas around it have been flooded with mostly high-end rental housing and recently something odd is being pitched called “micro-units.” Micro-units are the rage in densely packed places like big cities in Asia, New York and L.A. Micro-units are tiny dwellings, as the name implies, typically 200–400 square feet, that seem to appeal to students and Millennials.
One estimate we were given is that as many as 2000 rental units have been or are being built within a one mile radius of us. That’s a heck of a lot of rental units, and we suspect it’s not that hard to figure out why. It has to be the money. Development of rental units must be a lot more profitable to the developers than “for sale” housing.
The people we know that own homes and pay taxes in the neighborhood worry a lot about so much new rental housing. They agree with the existing Little Italy Master Plan that owner-occupied housing is the best way to retain the historical, cultural and economic value in the neighborhood. But that is not what has happened since we moved here.
And that’s a shame really, because as homeowner taxpayers (we had two years only of tax abatement on our home) it feels like it’s been the Wild West here. Anything goes, chaos rules and the land grab has been on, regardless of what the people that own homes and pay taxes here think about it, and in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the Little Italy Master Plan.
It feels like powerful influencers and developers from outside Little Italy have had their way with the City of Cleveland and are stripping the economic and cultural benefits out of the neighborhood. That’s what it feels like to us and other homeowner taxpayers we know in the neighborhood.
It feels like the proponents of these big projects, for the most part who do not live here, have incredible economic, political, and public and press relations leverage and are establishing income generating properties at low cost (remember 15 year tax abatement and the Opportunity Zone tax break) that have high rental fees that will likely be covered by multiple numbers of unrelated people. It seems like students will be packed into these spaces to cover the rent, and now we hear that Airbnbs are becoming popular in some of these new properties.
We have nothing against students, despite some of the issues we have had to contend with close to us like the partying, loud music, yelled obscenities, illegal fireworks and outdoor basketball games into all hours of the night. We chose to live in a “college town” so to speak, and willingly accepted the many positives of that choice despite a handful of negatives.
But it seems like all this new rental housing will take renters from the existing landlords because they’ll be able to pack more people into these newer units. Someone must think this is what the market wants, given Millennials’ preference to live close to work and remain mobile and maybe well to-do Baby Boomers looking to downsize into a community like this.
We are well aware of some studies that suggest this, but market studies often are just horribly wrong, and no one can predict the future with a great degree of certainty. Most importantly, the effect on the existing community is not being examined to any serious degree that we are aware of and no one in a position of authority seems to be sensitive to the fact that the “externalities” of the developer’s economic model end up being the quality of life “internalities” of the people that live here.
Aesthetics are subjective, but just look at some of what has been built and try to make the case it is within the character of the neighborhood. Many people who actually live here think some pretty hideous looking stuff has been built. But that’s subjective, and it’s easy to ignore opinion, no matter how pervasive its reach.
But parking and traffic congestion, noise, snow and trash removal, privacy, lack of green space with parks and gardens and bike and pedestrian safety are real issues that the people that live here must contend with after the significant nuisances of the construction are finally gone. The premise seems to be, “Build it, and they will come.” (And when they do, you deal with the effects. And if they don’t, oh well, we’ll move on to another neighborhood.)
The fancy word thrown around by development proponents is density, and it seems like the City, the influencers and the developers really want a lot of it. Density translates to income, we imagine. Another buzzword proponents market slavishly is “vibrancy.” We’re not sure exactly what that means, but truthfully, what is so vibrant about what has been accomplished by development here the last eight years?
We don’t see what’s vibrant about a lot of new high-end rental housing that even now is struggling to get filled. What happened to the art galleries? What’s vibrant about a movie theatre that‘s been boarded up for decades? Or empty storefronts, especially in the new buildings that were touted as attracting retail? It will be very interesting to see how vibrant things are in Little Italy if the speculative demand for this new apartment glut doesn’t magically materialize. Then what? Do these properties get spun off to real estate investors from out of the country?
It appears that the big, powerful employers in University Circle want more “dorm” space for students and “barracks” for their often-transient workers. Recently we heard one of the influencer’s use the term “Greater University Circle Area” to denote the inclusion of Little Italy in the fiefdom.
That one phrase suggests all you really need to know about what is happening. Little Italy is becoming University Circle’s bedroom suburb. How then do people that have chosen Little Italy as a place to own a home determine the future of this community? We’re no longer convinced they can.
And it doesn’t seem though that these rental spaces are the types of places that young families with kids or retiring Boomers will be enjoying much. A young family recently bought a place in our row of townhomes. The new rental they were in on Mayfield Rd. was so loud at night their baby couldn’t sleep.
We got involved and actively opposed one of the more gargantuan new rental projects and one smaller project that would have been placed within a few feet of the townhome row we are in. That involvement has been pretty disheartening, frankly, and we have found that other homeowner taxpayers are getting pretty discouraged by the logistics of power from outside the neighborhood that seem to have overwhelmed it.
The powerful and privileged community influencers, big employers and developers seem to have pretty much gotten their way, giving in very little to community preferences for things like less imposing structures, parking and traffic considerations, privacy, pedestrian and bicycle safety, more trees and green space and not filling every available square foot of the land with income potential. Our impression is that projects are generally proposed of huge scope to maximize profitability, and then the proponents position themselves to look reasonable when the neighbors justifiably freak out.
By the time the public finds out about one of these mega-projects, it appears that the land is typically acquired and all the wheels seem to be greased with contractors and the City. The public participation process seems like so much lip service.
As opponents to a project we were vilified by a community “leader” who angrily admonished our neighbors by name in an official proceeding, on the record. A proponent lawyer rebutted our testimony with misinformation, and we were characterized as anti-development, anti-Cleveland and called NIMBY’s. Proponent testimony even implied we were racists.
Proponents seem to be quite willing to hit below the belt, then. Recently we saw in the press that a development proponent used a xenophobic dog whistle to characterize a project opponent.
We have to say that project opponents are thoroughly outgunned, not just because they don’t have the resources but because they don’t have the standing and the arrogant entitlement smug proponents exude when they respond to critics or design review suggestions, or try to manipulate the public participation process by limiting community input, or load the administrative record with testimony from those that would benefit economically from the project.
Proponents seem to be incredulous and offended that anyone would want safely and well-constructed, appealing, modest looking structures that don’t overcrowd our already densely packed neighborhood. Proponent demeanor has bordered on belligerent bullying, but that’s the culture we live in today. We give opponents credit for staying focused on quality of life issues in the neighborhood, as they should.
We will also give our councilperson a lot of credit. He has represented us well and gone out on a limb and questioned the more egregious projects. But he seems to put himself at risk, given the immense political leverage of project proponents. We imagine that influencers and developers make massive philanthropic contributions to the big employers, and it’s curious how these projects seem to universally get positive press when only a precious few in the community that benefit economically tend to think they are a great idea. How does that positive press happen?
That’s why as homeowner taxpayers something just doesn’t smell right. And we suspect one could get to the source of that underlying odor if we were really able to “follow the money” on all these projects. People are not making these investments without an expectation of significant return, and it would be really interesting to see how their economic models work. It would also be interesting to understand how exactly the influencers and developers privately interact with the City and the press.
As homeowners, taxpayers and community members who are curious why so much money is being thrown at a type of development homeowner taxpayers do not readily support, that would be interesting. The good news is a new Master Plan is being developed for Little Italy that will codify through zoning changes the development preferences that the community really wants to preserve its economic and historical vitality.
It is critical that this plan gets completed quickly and adopted by City Council. In the meantime, the influencers and developers appear to be racing to the finish line to get their projects in before the plan is finished and before decisions are made on extending 15-year tax abatement next year.
Furthermore, we agree with others in the community that it is essential that the people in the Little Italy neighborhood get better organized so as to level the playing field with the powerful economic interests that seek to exploit the community’s heritage and value and constantly put profits before people. It’s not clear that Little Italy wasn’t targeted for this explosion of rental development because the community was not well organized to resist development that was inconsistent with the existing Master Plan.
We also agree with a proposal we have heard about that would put together a well-funded, activist community organization that can act as a watchdog to police the development process and its effects. We heartily support such an effort.
And to us it’s not just about the aesthetics or the look and feel of what will be built. It’s about performing thorough due diligence on the developers and their contractors, it’s about monitoring the quality, safety and nuisances of construction, it’s about tracking the promises made by developers and their performance against those promises and its about assuring that the benefits of development accrue to the Little Italy community and not just to influencers and developers. The community has a “right to know” that these aspects of development will benefit it.
Development proponents typically don’t like it when the David’s of the world push back against Goliath, and we would expect a PR blitz in rebuttal. They are the heavyweights and really do appear to be running this game, but it is high time that the citizens who live here in Little Italy find their footing, establish the presence to make a difference and make their neighborhood exactly what they want it to be.
Respectfully submitted,
Arthur and Joan Hargate
Cleveland, OH
