New Marysville City Council President/Mayor Donald Boerger told many residents exactly what they wanted to hear during the second meeting of 2024.
“No longer will developers use valuable land while our residents must sacrifice open space and the beauty of our city,” Boerger said.
He said the voters’ overwhelming support of him and his anti-growth platform, coupled with the ejection of the other three incumbent council members, is a clear indication that people were fed up with decisions that did not align with community values.
He vowed to stop “rapid, unsustainable expansion of generic housing development as a primary means to create revenue.”
I think Boerger is right, to a point, but I don’t think it’s a perspective that holds for every voter for all of eternity.
I think the councilman is correctly reading the room, but the perspective of voters can change based on condition.
If you blast a person in the face with a fire hose for 10 minutes and then offer them a glass of water they will most likely decline.
Conversely, if they have walked through the dusty plains for a full day and a glass is offered, they might eagerly accept.
Marysville residents have most definitely spent a handful of years at the end of the hose of development. Developers have snatched up land for homes, apartments and nondescript warehouses while eagerly accepting incentives to do so.
The very front door to Marysville from the city of Columbus on U.S. 33 is sprouting concrete tombstones. In a patch branded for “Innovation” the buildings all look the same and, in most cases, nobody has a clue what companies will locate in them. It’s like creating a think-tank and filling it with mannequin heads.
But the I.P. is not alone at the nozzle of the development hose:
•A housing development will soon dump traffic onto a state highway directly across from a middle school.
•Commercial zoning regions are being filled with apartments because “technically” paying rent is a business transaction.
•Columbus Avenue is blossoming with new apartments which are pumping fresh vehicles into the Five Points cluster, long before the solution to the quagmire, a roundabout, has even begun.
•The very thought that the proposed Marysville East development on Watkins Road should be paused was met with a threat that utility rates would spike as a result. That spike would be needed because the city is spending $15 million on a pump station to facilitate growth in that area. That’s not putting the cart before the horse – that’s running over the horse in order to put it there.
And all of this while offering incentives to sweeten the deal for developers. These operations all tout a goal of bettering Marysville, but profit is the real endgame. And that’s fine. That’s capitalism. People with intelligence, experience and drive are rewarded in this economic system, but do we really need to slip them an envelope full of incentives – none of which sniff the city’s income tax bags?
The residents cast a sleepy eye to the workings of the city for many years, but recently woke up in the form of a referendum on a Route 245 project and the jettison of three incumbent council members.
Boerger has a good reason to feel like he has measured the racing pulse of the city. In most ways he has. But the danger in slowing growth, or a heart rate, is that going too low means death.
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For our county-wide progress edition this year, we wanted to include a story that picked the brains of experts in the field of city building. We also wanted people who had some knowledge about Union County and its challenges.
We settled on a pair of experts, Dr. Kerstin Carr, chief regional strategy officer for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, and Dr. Edward Hill, a professor of economic development at The Ohio State University.
The story is very interesting and readers should check out the inserted section earlier this week, which will also be mailed to all homes in the county.
Both experts knew the strengths and struggles of Marysville very well. They said Marysville’s growth and its side effects (traffic, voter unrest, tension between government entities) will likely continue.
“All of a sudden people wake up and say ‘Hey, this place is different,’” Hill said.
Hill’s comments were both blunt and often comical. Because of that, we have invited him to record an episode of the Journal-Tribune Podcast about the area’s growing pains which will appear on streaming platforms next Thursday.
Hill said a large population of citizens will always want to enjoy country life in the city, or “Mayberry” as he put it.
“They want to preserve the community of Ozzie and Harriet,” Hill said.
But when you try to engage a full stop on growth, it tends to run you over. Hill said development would “swamp” the community.
“They (cities that try to stop development altogether) are going to lose and they are going to get development in a way that is not coherent and with unexpected and unintended consequences,” Hill said.
Both experts said the key is for city leaders to know exactly what type of growth and in what locations appeals to a consensus of the community, not just the residents who come to meetings.
Carr said leaders need to take these discussions to the citizens at events, gatherings and even parks. Residents must be asked what the city should look like in 20 years, or perhaps how to shape Marysville into a town their children would reside in down the line. She said affordable housing options are important if residents want their children and grandchildren nearby.
“They have to think, ‘Maybe I don’t want it right now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need it as a community and that doesn’t mean I might not be glad it’s here at some point,” Carr said.
Affordable housing is also important in building a sense of community that comes from options that allow retail workers, service providers and city and school employees to participate in events.
Hill also said many economic development incentives are “very inefficient ways to fund public services and probably shouldn’t happen.” He said entities all tend to want the revenue from growth and believe they can best use it. They don’t think about other entities or the taxpayers.
Hill said strong counties consider themselves as one entity rather than a collection of entities. A plan needs to be formed where schools, municipalities and other entities look outside of their own needs to work together so growth meets the needs of all.
Hill said it is important to adapt to growth rather than trying to stop it. He said communities that don’t evolve often die the slow death of population and economic decline.
“While holding your breath and saying ‘No’ may get you reelected, it’s not going to solve the problem,” Hill said.
We encourage readers to take a look at the lead story in the Progress Edition or give the J-T Podcast a listen next Thursday.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.