by Chuck Hoven

   The roll out of plans for Cleveland’s downtown lakefront offers an illustrative example of how the community development industrial complex works in Cleveland. The players lining up in support of downtown lakefront planning and spending public dollars on the project include the Cleveland Brown’s owners Jimmy and Susan Haslam; the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and State of Ohio elected office holders; the City of Cleveland Planning Commission; the Cleveland Foundation; the Cleveland Plain Dealer, various real estate developers, land use lawyers, contractors, labor unions and others that will benefit from new development along the downtown lakefront.

NEWS ANALYSIS

   Using $2.5 million contributed by the City of Cleveland and another $2.5 million contributed by the State of Ohio, lakefront planners rolled out their plans for the lakefront at the Inlet Dance Studio in the Pivot Center on the Near West Side at one of a series of public meetings they held in early May. The meeting included plenty of food for the just over 60 people who attended the event. Guests were entertained by a rap music group while they looked at a huge map of the downtown shoreline which showed the Shoreway, railroad tracks, the lakefront. The map presented several alternatives for reconfiguring the Shoreway and presented plans for a bridge that would extend from the greenspace between City Hall and the old Court House over the railroad tracks and the Shoreway down to the area by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Science Museum.

   Those in attendance were also given dots to place on various choices of activities they would like to partake in to enjoy the greater access to the Lakefront that planners say the new pedestrian bridge would allow.

   When it came time for residents in attendance to see a slide show of what was being proposed, there was too much light in the room from the large unshaded windows in the dance studio to see the slides. It mattered little as planners explained that the choices had been narrowed down to just two options – both included building a land bridge from the bluff near City Hall to the lakefront. Doing nothing had been ruled out already.

   While the plans being rolled out for the lakefront sound nice, crucial examination of who will benefit and who will pay for the project was not part of the public discussion. There was no attempt to weigh the opportunity cost of other alternatives ways that public resources being committed to this project could be spent. There was no questioning of what resources on the lakefront residents would be able to access with the new land bridge that they could not now access by walking down West 3^rd or E. 9^th Street.

   It was unclear what parts of the current lakefront or pieces of the current Shoreway would be made available for new development and who would benefit from such development. There was no discussion of the tax abatements, tax increment financing and other incentives that would likely be offered to developers. Or that such incentives would mean that the City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the Cleveland MetroParks and the Cleveland Public Library would receive little or no new property tax revenue for years after any new developments are constructed on the lakefront.

   This is typical of development projects in Cleveland. The City of Cleveland chasing the shiny new toy while neglecting basic services to its citizens and neglecting to address long term critical needs such as the need to contain lead in our housing stock, the need for affordable housing for low-income residents, and the need to properly fund our schools or provide our students with opportunities comparable to their suburban peers. Developers reap most of the financial benefits from such a planning process, while residents are left with no new resources to address longstanding critical needs or adequate public sector budgets for new programs.

   With the community development industrial complex firmly behind the plans for the lakefront and State of Ohio Legislature already committing funds for the land bridge, it is likely some form of a downtown lakefront plan will go forward. Cleveland should make sure that all Clevelanders benefit, rather than just developers benefiting from the project.

   In promoting this plan for the lakefront, several politicians have said that East Side residents don’t have the same access to Lake Erie as West Side residents. It is true that there is no beach on the East Side that is comparable to Edgewater Beach. However, there is no evidence in the new plans for the lakefront that beach building is being considered.

   The lakefront on the East Side has been filled over the years by dredging from the Cuyahoga River and people who used to sail along the Lake will tell you that inlets that they used to be able to go into have been filled. There are access points to the Lake on the East Side. the E. 9^th Street pier offers a boardwalk, restaurants, and kayak rentals. Gordon Park and Lakefront Park areas run by the Cleveland Metroparks that extend from E. 72^nd to Martin Luther King Boulevard, and just beyond that the Dike 14 Nature Preserve offer additional access to the lakefront. There is access to the lake, it is just much different than that found at Edgewater Park or Whiskey Island on the West Side.

   A project now underway called the Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Strategy (CHEERS), promises to create “additional open spaces, trails, fishing and other amenities along roughly 80 acres between the East 55^th Street Marina and Gordon Park on the city’s east side,” according to a press release issued by the Cleveland Port Authority.

   The CHEERS partnership which includes the Port Authority, the Cleveland Metroparks, the City of Cleveland, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the nonprofit Black Environmental Leaders Association perhaps holds more promise for some of the lakefront amenities that downtown planners are promising to provide access to. Perhaps the public meetings should be focusing on this planning effort, rather than the one being promoted by the Cleveland Browns’ owners. The project, which is estimated by the Port Authority to take two decades to complete, includes a Maritime Learning Center for Cleveland Metropolitan School District students.

   If the downtown lakefront planning project is to go forward, the focus should be to gain as much property tax as possible from any development that occurs so the City of Cleveland and the school system will have the funds to make sure future Clevelanders can make full use Cleveland’s water resources and the additional parkland eventually promised through the CHEERS project.  End the tax abatements. Do not consider any tax increment financing schemes proposed by developers or city planners.

   Instead, if lakefront access for future residents of Cleveland is the desired goal, lets make sure our children know how to make use of Lake Erie. Let’s make sure our tax dollars fully fund our recreation centers and outdoor pools. Let’s make sure all Cleveland children have access to publicly funded swimming lessons. Our schools should all have the resources to take every Cleveland student on field trips to visit our lakefront parks. Cleveland students should also have access to lessons on how to fish, kayak, sail, and open water swim in Lake Erie. Sports such as rowing and kayaking on the Cuyahoga River should also be funded and encouraged in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

   If we are truly committed to giving Clevelanders better access to the Lake and the Cuyahoga River, let’s make sure our young people have the skills they need to participate in water sports like swimming, kayaking, fishing, and sailing. Let’s make sure new developments going up are contributing property tax dollars to make this possible.