Residents of Bath Township may have gotten what they wanted last year when Biskind Realty Co.-the North Olmsted developer behind the sprawling Great Northern shopping complex on Cleveland’s far west side-withdrew its proposal to develop the former Firestone Estate. But what they end up with as a result could be far worse for Bath and greater Akron.
Environmental groups paid close attention to the events that eventually persuaded CEO Dan Biskind to walk away from his plan to use the estate to create a “sustainable community.” In a rare twist, however, these groups-often written off by developers as “tree huggers” and worse-actually supported Biskind’s unique development plan.
For Biskind and Jerry Gould, the company’s president, the experience involved a love affair with a 1,500-acre urban anomaly: a large tract of undeveloped land with rolling hills, rich forests and flowering meadows. They also admit to being a little too enamored with their idea of using the land to create a neotraditional development in which homes are clustered in small segments of a much larger property while most of the land is left untouched.
That kind of plan runs counter to the usual pattern of dividing most or all of a tract into even lots for development-a pattern that zoning boards are used to dealing with, but which many urban planners now view as inefficient and burdensome on the infrastructure.
Scott Davis, spokesman for the Ohio Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, says he believes Biskind was also trying to show the world that developers aren’t to blame for all that is wrong with the environment.
“In Ohio, home-builders are taking a public-relations beating,” Davis says. “They’re blamed for traffic, the loss of green space and natural areas. “There’s a point where the quality of life and the standard of living intersect. We’re reaching this point in Ohio where the quality of life starts taking a downturn. We’re paying more and more just for a clean glass of water. Home-builders are taking most of the blame for this.”
The plan
“Our idea was so old it was new,” Gould says. “The concept is hundreds of years old and can be seen in New England, where people lived together and stayed in a community from cradle to grave.”
The creation of a sustainable development requires an enormous amount of property near a metropolitan area. The idea is to create a community of various ages and socioeconomic levels that is sustained by the employment opportunities in nearby cities-in this case, Akron and Cleveland.
“This was a unique situation to find 1,300 contiguous acres, unspoiled near a major city like Akron,” Gould says. “From an environmental standpoint, this would have been beneficial, but it also meant interaction of people young and old and the ability to recruit executives to the Akron area.”
The plan cost Biskind more than $500,000 to create, incorporated homes for seniors, assisted-living facilities, starter homes for young couples and singles, as well as the usual mix of large, upscale houses. It promised to leave nearly 80 percent of the property untouched with the exception of a few footpaths connecting areas of development. The green space would come with a permanent easement, effectively preventing any further development.
Biskind claims he was prepared to give more than 300 acres to the township. Another piece would have gone to the Medina parks system.
Biskind made a down payment for the 1,500-acre parcel-1,300 acres are in Bath; 200 are in Akron-and was ready to ante up the $13 million purchase price.
All he needed was a zoning variance to allow houses to be built on lots below the 1.5-acre minimum established by Bath law. Such minimum lot sizes are a common method for upscale communities to limit growth and crowding. Ironically, in this case, it might have the opposite effect.
Under Bath’s zoning ordinance, an ordinary subdivision approach to the Firestone Estate could mow down all the trees, flatten out the hills and build 650 to 750 evenly spaced homes. (Wetland areas would go undeveloped, in accordance with the law). And there’s nothing anybody could do to stop it.
To make any money, Biskind’s idea required more housing units-1,000 in all-but on smaller, tightly clustered lots. Not only would that preserve much of the estate’s natural beauty, it would also minimize the cost to build and maintain roads, lighting, water lines and sewers.
“We invested quite of bit to complete the plan and brought in experts from across the country,” Gould says. “We had support from everywhere except the Bath government. We would rather walk away from the opportunity than develop it in a way that would spoil the beauty of it.”
But Biskind never got to the zoning board. First, he held town-hall meetings for residents to learn about the plan and ask questions. The bitter reaction told Biskind that he had walked into a war against the zoning board, township trustees and residents.
“Proposing 1,000 units for 900 acres in Bath just doesn’t fly,” says Bath trustee Elaina Goodrich. [Biskind] didn’t invest a lot. What they did was to put their toe in the water with community leaders, who were very vocal against them. The people wanted to keep the land open and not develop it.”
In the end, the people are likely to be disappointed. The land has too much value and is already being developed.
Biskind consultant Bill Bryant foresaw a lengthy appeals process and the prospect of huge financial losses. Despite support from the outside, Biskind realized he couldn’t win. Rather than exercising his option to bulldoze the land and build the usual subdivision, Biskind dropped the project.
The opportunity is now gone, but the Nature Conservancy’s Davis says there is plenty to learn from it.
“Biskind tried to think ahead and develop a community on this property,” Davis says. “Instead of building across a grid, he looked at the topography to fit the houses with the natural landscape. He had everything from $500,000 homes to a senior citizens’ development, so if you wanted to move your parents into the neighborhood, you could.
“That kind of development will command a higher price. It makes good business sense and people will pay more to live there,” he says.
But, Bryant says, “Bath township is difficult to do development in because the people there just don’t want any development That’s why they live in Bath. They want it to stay pristine with open space, but the problem is there’s 1,500 acres there that something will be done with sooner or later, and no one wants to face up to that.”
The land divided
Ohio State University, which owned of the property, sold the entire estate in October 1997 for $12 million to Commonwealth Properties, based in Akron.
John Chlebina, president of Commonwealth, readily agrees that the Biskind plan represented a higher use of the property than is now going to be the case.
“Biskind’s plan had a lot of resistance,” Chlebina says. “It was a good idea, but the people of Bath aren’t used to smaller lots.”
The property has already been cut up. Chlebina has kept about 317 acres. Of that, he plans to use about a third for his own family home while selling off two-thirds in parcels ranging from five to 25 acres-each of which might again be divided and sold.
He sold 370 acres to developer Tom Merryweather, who plans a traditional housing development under existing zoning laws.
Bath Township paid about $3 million for 400 acres, a third of which is classified as wetlands and could not, in any case, be developed. Twenty-five acres will be used to build a ballfield. The rest will be maintained as a nature preserve.
The Medina County Park District spent a reported $1.6 million to buy 211 acres, which has been added to the existing Allardale Park.
The Revere School System purchased 69 acres for the “future growth of the school district.”
Whatever else remains-fewer than 200 acres-will be offered to adjoining land owners.
Fences go up
There is no way of knowing what will happen to the former esta
te. Certainly in the near-future, fences will outline the new property lines, roads will be built across it, trees will be plucked from it, and houses will start to go up.
The way the estate has been divided still leaves opportunity to build more than 500 homes. While that prospect may be of comfort to township residents, the tract of land-which was unanimously viewed as a rare and special resource-seems destined to become just another bedroom community.
“We drew this plan up because when we looked at the land and saw the beauty of it, we didn’t see it any other way,” Gould says. “But eventually it will be developed and the Bath people can’t stop that.”
Would Biskind risk it again if the right parcel of land came on the market? Gould says it’s a possibility, and that the company has already identified at least one other potential site in the state. But, he adds, they won’t do anything without a written invitation.
