Where once stood a champion of Toledo industry, now rests piles of broken concrete and twisted metal.
Curious motorists along the Anthony Wayne Trail crane their necks
toward the rubble resting inside the chain-link fence. Nearby
residents, meanwhile, continue shaking their heads over the wreckage
outside their doors.
But clearing the land is different from cleaning up the mess.
Pull-A-Part and JCV are still battling in U.S. District Court in Toledo
and Mr. Valentine said he is unsure whether a buyer will ever approach
him again for the property because the city has opposed two prospective
deals in a row.
"The city killed both of them," Mr. Valentine said. "No one will go in with this type of track record - two strikes."
But in the end both the commission and council went against the
school's requests for a zoning change and special-use permit. The
prevailing arguments were that the Haughton land should remain
available for industrial use, and that filling it with a school would
contradict the city's economic development goals.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/NEWS16/80...
... is planning on offering the site to the Marines and Army for use as a tactical training ground. The nearby residents already call it "Little Iraq", right?
It' s not like we're hurting for jobs here...
(runs away.....)
The way I read this story it goes something like this:
1989... Schindler-Haughton closes the business.
2004... Mr. Valentine and a partner buy the property.
2004... they plan to sell the property to Toledo Academy of Learning, which requires Planning Commission and City Council approval.
2004... NIMBY neighbors oppose the school to order to save the land for industrial development.
2005... Planning Commission and City Council, under pressure, veto the school plan.
2005... Valentine finds industrial buyer, Pull-A-Part Salvage.
2006... NIMBY neighbors, including Mayor Finkbeiner, oppose the industrial project.
2007... Pull-A-Part, under pressure from NIMBY neighbors, withdraws from the project. By this time, the structure has already been demolished.
NOW the NIMBY neighbors are complaining about the eyesore they have in their backyards as they go to collect foodstamps and welfare checks, complaining all the while that they don't have good-paying jobs. BAH-fucking-HUMBUG!
I am being facetious about the foodstamp and welfare part, but screw those people. They should have banded together and bought the land themselves if they didn't want anybody next to their precious land.
I'd make sure the property cleanup was done at night and that the dump trucks drove in reverse at all times.
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and
five times out of nine I'll show you an exceptional man." -Charles
Bukowski