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There’s an old adage. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. In other words, it’s all mine. Except for the Angola Road mine. That’s not mine. Not yours either. No, it belongs to Rocky Ridge Development. And it is causing quite the kerfuffle in City Politics.
Down on the farm
Rewind back to the mid-nineteen sixties. T-Town was a growing behemoth, its population creeping towards its peak of nearly four hundred thousand. Situated on the crossroads as a burgeoning transportation hub, with the largest port on the inland sea of the Great Lakes, our fair Froggy Bottom
was poised to become the Next Great American City.
Annexation of surrounding townships was all the rage, adding territory to the expanding burg. That included the western environs of then-Adams Township, an idyllic expanse of unfinished roads, rolling farmland, and country school houses.
Adams Township was annexed into the City in nineteen sixty-six. This brought the quaint domicile of one Marcy Kaptur into the city limits. It also added streets without curbs or storm sewers, with the promise these would be added by the largesse of the growing metropolis. It expanded the reach of the public school system deeper into western Lucas County.
And it added incongruous farms into what was otherwise an actual city. Undeveloped land ripe for the picking by developers with dollar signs in their eyes.
The remnants of the undeveloped farms are with us today. Go to Hill and Byrne for proof. Or the massive farm at Hill and Reynolds, recently purchased by the Metroparks to create a unique working farm experience to come.
Or go to Angola Road just west of its terminus at Airport. Undeveloped land, ripe for the picking, done been picked.
NIMBY
These lands were for sale for years. Lucas County wanted the site for a planned new county jail. The neighbors, living on former farmland developed as housing, raised holy hades. This culminated in a ballot initiative requiring the county to locate the jail downtown.
Then Rocky Ridge showed up with a perfect plan. Buy the land. Mine it of the clay and sand top layer, selling the mined commodities. Secure a lucrative contract with the City to backfill the land with spent detritus from its water treatment plant. A lucrative win-win.
Except for the loss. The neighbors were never consulted, and raised holy hades. Again.
Plus the land wasn’t zoned properly for such an operation. And background checks on principals of Rocky Ridge may have been slipshod at best before awarding the City contract, since one had unpaid state taxes. And donated handily to the political campaign of one Wade K, Mayor of Toledo.
Did we mention Rocky Ridge’s current managing director is former City Director of Public Utilities Ed Moore, who in that role recommended approving the contract?
Oopsie! Holy conflicts of interest, Batman!
Look, farmland in a city will always draw attention from developers. New residential development on undeveloped land grows the population and expands the tax base.
A clay and sand mine used to dump spent lime surrounded by a residential neighborhood? Perpetuated by a company with questionable ties to politicos? Not so much.
The City has issued a stop work order. We say, develop the land, sure, but do it the correct way. It’s zoned residential. Duh.
But the watchwords for the next chapter are simple.
Not mine.
