In Their Own Words: Where Do The Candidates Stand On UMCH?

At the recent candidate forum at the MAC, City Council candidates were asked whether the Lifestyle Communities (LC) proposal for the former United Methodist Children’s Home site (UMCH, at 1033 High St) would be a positive or a negative for Worthington, and why.

We’ve prepared a word-for-word transcript of all seven candidates’ answers to this question. We think this will be helpful for voters – candidates elected this November will make decisions over the next four years that will impact the UMCH property.

Questions were asked on a range of topics, and we do hope you’ll take the time to watch the entire video of the forum, which was hosted by the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus and the Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce. The event footage starts at the 41:14 mark, and the UMCH portion starts at 1:52:18.

1:52:18
The current proposal by LSC (Lifestyle Communities) for the Methodist Children’s site (UMCH), will it be positive or negative for Worthington, and why?

1:52:28
GLEN PRATT
I’m not sure how to answer that because of the current litigation…so, I mean, in my mind, the, the issue is sort of off the table until the litigation is, is resolved. It’s not going anywhere for potentially years so I think I’ll say I will change the question slightly to what the development in general at the UMCH property which I think is what the point is is what would be good up there for development.
We need to, you know, take that property and make it the gem that it, it should be with the, the mixed use that would be perfect for along High Street with the single family homes that are appropriately buffered from the neighborhoods plus in transition some, some housing like row houses and townhomes and patio homes that would be great for, for seniors.
So, I think the plan that was outlined I think in the 2014 focal… the UMCH focus area plan you know had a lot to offer and I think for me that would be my starting point with a development plan for the, the UMCH property. I think the… but with the litigation I think as a practical matter there’s not a whole lot we can do until that, that is resolved one way or another. Thank you.

1:53:58
MARIA RAMIREZ
I’m going to kind of follow up on what Glen talked about because we are a landlocked community. Only about 2% of our land is open and available for development. That is not a lot of open land. We are in the midst of a housing crisis. There is a desperate need for housing. We’ve talked about how there is a need to build the spaces that businesses need to stay and grow in Worthington.
So, when you have all these needs, when you have limited opportunities for development, you have to make decisions that check as many boxes as you can for the good of your community.
So, what do I think needs to happen in that plot of land? I think we need to utilize that land to do the best we can for our community and check as many boxes off to support the needs that we have locally. That means I support housing, I support mixed use development along High Street, that means we need to to take care of those, those big important things.
So, I live in a small house. In my little house every piece of furniture that I put in there has to check multiple boxes. And I feel like when you’re in a landlocked community you’re making those same kinds of choices. That dining room needs to be the place where the kids do the homework, where I’m going to roll pizza and bread, and we need to think that way about our land.

1:55:44
DAVID ROBINSON
This has been as we all know the central and most divisive issue in our community for 12 years and I think understandably because the property is centrally located, it has a long history, over a hundred years, of being very low impact on the surrounding community when it was a children’s home, so the outcome and the use of that property is going to have a significant impact on the fabric of our community, the daily life, the amenities, really every aspect.
Survey after survey, and this would be surveys that are put out by WARD, and I would say also the city, and then also informal community feedback, online, if you go back it’s still online right now if you look at the public comments from 2013-14, I think there is an overwhelming desire for there to be a significant public green space as part of the development there.
There’s broad consensus in our community that we want robust commercial development on High Street, and some housing, but that is really the only place that we could have a significant community gathering space —which we don’t have right now — and I would say that’s a real deficiency in Worthington and it could do a lot to impact our life of our community. Thanks.

1:57:27
MICHAEL SHARVIN
Yeah it understandably has been quite a hot-button topic throughout our community for a little over a decade. Over a hundred years ago it was zoned “special.” It is a special piece of property — I don’t think there’s any denying that.
I also don’t think that this property itself is going to solve all of our issues. I think it is getting a whole lot of pressure on it to somehow do that. It cannot solve all of our issues. We are a landlocked community and we do have very important property very few important properties that are not developed yet. We have even fewer properties that of this size and space and provide this much opportunity and flexibility to work with the way that the community wants them to be worked.
There is a need for housing. There is a need for office space. There is a need for all of that. This property is not going to solve all of those issues. We need to understand how this property can serve our community instead of just solving one issue though. There needs to be some balance between the two. It cannot just be used to solve only one issue.
I support any options that are truly supported by our community that show a special, special use, an activation of the area, a true desire to bring the community centrally around that. I don’t know what that looks like. I know it is not what LC has proposed. Thank you.

1:59:02
JOYCELYN DONG
Thank you Michael for talking about how this space should be used to address issues and what issues should this space address.
I think we’ve heard consistently tonight from my peers as well as myself that we do have a housing need for the next generation, for our local businesses, for our aging community. We also have an opportunity to improve our local economy so that businesses come here and stay here.
So I would love to see this property be used as a place where we can promote community through third spaces. So I’ve talked about third spaces tonight a couple of times and I want to refresh what that means. It’s a place outside of work and your home where you can gather. And I see that business and housing have a big role in how we build and develop our community. So I would love to see this space address housing, economic development, as well as place where we can build our communities.
I think it would be absolutely lovely to have a place where we are able to preserve that gorgeous ravine that cuts through the back heart of that, that lot, and I think it would be amazing to also introduce housing that addresses all generations including our businesses.
I think at the end of the day we need to start moving forward. This has been a debate since I was in high school and that was for me kind of a long time ago. And so, I think we need to move on and we need to decide as a community what that means to move forward and design a better Worthington that’s inclusive for all generations. Thank you.

2:00:45
REBECCA HERMANN
So, yes, this piece of land is under litigation. At the end of this, however it’s decided by the judges or whomever, LC will still own the land. And so that is something that we would need to work forward with.
When they proposed a plan in 2015, there were three significant parks that they proposed in that. One of them was the size of a football field. The other one was the size of Selby, with a shelter house, and the other one I don’t even remember. But if you go back and look at the plan that they provided.
If we’re talking about plans and should they ever bring a plan forward again one of the things I want you to know is when Thomas Worthington High School was proposed to be built it looked like a Wal-Mart. It looked horrendous. Even the architect when we finally got to the look we have now he said I’m so embarrassed, I really – I love the way it looks now. We have a planning process here in our community where you, you have a architectural review board where they actually provide feedback. They make certain that you all can come to those meetings, they make sure that things look good, and then we also follow through with council where you have input to come in and bring that in.
So, I don’t know litigation how this will go, but those are facts that we have, and S-1 zoning, schools are that way. And that’s how, that’s how this site was they had a school there, they had housing there, and they had eating there. That’s why it was zoned S-1.

2:02:25
EDWARD JOHNSTON
A lot’s already been said, let me approach this a different way. With what I see in the city of Columbus a lot of green space there’s a lot of homeless people and one of my jobs is to kinda move those homeless people elsewhere. We create more space, I know for sure I already know for a fact at times there’s homeless people staying at the Worthington mall. I know there’s homeless people staying down toward the river. We see people at 161 and High every single day.
We have to be like our founding fathers, we have a village green.
Talking about space, we need senior housing. We need business. Business will then keep our taxes down for seniors. Let’s be realistic. More business will keep our taxes down. If we go with anything else but not to grow business, we may be asked one day for more property taxes that take care of our city services. If that’s where we want it, that would be an interesting conversation to have during a town hall meeting. Thank you.