Worthington sued over Methodist Children’s property
A Columbus developer has sued the city of Worthington over the inability to develop a long-debated piece of property that once housed the United Methodist Children’s Home.
Lifestyle Communities, which owns the 38-acre site on High Street, filed the suit Thursday in federal court, calling the city’s refusal to allow the property to be developed “an outrageous abuse of power.”
The lawsuit is the culmination of a battle between developers and the city over the property that began in 2011, when the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church put the property for sale after closing the residential youth center on the site.
Since then, several plans to put residential and commercial development on the site have met city resistance. Lifestyle Communities, which bought the site in 2017, filed the suit after a series of unusual steps by the Council in January that effectively prevented Lifestyle from advancing its plan to develop the property.
“This is the most egregious misuse of power and process by a local government I’ve ever seen in my career,” said Joseph Miller, an attorney with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, who filed the suit on behalf of Lifestyle.
The suit argues that “the city has delayed and ultimately blocked the property’s development through completely arbitrary and capricious abuses of power that disregard Lifestyle’s rights secured by the United States and Ohio Constitutions.”
Worthington spokesperson Anne Brown said the city does not comment on litigation, but she offered a statement about the property.
“The future of the former United Methodist Children’s Home property is critically important to the Worthington community,” she said. “Public input has shown that there are differing opinions about the best final outcome. We continue to welcome community conversation and evaluate next steps.”
The property, a few blocks north of downtown Worthington, has been a political hot potato for years in the community. Some Council members and a community group have resisted large-scale development of the site and sought support instead to develop a park on the land.
Lifestyle claims in the suit that council members, led by current Council President David Robinson, sought to prevent the development of the property in order to force Lifestyle to sell it at a distressed price so the city could buy it for a park.
The suit cites a “confidential” memo circulated among council members in 2018 as evidence of what it calls the “scheme,” along with public statements by some council members that they would never allow Lifestyle to develop the site.
Robinson did not respond Friday to an email seeking comment.
Lifestyle argues that the city showed no willingness to seriously consider the plan the developer eventually proposed for the site in 2020. Instead, the suit argues, members of the city’s Municipal Planning Commission and Architectural Review Board told Lifestyle to rework the plan to incorporate vague features such as “unspecified ‘childish’ elements so that the development conveys Worthington’s story through ‘poetry.’ “
Lifestyle’s most recent proposal for the site, submitted in September, called for about 600 apartments, townhomes and single-family homes, along with commercial uses on High Street. That plan was rejected by the council in December.
Lifestyle claims objections to its plan were not anchored in objective criteria that Lifestyle could realistically address.
The suit claims “the city has arbitrarily and capriciously singled Lifestyle out, deprived it of any legitimate process, and subjugated Lifestyle’s private property rights to the unfettered discretion of city officials’ arbitrary whims and fancies.”
The suit seeks the right to develop the property without “illegitimate restrictions and to recoup tens of millions of dollars in damages, costs, and expenses.”
Jon Melchi, president of the Building Association of Central Ohio, said the suit illustrates the challenges developers face in some communities to build housing.
“Central Ohio issued 2,000 fewer multifamily building permits last year, and this is a textbook reason why,” said Melchi, a Worthington resident who served on the city’s recent Vision Committee. “It appears clear the city never had any interest in partnering with Lifestyle or anyone for that matter.”
@JimWeiker
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