WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM? Is Tipp City Anti-Business?

If you read the previous posting from this reporter you got a story about 2 land use cases that were pending before the Tipp City Council at their meeting of March 1, 2010.  You read of two businesses in Tipp who are simply trying to survive in these tough economic times.  You read about the City requiring a business to put in a paved parking lot where his business is, which is literally out in the middle of nowhere and with no retail customers.  You also read about the Holiday Inn by the interstate wanting to put up its sign near the highway, and how the City told them it was too big, and forbade them to install it.

If you went to the City Council meeting on March 1, 2010, or saw it re-broadcast on KIT-TV  you watched as the City Council voted down both requests, leaving one business burdened with the considerable cost of installing a paved parking lot over his gravel area, and a local hotel with no means of telling travelers that they are even here.  Businesses and citizens alike left the meeting asking the same set of questions. “Is this what we really want?” “Is this really what’s best for the City?” and of course the time-honored classic, often heard after City Council meetings:   “What is their problem?”

At the March 1^st City Council meeting City Law Director Joseph Moore spoke out about how the city was not authorized to grant any kind of variance whatsoever for the Holiday Inn sign.  The hotel requested a 200 square foot sign, while the city was willing to allow 182 feet, but it had to go on the existing structure that housed the sign for the previous inn there.  The existing structure is old, and rusty, and not consistent with the Holiday Inn re-branding, which is going on nation-wide.  The old sign structure has been called a “monstrosity” by Holiday Inn, and they want to start new.  Attorney Moore, in rather forceful terms (if not pushy) insisted that the City has a sign code, and it says that a size variance can not be granted, period.   No if’s and’s or but’s.   This, of course, is the very sign code that was struck down as unconstitutional by the Second District Court of Appeals this past Friday.   But if the Court of Appeals struck down the sign code as unconstitutional, why couldn’t the City council act on Monday to allow the Holiday Inn sign, at least temporarily?  Councilman Gibson tried to do this, and noted his feeling that the City Council did indeed have the authority to grant the relief that the Holiday Inn requested.  Instead in a 5 to 2 vote, Council voted instead to deny the sign.  Gibson and fellow Councilperson Katelyn Black were the 2 dissenters.  The council members and Mr. Moore were strangely silent on the fact that the sign code that they had defended so vigorously, was struck down by the Court. No mention of this was made at the City Council Meeting at all.

The Gardens Alive! case was treated with similar ruthlessness by the City.  Planning Board Members actually appeared and made a presentation about how overturning their decision would tear at the very fabric of the city’s zoning laws.  Despite the fact that City Council was fully authorized by the Law Director to grant a variance of this type, members Berbaugh and Springer made impassioned pleas to affirm their decision.  Afterwards questions were raised as to whether it was even appropriate to allow Planning Board Members to speak at the Public Hearing on the appeal of one of their Planning Board Decisions.  While the Gardens Alive! appeal does not involve the sign code, it demonstrates the City’s reach on every business in town, even those who do not have customers, retail sales, or members of the public coming in.  Some say the City goes too far.  Others say its not enough.   Still others say that while the land use laws are tough, they have kept Tipp City a clean, quiet, and nice place to live.  In any event, as to the Gardens Alive! request, the Council’s position was clear:  put in the paved parking lot.  At the conclusion of the proceedings, Councilman Lovett stated “I paid $16,000 to pave my parking lot, and you people gross a heck of a lot more than I do”.  With that, the appeal was denied.

These two cases raise questions all over the place about what the land use ordinances should really be about, and whether they are actually anti-business.  Critics have said that Tipp City is getting a reputation of being anti-business, not only in staff dealings, but the actual ordinances themselves.  The sign code is almost always the first example cited.  These cases raise the bigger question of whether Tipp City itself is anti-business.   Nearly every council member gushed on about how they appreciate the business that Gardens Alive has given Tipp over the years (100 years, to be exact), how they want to work with existing businesses, and even encourage new business to come to Tipp.  Yet no alternative for either problem was offered by Council.  Gibson’s attempt to discuss whether the City had the authority do something for Holiday Inn was met with a stern rebuke.   Critics have said if Council was serious about this, then something would have been done on Monday night.

Every city council has its factions and voting blocs who might be pro-business, or anti-business.  They could be in favor of plenty of residential development, or against it.  As with any government, the ordinances that are enacted at the time each group is in power are a reflection of that.   In spite of his parking lot comments, Councilman George Lovett actually put one thing quite well when he noted that back when the sign code was put in place there was a completely different make-up on the City Council, and a different economic climate as well.   The harsh reality is that Tipp can talk all it wants about pool passes, new traffic lights, electric meters, and Canal Jumpers Baseball.  This is all great.  But an aggressive program to bring business into Tipp City must be a top priority.  Like it or not, these businesses bring jobs to Tipp, and they bring visitors to Tipp.   That aggressive program should include a very public message here and there about the City’s willingness to work with businesses, and this is done by allowing a Holiday Inn to put up a sign, or giving the Gardens Alive people a break.  Will this cause a flood of litigation?   Or perhaps will it cause a flood of businesses to come to Tipp City?

Now with new faces on Council, and the economy the way it is, perhaps the perspectives are different, and the priorities are different such that the sign code might warrant revisiting.  But in the mean-time what does Holiday Inn do?  What does Gardens Alive do?  What will anyone who is thinking of setting up a business in Tipp City do?  Looks like Vandalia and Troy will find out.

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Posted by D. R. Atchison on Mar 4 2010. Filed under Featured Post, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.