Tonight’s council meeting may be another “must-see TV”

The Rentway furniture rental store ordinance is back on the agenda for a second reading. As we reported in our 1/10/07 "How much did..." blog below, an informative discussion followed a hearing on this matter at the 1/9/07 council meeting. Rentway is located at the Norwood Plaza, which is, if we may say so, quickly becoming a blight on our community. Norwood’s Planning Commission has recommended denying Rentway’s request to expand. Mayor Williams, who serves on the commission, stated, “We’re not going to assist certain kinds of businesses.” (That would be check-cashing, gambling, and furniture rental establishments and the like.)

Rentway’s request is for interior changes only and would not affect the façade. The attorney for the Plaza’s management company argued that this is a sort of test case to see if the City is going to cooperate before the company moves ahead with further improvements and/or exercises its option to purchase the entire property. Is Mayor Williams on the money with his concern that this request represents an “it’ll-get -piecemealed-out” approach to the Norwood Plaza? This looks like a tough call council is going to have to make on this ordinance:

A) ORDINANCE DENYING THE APPLICATION FOR ALTERATIONS AND EXPANSION OF THE RENTWAY STORE LOCATED AT 3855 MONTGOMERY ROAD, NORWOOD, OHIO 45212, PURSUANT TO THE RECOMMENDATION OF PLANNING COMMISSION


1/24/07 UPDATE: This turned out not to be a tough call at all last night. With not much discussion, council voted 6-1 to pass the ordinance after the 2nd and 3rd readings. Mr. Schneider was the dissenting vote.