SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — There’s a new house on the market in South Euclid, and while it may not seem like a big deal to many, it is to Cuyahoga County leaders that have been trying to make it easier to fill all the vacant lots throughout the area.
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The for-sale sign in front of 4225 Wilmington Street in South Euclid is what Mayor Georgine Welo hopes is the first of many popping up in the city.
“It’s about building a community or the emerging consumer,” she said.
The three-bedroom, open-concept ranch home is unique for South Euclid.
“South Euclid was developed after the post-war, between ’45 and ’65. There aren’t a lot of ranches. Our codes didn’t support something like this,” said Welo.
The home is a collaboration between the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, the First Suburbs Consortium, which is a council of governments between the 20 first-ring suburbs surrounding Cleveland and the Cuyahoga County Land Bank and their single-family zoning analysis.
The zoning analysis identifies issues with outdated zoning regulations and aims to build new, updated homes within what otherwise would be vacant lots in the area.
Dennis Roberts is the director of real estate development for the Cuyahoga Land Bank. He said something as simple as updating a zoning and building code in a city is the difference between developers wanting to build new homes.
“People want modern amenities and they want a competitive product and infill development is challenging. It’s more costly, so what we are trying to do is bring people back to the inner ring, back to the city. In order to do that, you have to develop and build a competitive product,” he said. “We are trying to be that remedy for that overall problem to a lack of people, lack of density and a lack of economic development in the county.”
The idea is if you update the codes and build the vacant lots that the cities own, then more developers will follow suit.
“A lot of the codes were developed in a time that was far different than what the market demands now and for a developer, it’s a death by 1,000 cuts,” he said.
The homes are market-rate and, besides South Euclid, Roberts said they’ve already built homes in suburbs like Warrensville Heights and Mayfield Heights.
“We want to use this house as a platform to showcase what could be done if cities work to make the zoning as developer friendly but at the same time still protect the interest of the public,” he said.
To learn more about the zoning analysis project, justclick here.
