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Negotiations regarding Hadley Township's future drag on
(by Benjamin Israel - March 18, 2008)
Jo Ann and Arthur Bailey went to court March 12 to try to lose the home they fought for years to save.
Last year, they signed a contract to sell Michelson Commercial Realty and Development their modest well-kept brick ranch home of 43 years in the Hadley Township section of Richmond Heights. Michelson told them to expect to be paid by the end of the year, but the money has not come.
That’s because one of nearly 200 property owners in the 57 acres refused to sell Waterhout Construction whose offices are at 8110 Dale Ave., behind the Shell station on Hanley Road. On July 2 of last year, Richmond Heights sued Waterhout, seeking condemnation.
Hadley Township is bounded on the west by Hanley Road, on the south by Bruno Avenue, on the east by Laclede Station Road and on the north by Dale Avenue. Sitting just south of Highway 40, the traditionally African-American neighborhood sits near one of the busiest intersections in St. Louis County.
The Michelson development would spare 34 homes in the neighborhood’s northeast corner. Michelson plans an upscale shopping center facing Hanley Road and the Wal-Mart store across Bruno Avenue. It would build offices and a hotel north of Dale. A line of attached townhouses would buffer new single-family homes on the other side.
Bell and Waterhout’s attorneys with Carmody, MacDonald argued that Richmond Heights could not legally condemn its property because it did not meet the definition of “blighted” as required by Missouri law.
Waterhout’s solid brick, square building with its pyramid-shaped roof built in 1991 does not appear blighted. Neither does the Bailey’s 1963 brick home, nor many of the owner-occupied homes in Hadley Township.
However, the neighborhood is dotted with empty lots and deteriorating, vacant homes. The neighborhood has been virtually under siege since the last century, when developers started buying up homes and either tearing them down or letting them run down.
In 2001, the Richmond Heights City Council told the city manager to send out notices to developers urging them not to buy up homes, but they were not deterred.
As the rate of homeownership dropped, parts of Hadley Township deteriorated. In 2003, the city paid Woolpert International, an engineering and architectural firm, to study the area. Woolpert’s report said that if the city failed to act, developers would continue to buy up properties in Hadley Township, resulting in more vacant lots and rental housing hastening the neighborhood’s deterioration.
Responding to a petition from Hadley Township residents, the city then asked developers to propose plans for building infill housing to shore up the neighborhood. Over a three-year period, the city sent requests for proposals to developers but never reached an agreement that would preserve the neighborhood.
In late 2005, with the neighborhood continuing to fail, Richmond Heights asked for proposals to redevelop the area. In 2006, by a 5-3 vote, the Council voted to give Michelson Commercial Realty and Development the right to use eminent domain and money from tax increment financing if necessary to buy up enough land for a planned $189 million development.
A state law orders courts to rule on condemnation quickly. However, at press time, lawyers for the city and Waterhout could not agree on how much information Michelson can be compelled to provide to Waterhout, thus keeping the case from going to trial.
The Bailey’s hired attorney Michael Wolff to speed things up. He filed a petition as an intervener to compel the court to schedule hearings. Last Wednesday, Judge David Vincent said Wolff lacked standing to intervene, thanked him for the motion and said he would schedule hearings as soon as possible. Vincent will hear pre-trial motions at 1 p.m. March 20.
Hadley Township would be the third central-county, working-class residential area to fall to commercial development in the last few years. Just to its south, Maplewood cleared away 200 homes in its northwest corner for Wal-Mart and Sam’s in 2003. In 1997, Brentwood razed nearly 100 homes in the Evans Place neighborhood to make way for a Target-anchored shopping center.
The Baileys would rather stay in the home they have maintained and improved. Seven years ago, they built a family room onto the back. Even at that time, they worried about being bought out. When Arthur Bailey applied for the building permit, city inspectors reassured the retired autoworker. “They told me at city hall that I didn’t have nothing to worry about when they approved it,” Bailey said last week.
Now, Bailey said, “we need a few repairs, but we don’t want to put any money in it.”
Michael Jones, councilman for the 2nd Ward, represents Hadley Township. Until 2005, he strongly opposed clearing out the neighborhood. He said that the city had two choices: letting the area deteriorate or wholesale redevelopment.
He said some elderly residents own and live in deteriorating homes that they cannot afford to fix up. “What are we going to do, lock up a 90-year-old man for violating building codes?” Jones said in an interview.
Jones said that by now most residents want the buy-out.
Arthur Bailey agrees, although he wishes he could stay. He wants a decision. “Either tear up our contract or give us the money, so we can move somewhere else,” he said.
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