PUBLIC SERVICE INSTITUTE | YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY
The city of Youngstown adopted a comprehensive land use plan in January 2006 (Youngstown 2010). A key component of the vision for the Youngstown 2010 plan was for Youngstown to accept that it is a smaller city, with a population currently stabilizing around 80,000, less than half of its peak population of nearly 180,000 in 1960. The city’s previous comprehensive land use plan was designed for a city of 250,000 when completed in 1952, and subsequently updated in 1974. This mismatch of planned land uses and existing land utilization has left the city with a number of liabilities, including excess land either built and abandoned or never developed at all, as well as unique opportunities, such as a built environment worthy of a much larger city. As a result, the city of Youngstown requested the assistance of the Youngstown State University Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) in developing a set of applicable strategies for addressing the future of these properties, which are currently undeveloped or abandoned, on the city’s East Side.
Consequently, the topic of this project is Redirecting Urban Land: Instituting Urban Wetlands Mitigation Strategies through GIS Analysis. It focuses on identifying potential sites for converting abandoned and underutilized land on the city’s East Side to wetlands mitigation sites through GIS Analysis. A large portion of the properties in question are located in poorly drained areas that feature relatively flat terrain, hydric soils, wetlands vegetation, and hydrology, and are potentially suitable for wetlands use. Furthermore, the project will be completed in conjunction with the planning of the Hubbard Expressway project, on which the city is awaiting approval. This project will adjoin and may impact existing wetlands, creating the need for suitable remediation sites. Finally, as much of the land on the city’s East Side is undevelopable except at a great cost, the Youngstown 2010 plan designated much of the land within the study area for wetlands, agricultural and recreational uses, although it is currently zoned and improved for residential uses.
Much of the land within the East Side McGuffey Heights, Sharon Line and Lansdowne Neighborhoods has remained undeveloped throughout the city’s history, or has been underutilized or developed and subsequently abandoned. Therefore, the project study area encompasses much of the land on the city’s East Side north of McKelvey Lake and east of Lansdowne Boulevard.
The city currently owns several hundred parcels in the project study area and several thousand others have had tax liens sold within the past five years. The ownership, tax lien status and other variables have been examined to determine the feasibility of municipal control of the aforementioned properties, and subsequent grouping into a wetlands mitigation district.
The final report was completed and submitted to the city of Youngstown in June 2008.