Key Estates continues to make positive improvements

NORWALK — The topic of lower-cost, multi-unit housing in town came up Tuesday night at Norwalk City Council's meeting. Mayor Dave Light spoke favorably of recent developments at Key Estates. "If you get out and about take a drive through Key Estates," Light said. "It's kind of amazing what's going on down there. Twenty-some mobile homes have been removed, they're pouring new concrete sidewalks, they've had a tree company down there taking out a lot of the trees and they're making some amazing improvements down there." Light thanked safety service director Mike White and planning and zoning officer Mitch Loughton for keeping in touch with Key Estates ownership and encouraging positive developments. "It's quite a place to drive through now and see the improvements," Light said. The owners of Newton Terrace, also, have been praised in the past year for making improvements to their entrance parking lot and for cleaning up areas around dumpsters. However, not everyone in attendance at the city council meeting spoke favorably about housing developments and, in particular, Newton Terrace, Grand Avenue apartments and Midtown Manor. A resident of Midtown Manor accused the owners of being slum landlords. She also said street lights don't work in the development and units are rented without any carpeting. "If there's an emergency, how are you going to see my lot number when I'm all the way in the back of the park," the woman asked. "It's a slum. It's bad." Another woman in the audience called Newton Terrace a "trash hole." "Who is in charge of Newton Street apartments and the lower income housing that is in Norwalk?" the woman asked. "Why are these places allowed to become dumps?" Officials also said that Newton Terrace and Grand Avenue apartments are owned by out-of-state investors making it difficult to get owners to make changes. Law director Stu O'Hara said mobile home parks fall under the jurisdiction of the Ohio Department of Commerce. "We cannot tell a mobile home operator how to run their park," O'Hara said. "We can't tell them how to treat their tenants." But several members of the audience said city officials should be doing more to improve conditions at both of those properties and city council member Steve Schumm seemed to agree. "I've been dealing with these Newton Terrace Apartments for too long and I cannot understand why we can't have the public health department condemn the buildings or make it a public health problem," Schumm said. He also said more needs to be done to make improvements. "I don't care if the people live in Las Vegas, Nev., or Boston, Mass. They could care less about Norwalk. I care a lot about Norwalk. I'm saying get the public health department in there to nail them." Schumm's comments drew applause from the 30 or so people in the audience. "We called the public health department and they say they won't do that," O'Hara replied. The health department could not immediately be reached for comment.