Photo By Matt Borgerding

CiTiRAMA's glory has faded after just four years, according to Rockford Woods residents Jeffery Laptak-Moreau, Matt Appenzeller and Flora Laptak-Moreau.

Sixteen homes in Northside just four years old, together valued at close to $2.8 million, are already declining in value.

People who bought houses in the Rockford Woods development, featured in CiTiRama 2001, say they're getting desperate. They're losing money by staying, but their titles and deeds are incorrect so it's impossible for any of them to sell.

"According to the last valuation that Hamilton County did, my property value went down," says Matt Appenzeller. "It pisses me off to no end."

The struggles of Rockford Place, High Hollow Lane and Dovetail Lane residents are well into their third year (see "Wary About CiTiRama," issue of April 27-May 3). They say they're fed up with empty promises, memos and meetings, but they still don't want to bring lawyers into the mix -- they want mediation.

A solution seemed likely after city staffers met with Jerry Honerlaw, one of the developers, May 6 and with residents May 9.

"The city made a series of proposals," resident Della Caldwell said after the meeting. "We're meeting (May 15) with the residents and a representative from the city."

But on May 15 nobody from the city showed up. Residents had expected Assistant Cincinnati City Manager Deborah Holston to send someone; they'd e-mailed her the details for the meeting.

"She told us she was too busy with CiTiRAMA to read her e-mail," says resident Mike Smith.

Holston told CityBeat she had expected the meeting to take "a couple of weeks" to set up.

Smith's frustration is palpable.

"She's tried a couple of times to reschedule the meeting, but we've told her we're only going to work with our elected officials," Smith says. "The tail wags the dog. Unelected officials run the show in Cincinnati, and that's deplorable."

Body language
While the residents were deciding what to do next, they received a request for a meeting from Mayor Charlie Luken.

"I read in The Enquirer that they were making some rather disparaging remarks about me and yet they hadn't asked me to do anything," Luken says. "So I called them to set up a meeting."

Smith, one of three residents who met with Luken, says they've worked with the city administration as they were directed to by city council. But meeting with the mayor proved equally frustrating.

"When (Luken) sat down, he put his feet up on the table, crossed his ankles and crossed his arms over his chest," Smith says. "The body language message he was sending was clear to me."

Luken said he knew residents blamed him for the mess, according to Smith.

"He started off by saying, 'I know that's what you're down here to tell me. I read in CityBeat you accused me of being responsible,' " Smith says. "I said, 'All I said was that you stood there at the grand opening of CiTiRama and thanked everyone under the sun for their participation -- and that was The Enquirer, not CityBeat.' "

During the meeting with Luken, residents discussed the nine issues raised in a letter sent to the city in January, including undedicated streets, delinquent tax bills for common space and unpaid bills for streetlights.

Smith says Luken committed to drafting a resolution to put before council, addressing all the problems.

"I know this issue of the dedication of the street(s) is the main stumbling block between them and the city," Luken says. "Originally I was sympathetic in that area. But having gone back and reviewed the issues, it appears to me most, if not all, of the homeowners knew or should have known this was going to be a private street."

Admitting that he spoke with only three homeowners, Luken says his beliefs are based on information provided by city staff.

"Nobody here is blameless," he says.

Who pays the bill?
Luken says the city has a moral obligation to help the residents but has no legal responsibility.

"At one point they wanted to make sure that the sewers are public," Luken says. "The sewers are public. They want the city to pay their legal fees. We've offered to pay their legal fees."

But residents object to some of the conditions on offers of city assistance. For example, the legal fees are to be deducted from $50,000 the city has offered to seed a homeowners association (HOA). Many of the solutions the city proposes and the demands of the developer are contingent upon an HOA.

The problem is such an organization would make the residents legally and financially responsible for the maintenance of the common area, the unfinished streets and all related bills.

An eight-page proposal by the city manager's office says, "The developer acknowledged responsibility for the payment of assessments, taxes and utility or other bill prior to turning over the common areas to the HOA."

However, there's no mention of a commitment by the developer to pay these debts by a specific date and nothing about future bills such as the $8,000 the city now claims is necessary to bring street lighting up to code.

"The developer would certainly have to pay all utilities, taxes, etc. prior to conveyance of the remaining property to an HOA," Holston said in an e-mail.

Exhausted by the nature of city negotiations, several residents say they're angrier now than they've ever been.

After an interview with CityBeat, Luken called resident Mike Newman, who had participated in the meeting with the mayor.

"My impression was that he was very angry," Newman says. "He did not like us dealing with the media. He thought that we were getting in the way of getting things accomplished."

Appenzeller, who didn't attend the mayor's meeting but has received several personal e-mails from Luken, says he wants to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt.

"We've been dealing with administrators when we needed a politician because politicians can only tell the administrators to open the city's wallet," Appenzeller says. "I think (the mayor) was hoodwinked by someone at the city who said, 'We already have a plan,' and he signed it when he didn't know how bad it really was. I don't think his people are telling him everything that's going on. I'm trying to be fair. I don't think he'd put something in writing to me that's an outright falsehood."

Appenzeller credits State Sen. Mark Mallory (D-West End) with being the one politician who "really gets what's going on."

"Sen. Mallory has been fantastic as far as listening to our concerns," he says. "His mere presence has really started to get the ball rolling."

Mallory remains pessimistic about the city's efforts to resolve the Rockford Woods mess, expressing disappointment in the short-term approach to the proposals.

"I'm actually impressed that there's been some movement," he says. "I hope the city wants to see this resolved. The city has a compelling interest to complete the subdivision, and the efforts at this point should be to have that happen." ©