Dublin Village Center owner sues city over inability to redevelop center into apartments

The owners of Dublin Village Center have sued Dublin over the city's refusal to approve redevelopment plans for the shopping complex.

The dispute raises doubts about the future of the 36-year-old center's long-planned makeover. It also raises questions about how much latitude municipalities have in controlling details of developments.

The center's owners, Stavroff Land & Development, announced plans two years ago to redevelop the 57-acre complex, which is located on the west side of Sawmill Road, north of West Dublin-Granville Road. Plans called for adding two apartments buildings with a total 284 apartments on the northern end of the centers.

Stavroff submitted plans for the apartments three times to the city, tweaking them each time. But each time they met with rejection by the city, according to the lawsuit, which seeks compensation and the ability to develop the property.

At the heart of the lawsuit are Dublin's zoning regulations. Stavroff argues the city zoning requirements in place when it purchased Dublin Village in 2009 were brushed aside in 2012, when the city adopted the Bridge Street District that included the property, in essence changing the rules in the middle of the game.

By including the Dublin Village Center in the Bridge Street District (BSD), the lawsuit argues that "the City unilaterally rezoned hundreds of acres of land and anointed its officials with unfettered and arbitrary discretion over private property within the District. The BSD Code eviscerated landowners’ protected private property rights, improperly relegating those rights to the subjective whims of City officials."

The lawsuit argues that "virtually no proposed development could ever meet the vague, cumbersome, and overly complex requirements the City now imposes."

It also argues the city has repeatedly rejected Stavroff's plans to build apartments at Dublin Village while approving similar plans from what it argues are "the city's select developers."

The city did not speak specifically to the charges in the lawsuit when contacted by The Dispatch, but issued this statement:

“In the decade since the 1,100-acre Bridge Street District was created, dozens of projects have been approved and built. The City’s development approval process in the Bridge Street Code provides a fair and collaborative method to achieve high-quality development for the benefit of property owners and the community. The City stands by its process and its standards.”

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The lawsuit is the latest step in a decade-long effort to redevelop the center, which has struggled to attract and maintain tenants over the years. The city rejected Stavroff's first redevelopment plan in 2013.

A decade passed before Stavroff approached the city with a second redevelopment plan, this one calling for the two apartment buildings. That plan was rejected at the end of 2022.

After tweaking the plan, such as reducing the height, "to fully comply with the (Bridge Street District) Code and address comments received from its initial application," Stavroff resubmitted the plan in April.

Even though city staff recommended approval of the plan, the Planning & Zoning Commission rejected it in July. The commission cited some specific issues, such as the amount of open space and, especially, the lack of a master plan for the entire parcel.

While acknowledging the proposal may meet all specific requirements, the commission expressed concern that the developers failed to meet one of the land use principles — the requirement that developments "be distinctly Dublin."

Such principles "are so vague that they have no meaning," the lawsuit argues.

"The Bridge Street Zoning Code and Dublin’s land use principles are utterly and unconstitutionally vague," said Joe Miller, an attorney with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, the Columbus law firm that filed the lawsuit on Stavroff's behalf.  "This is intentional. The City has given itself standardless and unlawful discretion in zoning matters, which the City has used to block much needed housing in the City."

The lawsuit argues the city has effectively deprived Stavroff the right to its property and seeks compensation and the right to redevelop the property as it described in its third application.

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The case is the latest of several recent challenges from developers testing the limits of how far municipalities can go in dictating details of developments.

Other challenges include Lifestyle Communities suing the city of Worthington over plans to develop the United Methodist Children's Home property on High Street, and a developer suing the city of Delaware over an apartment complex planned along Route 36.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dublin Village Center owner sues city over inability to redevelop center into apartments