Council supports appropriations for trail as negotiations continue
As Oxford prepares to move forward with Phase Five of its trail system, City Council has approved the use of appropriations to acquire easements on two properties.
Oxford City Council voted unanimously to move forward with the appropriations process to acquire rights of way through private property for the next phase of the Oxford Area Trail System (OATS), but the city could still avert court involvement by reaching agreements with the property owners.
Phase Five of the OATS, a multimodal path that Oxford plans to wrap around the whole city, will extend from Talawanda Middle School to Talawanda High School, with a connection to Chestnut Street west of the railroad line. To make this phase happen, the city needs easements on 11 parcels based on the trail alignment.
City staff reached agreements with property owners for nine of those parcels, but two are still being negotiated. Oxford has received $3 million in grant funding for Phase Five which comes with funding deadlines. Assistant City Manager Jessica Greene explained at a March 4 meeting that the city needs to award a contract by June to retain the grants, so changing the route alignment itself isn’t feasible.
During a meeting March 18, council members voted unanimously in favor of two ordinances allowing staff to move forward with the appropriations process, also known as eminent domain. Appropriations allow municipalities to acquire private property for public use, even if the owners object.
The first property, owned by EVR Investments LLC, is south of the middle school, and the easement has a fair market value of $78,179 according to an acquiring agency. The second, owned by Lara Osborne, is at the end of Gardenia Drive, the area where the Chestnut Street trail connection will run. The fair market value of the second easement is $54,999.
Osborne and her husband, Chris Shoker, have spoken in support of the trail but against the process used to determine the trail alignment at the past two council meetings. At the March 18 meeting, Shoker said private meetings with city staff and legal representation in the past two weeks have gone well.
“We felt that we made significant progress,” Shoker said. “... Both Lara and I are really in favor of this. We realize the benefit to the community, it’s just we want to make sure that it doesn’t prohibit us from adding to the community in the future, as well.”
Multiple Oxford residents came to the meeting to speak in support of the trail system as a whole, city council hopefuls Jon Ralinovsky and James Vinch. Ralinovsky said the OATS helps to improve residents’ quality of life, and the next phase in particular will help children get to school safely while lowering carbon emissions. Vinch, who moved to Oxford a year and a half ago from Washington, D.C., said the trails were a factor in his decision to come to Oxford.
“Leaving the bike trail only two thirds completed — that would never be in the public interest to waste that investment,” Vinch said. “We spent millions of dollars on the trail as it is. To not complete it is not in the public interest.”
Parents of current Talawanda students also said that Phase Five will be a big help moving forward. Megan Kuykendoll has two children, and she and her husband chose to be a one-car household. Having the trail will help her kids stay safe while biking to and from various locations including the schools, she said. Paul Reidy, a parent of five who also has a one-car household, said the trail will also help get kids more active.
Oxford is prepared to move forward with appropriations for two parcels, but staff managed to reach agreements with the property owners for the nine other properties along the Phase Five route. Council members voted unanimously to approve six agreements securing easements on those properties.
