AKRON, Ohio — In December, Akron City Council passed legislation calling for a 68-acre parcel of land known as White Pond to be sold to Triton Property Ventures.
Since then, a nonprofit called LEAD for Pollinators, along with several homeowners who live near the property, filed a lawsuit in Summit County Common Pleas Court, saying the city did not follow proper procedure in passing the ordinance.
Although the litigation is pending, crews have been clearing out the site and cutting down trees.
In an attempt to stop this, a group of residents, including Michele Colopy, the executive director for LEAD for Pollinators, have filed a request to get a temporary restraining order to stop any further trees from being cut down.
“By cutting all this down before the legal action has truly been decided, they are decimating this natural landscape,” Colopy said. “We are able to show it is obvious, damages happening to the land. There is harm happening and with a temporary restraining order. You have to show that imminent harm. This is imminent harm.”
Spectrum News 1 reached out to the City of Akron and they said in a statement that, “The White Pond property officially transferred to White Pond Reserve LLC early last month. There is a court hearing tomorrow for the temporary restraining order related to the cutting of trees.”
Beyond that, the city said they do not comment on pending litigation.
Peter Niewiarowski is a biology professor at the University of Akron and he lives in the White Pond area. He said he has major concerns with the development that will transform this wetland area into luxury apartments, townhomes and retail space.
“This patch of land that they disturbed will take a century or more to come back to what it is right now,” Niewiarowski said. “At the rate, they are going now, it is about four to five trees every 10 minutes, and these are trees that many of them are relatively mature cherry trees, 75- or 100-feet tall. That machine is sort of just clipping at the base and letting them fall and another machine comes over and picks it up and compacts a whole bunch of land and piles it up in three or four piles that are being made on the property.”
Colopy said they should know if the request for the temporary restraining order was granted on Friday.
