The City of Kent approved the sale on the remaining properties needed to build the new police station. The last properties cost the city on average more than twice the average of the previous 12 properties. With the police station and the two new Kent State buildings being built down the street reporter Cory York has the details on how this will impact the students living there.
College Street is a place where thousands would gather for an end of the year party until
***BANG****
One year a riot broke out and police shut the party down and hasn’t seen a party of that proportion since.
Now Kent City Council approved the purchases of the last four properties in order to build a new police station.
After long negotiations between the city and landlords on determining a fair market value on these four houses an agreement was made. An average of 341,500 dollars was settled upon.
For the tenants living in these houses…Like Chelsea Limongi…was told there was nothing her and her roomates can do about the sale of the property.
Now that the city owns the land, will the tenants’ living on these properties be forced out?
Councilman Wayne Wilson heads the city’s finance committee and says the city will honor the tenants’ leases as it will lease the properties back to the original landlords through August 15.
“They have current contracts in there and we have done that with all the people we have bought properties from. Because we don’t want them to have to throw somebody out.”
While they will be able to stay through the end of their lease…finding a new house like theirs won’t be easy.
Once completed the police station will bring the city and university even closer, a goal shared by both sides.
For TV2 news. I’m Cory York
Councilman Wilson added that by the time Council decided to pay more for these properties to avoid going to court and letting a jury decide the market value.
