YOUNGSTOWN — For decades, community members and recreation officials have worked to complete the Great Ohio Lake to River Greenway, a multi-use trail spanning from Lake Erie in Ashtabula County to the Ohio River in East Liverpool.

It is an ambitious, regional 110-mile trail that generally follows former railroad beds. In recent years, Trumbull County has filled in two gaps of its portion of the Greenway in Niles and Warren. Its final segment is progressing between Niles and Warren.

Ashtabula and Columbiana counties also have gaps in their portion of the trail and the Mill Creek MetroParks has been at work for about a decade to complete its last 6.4-mile segment in the southern part of Mahoning County.

The Mahoning County effort hit a roadblock, however, one month ago when Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito and his magistrate, Scott Fowler, ruled that Ohio law did not give Mill Creek MetroParks the authority to use eminent domain to acquire rights of way on private property to extend the MetroParks Bikeway.

And in late November, the MetroParks announced that it would not appeal the decision and would begin to return $3.4 million of funding for the trail extension. MetroParks Executive Director Aaron Young mentioned the need for the MetroParks to be “good stewards of taxpayer funds” as a reason for ending the litigation.

That apparently is a reference to the legal fees associated with the protracted legal battle with about 10 Green Township property owners along the proposed path of the trail.

When Mahoning County Commissioner David Ditzler, a supporter of the trail extension, was told of the MetroParks’ decision, he wondered if there was another way to get the extension built, perhaps involving the Ohio General Assembly.

In fact, D’Apolito’s ruling indicated that Ohio law did give the Ohio Department of Natural Resources the authority to use eminent domain to build a bike trail under a different statute than the one the MetroParks was counting on.

Karina Cheung, ODNR spokesperson, was asked whether the ODNR supports the idea of helping to complete Mahoning County’s trail project by using its statutory authority to acquire the needed rights of way.

Cheung replied “The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) is aware of the trail project, but at this time has no involvement.”

On Monday, the Mill Creek MetroParks board met for the first time since the MetroParks Board decided Nov. 25 not to challenge D’Apolito’s ruling. No one from the public brought up the trail issue.

In fact, Young said he had not been approached by anyone — in an email, phone call or other correspondence — to indicate that he or she thought the MetroParks should continue to work toward completion of the trail.

CYCLING CLUB

Dave Koehler of Austintown, president of the Out-Spokin’ Wheelmen bicycle club, said having the MetroParks Greenway continue south along the former railroad bed would have been nice, but the Wheelmen are used to riding on streets and are comfortable with using Washingtonville Road to the east of the planned route to travel through that part of Mahoning County.

One of the property owners involved in the MetroParks’ bike extension project, Diane Less, has been a big promoter of using Washingtonville Road for the bike trail instead of the MetroParks acquiring part of her property.

“As a whole, our club would have preferred that (the MetroParks’ planned route had gone) through because of the connectivity with the rest of the bike path, but we understand and abide by the court’s decision,” Koehler said.

“As a club, we do use (Mill Creek) MetroPark facilities. We enjoy the trail. We enjoy Mill Creek Park. In the case of (the MetroParks planned route), we will use Washingtonville Road, which by chance is newly repaved,” he said.

He said one advantage of riding along roads instead of bike trails as part of an organization like the Wheelmen is that there are usually a number of people riding together in brightly colored clothing and using lights to make themselves easier for drivers to see.

TRUMBULL EFFORT

Zach Svette, executive director of the Trumbull County MetroParks Board, said he would not comment on the third phase of the bikeway in Mahoning County, but he did provided an update on the Trumbull MetroParks’ work to obtain rights of way to complete the last of Trumbull County’s part of the Great Ohio Lake To River Greenway south of Warren.

Most of the property acquisition is complete. It will use 23 parcels of land owned by organizations such as BSX, Norfolk Southern and Genesee & Wyoming railroads, plus Wheatland Tube, RTI International Metals and the Western Reserve Port Authority.

He said Trumbull County’s project has involved discussions with a lot of commercial and industrial property owners. “Quite a few of the commercial folks have been excited about us putting in the trail,” he said. He gave as an example the Fortune 200 company Kimberly-Clark, which has acquired a portion of the former Republic Steel mill site south of Warren and has indicated that one reason Kimberly-Clark liked the site was “because of the bike trail.” The bike trail will pass along the eastern edge of the former steel mill site, Svette said.

Only one eminent domain lawsuit was necessary to acquire a right-of-way for the Trumbull County project, Svette said. “There was one, and the only reason we did that one was because it was a defunct corporation,” Svette said. Without the eminent domain action, the Trumbull County MetroParks would not have had anyone to negotiate with, he said.

The four-mile Trumbull County bike trail extension will travel through some residential areas. But in those areas, the trail will use several roadways instead of private property. That is the case on Burton Street in Warren and a couple of streets in Niles, including Williams, Chestnut, Smith and Hunter, Svette said. Bike-trail signage will be added in those areas. Burton Street will get a sidewalk for pedestrians or for bike riders to use to walk their bicycle, he said. Otherwise, bike riders will be on the road.

STATEWIDE IMPACT?

Meanwhile, D’Apolito’s ruling left open a legal question. Would the ruling affect park boards across the state in their efforts to acquire the rights of way to complete their bike-trail projects?

Woody Woodward, executive director of the Ohio Parks and Recreation Association, said he does not think so.

“I’ve been in this position 15 years, and to have something become as contentious as the situation in Mahoning County is unique. We have not seen this really anywhere in the state other than this situation,” he said.

Woodward said the 10 or so eminent domain lawsuits the Mill Creek MetroParks filed in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court were not typical of the eminent domain lawsuits filed elsewhere in Ohio. In most cases, eminent domain lawsuits are mostly used to identify and notify absentee landowners of a park district’s desire to use property in that way.

“Generally eminent domain is used with an absentee owner. A lot of these rail lines have been abandoned for a number of years. And it’s used as a way to identify an absentee owner and kind of help them come to the table and agree to a price. It is rarely, if ever, as contentious as the situation there in Mahoning County,” Woodward said.

He acknowledged that the process of acquiring rights of way for bike trails is time consuming, but it usually takes place without the public ever being aware it is happening.

Woodward said his organization believes that D’Apolito’s ruling “really only applies to this situation in Mahoning County, to these individual land owners. I think that is appropriate because every situation is different. I don’t read this as a statewide prohibition against using eminent domain.

For one thing, he said the type of property Mill Creek MetroParks sought to acquire was not typical of what other park districts are usually trying to acquire. “I think in most cases when we are dealing with eminent domain, we are not dealing with residential property,” he said.

Woodward also noted that the ODNR website contains the 2024 Ohio State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, which provides data on what Ohioans want from outdoor recreational opportunities.

Woodward said the report can be summed up in “three words: trails, trails, trails. People in Ohio want them, and it shocks me because I have seen the trails that have been built in the last 15 years. They are just phenomenal. People want more, more nature trails, more bike trails, more walking trails. That message really came through loud and clear in that report and in that survey.”

COLUMBIANA COUNTY

When asked about the use of eminent domain to build bike trails, Eileen Dray-Bardon, chairman of the Columbiana County Park District, said she has followed the Mahoning County eminent domain cases and said she does not believe the current Columbiana County Park District will use eminent domain to acquire property for the 22-mile final section of Columbiana County’s bike trail.

After many years of planning, Columbiana County now has a feasibility study that was recently adopted by the park board that identifies a route the park board believes could be used to extend its bikeway to the Ohio River. She said it’s going to take quite a long time to create because of the number of miles involved and the “rough terrain … but at least on paper there is a route.”

“I cannot speak for any future boards … but our current board would not use eminent domain for the program,” she said.

She said eminent domain “doesn’t sit well with people. We have people who are very good supporters of our park system that have fought eminent domain on their own property for other reasons, and so that is not a strategy we would consider using.”

She said the feasibility study for Columbiana County’s final 22 miles is to put the trail “almost all along existing right of ways or highways.” She said an example of how it will work is the one-mile extension to the east of Lisbon along state Route 154 that was recently completed.

She said their bike trail consultant looked at other methods but none were workable for various reasons. Some would have involved using private property, she said. “So we ended up looking at public roads and wide right of ways that could accommodate a trail separated by a strip of grass,” she said.