City to finally resolve Rockford Woods fiasco

Nearly seven years after construction began, the City of Cincinnati will spend $250,000 to complete phase one of the ill-fated Rockford Woods subdivision in Northside.

In 2005, developers EEHV, LLC, owned by Jerry Honerlaw, Rob Etherington, and an unnamed third party, abandoned the CitiRAMA 2001 site before the first phase was completed.

In their wake they left incomplete property deeds, crumbling infrastructure and delinquent property taxes parcels that were meant to become community greenspace.

Many of the problems have been blamed on a lack of oversight resulting from the desire to get CitiRAMA staged as quickly as possible.

As part of the planned development agreement between the City and EEHV, LLC, the developers were required to establish a homeowners association. Even though no association was ever established and property records were spotty at best, the City issued building permits anyway.

When basic maintenance on the subdivisions roads was not performed, residents began to blame the City - when it was the sole responsibility of the non-existent homeowners association to look after the development's infrastructure.

Residents of the subdivision have been forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to keep the streets livable, including paying for their own streetlights and maintaining their own sewer system.

At the same time, many residents were threatened with foreclosure or were watching the value of their properties plummet.

In late 2005, an agreement was reached between the City, the developers and the residents that would deed all common areas to the residents and would force EEHV, LLC to pay all outstanding debts.

The agreement was contingent upon all of the property owners signing a Homeowners Association Agreement, which was finally accomplished in December 2007.

One-fifth of the City payout ($50,000) will be used to capitalize the new homeowners association, from which legal fees will be paid.

The remaining money will be used to upgrade the streets to public standards.

Rockford Woods, which was once slated for up to 56 houses, has no second phase planned*.

* In 2005, then-City Manager Valerie Lemmie actually recommended giving the developers more money to complete phase one AND phase two!