BY CAMERON McWHIRTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by the Legal Aid Society against the city's housing authority for tearing down low-income apartment buildings in East Price Hill.
U.S. District Judge Sandra S. Beckwith handed down a decision Thursday ruling that the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) acted legally when it demolished 144 apartments at Grandview Apartments, overlooking downtown at Warsaw and Considine avenues. The CMHA does not have to pay compensatory damages to tenants as Legal Aid wanted, the decision stated. Regardless of the suit, the CMHA did give residents federal housing vouchers to live elsewhere.
"Plaintiffs' claims against CMHA . . . are moot and therefore are dismissed with prejudice," Judge Beckwith wrote.
Since CMHA bought Grandview in 1981, the buildings had been plagued with structural problems, drug dealing and other criminal activity. By December 1994, 25 percent of the units were vacant and uninhabitable; by December 1995, the site was uninhabited. Legal Aid and residents wanted the CMHA and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to repair the housing. But CMHA and HUD decided to demolish it.
CMHA Executive Director Donald Troendle said Thursday he was pleased the court had thrown out the case. He said CMHA was still examining what to do with the property.
