Lawyer Takes Different Tack in Different Neighborhoods

Some residents are angry about tactics used by attorney Tim Burke in the legal battle to prevent a Hyde Park church from expanding, noting the strategy is almost the exact opposite of the one he's employed to push for another church's effort to create a social services mall in the West End.

In the Hyde Park zoning case, Burke represents the residents opposing expansion; in the West End zoning case, he represents a church organization that wants to move ahead with construction plans despite neighborhood opposition.

The residents say the tactics show that Burke, who also is the chair of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, is more willing to heed the wishes of affluent residents but ignores the same types of concerns in poorer neighborhoods.

Burke is among the attorneys representing Preserve Hyde Park, a neighborhood group trying to prevent the Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church from temporarily converting a sanctuary on Erie Avenue into a multipurpose facility that would house programs like Meals on Wheels and from eventually constructing a larger multipurpose facility there.

Burke has argued that the Hyde Park church’s proposed multi-use room violates the zoning code and stated he wants a conditional-use hearing in order to get a high degree of public input into the church’s request. The city’s Board of Zoning Appeals disagrees with that stance and said a hearing isn’t required, prompting the neighborhood group this week to ask a Hamilton County Common Pleas judge to overturn the board’s ruling.

In late March, Burke was quoted in The Cincinnati Enquirer advocating for a public hearing, stating, “That way, the city could control the uses on the site. The church is choosing to simply ignore the neighborhood.”

Those words surely must rankle many residents in the West End and University Heights, where Burke has urged less public input in One City’s effort to build the City Link Center, a Wal-Mart-sized facility proposed at 800 Bank St. In that case, Burke has argued that City Link should be judged on its parts, not the whole — the complete opposite of his argument in the Hyde Park case.

Apparently, what’s good for Hyde Park residents isn’t what’s good for folks who live in the West End or University Heights.

City Link opponents are outraged that Burke wants the city to intervene to protect the well-heeled neighbors from their local church in Hyde Park, but doesn’t want the city to intervene to protect the low-income West End residents from affluent churches whose roots are not in the West End. Crossroads of Oakley is the main church pushing the City Link project, and critics wonder why the church didn’t seek to create the facility there.

City Link is a $12 million project that would create a nearly 100,000-square-foot social services mall, where people could receive health care, job training, drug counseling and more at a single location. Many West End and University Heights residents believe it would lower property values, pose a danger to children and hamper efforts to convert the struggling neighborhoods into a mixed-income area.

The City Link project has created some strange political bedfellows. City Link supporters include Burke; State Rep. Dale Mallory (D-West End); attorney and conservative GOP activist Christopher Finney; lobbyist Dick Weiland; and a religious group affiliated with former Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich, an arch-conservative Republican.

— Kevin Osborne

Comments

[ToeJamFootball\]

What is the current status of City Link? Is it going to happen or is it tied-up in the courts?

[Anon]

Just curious.

Tim Burke is an attorney. He represents each client to the best of his ability, making the best argument he can for that client, and their case. By definiton, the argument for one client may differ from that of another, just as it does for all attorneys. Why is that different for him?

Why does representing any client get mixed with his political role? From my experience he does a pretty good job of seperating them - but observors do not, especially those who have a bone to pick.

There are legitimate arguments about difference,and arguments based on inuendo and sly implication. This is one of the later.

[WestEnder]

I think I agree with ^anon on this one.

I think a better case to question Burke's inconsistency was the Norwood eminent domain case. Wasn't Burke the city's attorney in that case?