City must tell ‘victims’ of VineBrook Homes why settling lawsuit is a good idea. (Cincinnati Enquirer 8.30.24) Zinser Op-Ed 007

I try to attend the West Price Hill Community Council meeting every month. At one meeting, a resident stood up and raised many concerns about “VineBrook.” I learned that VineBrook was a large institutional investor in rental housing, that owns many rental properties in Cincinnati and Hamilton County. He complained about the failure of VineBrook to maintain their properties and how that was affecting the neighborhood in a negative way.

As it turns out, the city had filed a lawsuiit against Vinebrook in Hamilton Count Court of Common Pleas. There were news reports about a settlement in the case an given the concerns raised at the community council meeting, I took a look at the case and the settlement documents.

The first thing that came to mind was that the solicitor’s office must have been pressured to file the lawsuit. The settlement terms basically provided none of the relief sought by the city and in some ways made the city look like the offending party.

Cincinnati owes public an explanation for Vinebrook Homes settlement