It was a question of needs - the county's need for a juvenile jail and the city's need to control where that type of facility can be located. In the end, the city's right to control its own destiny won out.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Kraft threw out a lawsuit Thursday that would have allowed Hamilton County to open a 60-bed juvenile jail in Bond Hill despite the city's zoning ordinance precluding that type of facility from the neighborhood.

There is little debate over the need for such a facility in the county.

So when Cincinnati refused to change zoning to allow the former Millcreek Psychiatric Hospital for Children to be converted, the county headed to court.

Now the county is left holding a piece of property it paid $1.5 million for. And it still needs to find a place for troubled youths.

Hamilton County commissioners will meet Monday to decide their next step.

Currently, youths adjudicated of misdemeanor crimes are sent to juvenile jails in Columbus, Cleveland, Portsmouth, Toledo or other parts of the state.

The county does have a detention facility on Auburn Avenue in Mount Auburn, where youths are held while they wait to appear before a judge.

But after being found "guilty" of a misdemeanor, local kids need a place to be incarcerated locally to get straightened out, said Juvenile Court Judge Tom Lipps.

Juvenile jails usually hold youths for six months to a year.

"Every major city has one but Hamilton County," Judge Lipps said. "You can't help these kids in a vacuum, without their parents, schools or businesses.

"It's so much more effective to work with the kids locally, because the parents can attend counseling, there are job opportunities locally and we can work with the schools."

That may be true, but Judge Kraft said the city's right to decide uses for its land comes first. He called the county's lawsuit an "act of bravado."

"The city has the authority under the home-rule provisions . . . to enact its own zoning regulations," he ruled.

The judge said his decision probably won't be the last word on the debate. He urged the parties to work harder to resolve the matter on their own.

"This most assuredly is on its way to the highest court which will accept it for review," the judge wrote. "A much quicker, more economical and peaceful way should be found by the parties to resolve this dispute."

The site in question is a 25-acre lot at the corner of Paddock Road and East 66th Street.

From 1978 until 1995, the complex was used as a state psychiatric center for children. The facility was allowed to operate there, despite zoning prohibiting that use.

Six months after the county's purchase of the land, the city further tightened its zoning to make it clear the juvenile jail could not open at the location.

When the city refused to change its zoning, the county filed a lawsuit.

"The county can disregard the zoning of a lower governmental authority because the county is an arm of the state," Hamilton County Commissioner John Dowlin said in explaining the county's point of view.

Residents of Bond Hill and other Cincinnati neighborhoods expressed relief Friday at the judge's decision.

"We have a beautiful place to live and we want to keep it that way," said Verdell Jones, member of the Bond Hill Community Council.

Cincinnati Vice Mayor Minette Cooper said the decision is a victory for "every neighborhood in the city."

"It means residents can control what comes into their neighborhoods," she said.

Copyright: Copyright 1999 The Cincinnati Enquirer