January 20, 2005

EDITORIAL

Shedding light on business park

Two forums last week provided Yellow Springers with valuable opportunities to learn more about the Center for Business and Education and how villagers can help sway future decisions through a visioning process. The first of the week’s forums was a gathering sponsored by Community Resources, the community improvement corporation that is developing the commerce park, the Center of Business and Education. The second was organized by Villagers Addressing Land Issues and Development, or VALID, and featured a proposal for a community visioning project from Tecumseh Land Trust, the farmland preservation group.

The fact that two contrasting yet related forums were taking place two days apart was likely not lost on most. After all, the drive to expand the borders of Yellow Springs has focused attention on the need to add jobs in town (hence, the development of the commerce park), led to the formation of VALID, caused local residents to ask critical questions about the course Village Council is taking and has inspired many to become engaged in solving the community’s most important challenges.

Several people at Community Resource’s forum were clearly concerned that the commerce park would be successful. Community Resources has a chance to show skeptical Yellow Springers that it can build a flourishing and fully occupied commerce park, something all villagers should hope for. The Center for Business and Education can be an excellent asset, providing new jobs, bringing in additional revenue for the Village, Miami Township and the school district, and providing a new state-of-the-art campus for McGregor.

Those attending the forum received an informative update on the status of the park, including timetables for annexation, rezoning and construction. It was also good to hear Community Resources board members emphasize once again that they will not allow retail businesses in the park. Retail shops, gas stations and restaurants popping up along the western border of Yellow Springs would be disastrous, especially for downtown, since such commercial activity would pull customers from the Central Business District.

While Mark Crockett, a Miami Township trustee and Community Resources board member, said that the trustees would not approve retail development in the township, Village officials have yet to articulate how they would prohibit other properties from becoming the new home for service-oriented shops and businesses. Village Manager Rob Hillard noted that land in Yellow Springs could not be used for retail unless it’s zoned properly. Nevertheless, it’s still unclear whether Village Council is prepared to reject annexation requests and development plans if they involve service businesses — as oppose to office, light manufacturing and educational facilities or even housing developments.

The forum also gave Community Resources, a private, nonprofit organization, a chance to tell Yellow Springs more about its board members and goals. Though Community Resources has been working with local governments since its founding in 1998, the organization is still a mystery to many residents — most likely because board members tend to work behind the scenes, mainly out of the public eye. If the group learned anything from its forum, we hope it is that Community Resources must be more transparent and visible in the community — it could start by making the minutes of its meetings available. As Community Resources pursues the development of the Center for Business and Education, it also should hold regular community forums to update residents on the project’s progress.

More frequent communication from Community Resources, along with the educational forums being planned by Council, the visioning process many are calling for, and the economic planning forums organized by the Yellow Springs Men’s Group, should help bring into focus the future of Yellow Springs. Not all are going to be happy with the outcomes of these dialogues. But with all this communication, with all these forums, few Yellow Springers will have an excuse to say that they could not learn about what was going on.

The key: with all these meetings and all this dialogue, the village needs to reach an understanding about how much growth is appropriate for Yellow Springs —- without losing its sense of community. More forums, more discourse, are a good way to work that out.

—Robert Mihalek