March 10, 2005

Antioch to sell land for development

By Lauren Heaton

The housing pool in Yellow Springs could get a substantial boost this spring when Antioch University sells the 20.5-acre Birch III property and an additional five-acre parcel to Purple Sage, a limited liability corporation owned by Dayton developers Doug Eastham and Mark Bertke. The developers plan to build 40 homes on the Birch III property. Last week they presented a preliminary plat application to the Village outlining a new subdivision and a five-acre retention basin at the south end of town.

Villagers will have a chance to hear the plan in more detail and comment on it at a public hearing before the Village Planning Commission on Monday, March 14, at 7 p.m., in the Bryan Community Center’s meeting rooms A and B.

The developers are seeking Village approval for a new preliminary plat. If the Planning Commission recommends the request, it will move on to Village Council for its final approval.

Birch III is zoned Residence A, which allows for medium-density, single-family dwellings on lots that are at least 10,000 square feet and 75 feet wide. The property is located in Yellow Springs, just north of East Hyde Road, south of Orton Road and east of Glenview Road.

Antioch College has owned the land since the 1960s and has tried to sell it for the last five years to support a major change in curriculum next fall, Antioch University vice chancellor Don Tecklenburg said last week.

Tecklenburg’s predecessor, Glenn Watts, who retired at the end of 2004, spent last fall negotiating with Purple Sage, and in early January the company and Antioch signed an agreement of sale, and they expect to close the deal sometime this spring, Eastham said.

Antioch supports the project, which will bring more housing to Yellow Springs, Tecklenburg said.

“There’s a need for this kind of housing in Yellow Springs,” he said. “I think this could be a really good project.”

Both Tecklenburg and Eastham declined to say how Purple Sage is paying for the property.

Eastham plans to build the homes in the Birch III development, which he plans to call Glenwood Springs, using his construction business, Sage Development. Kerry Group Realtors, a Dayton real estate company that Eastham also owns, will manage the sale of the homes, and Bertke will handle client home loans and financing under the company name Mark 1.

The builders hope to begin construction June 1. Eastham’s plans include custom-built, energy-efficient homes that he said are “at the upper end of the market” and could sell for an average of $250,000 to $275,000.

According to the proposed plat design, the lots would vary in size from one-third of an acre to one acre. Eastham said he anticipates a minimum of 1,600 square feet per home. “But if they want to put up 5,000 square feet for half a million dollars, they can, and we encourage it,” Eastham said.

Several neighbors along the southern edge of the proposed development have expressed concern over the sale of the additional five-acre property, located just past the Village corporation limit in Miami Township.

The Vernay Foundation donated $26,000 to purchase the land with a conservation easement in 1964 and, according to a letter from Suzanne Vernet to Antioch, intended for it to become part of Glen Helen. Though abutting property that is zoned residential on three sides and separated from the rest of the Glen by Hyde Road, the parcel is contiguous with Glen Helen and is considered by some to be part of the 1,000-acre nature preserve.

Glenview Drive resident JoAnne Mahle wrote a letter to Antioch and the Village questioning the legality of selling Glen land and installing a retention basin on land restricted for green space. The letter, which was signed by six other people whose land abuts the five-acre parcel, emphasizes the college’s responsibility to uphold the easement and to honor its longstanding “commitment to the conservation of green space.”

Mahle, who has looked on the wooded space behind her house for 39 years, said she is also disappointed that neither Antioch nor the developers contacted her or other neighbors about their building plans.

“My concern is that we need, and the rest of Birch II needs to be aware of what’s happening and give input,” Mahle said looking out her kitchen window last week. “I’m not against development, but I’m against using Glen land for drainage.”

According to Miami Township trustee Chris Mucher, though the easement remains with the property in perpetuity, there is nothing that restricts the land from being sold or prevents the installation of a retention basin. In addition, he said, Township regulations do not give the trustees the authority to regulate drainage issues on private property.

Though the five-acre parcel was acquired at the same time as some of the Glen, it is not publicly operated or open to tours and therefore is not “technically” part of Glen Helen, Tecklenburg said.

Antioch did try to reassure some of the Birch II neighbors about the new development, “but ultimately, reassurance has to come from the developers themselves,” he said.

Eastham stressed that the retention basin would be nothing more than a gentle contouring of the land around existing trees to accept occasional overflow from the Village’s storm sewers in times of very heavy rainfall. Eastham, who anticipates eventually donating the land back to Antioch College, said the neighbors should feel “no effect” from the project.

Eastham has built and remodeled other individual homes in Yellow Springs, including the home in front of what was once Com’s Bar near High and Davis Streets. Eastham said he likes working in Yellow Springs because villagers value the type of custom-built, environmentally friendly homes he wants to create. Eastham plans to include ecologically sound features such as high “R-factor” insulation and energy-efficient gas converters in Glenwood Springs homes.

Twelve Yellow Springs residents have already indicated an intent to buy in the proposed neighborhood, Eastham said on Friday. He anticipates that the project would take two and a half years to complete.