April 21, 2005

EDITORIAL

Council should act boldly and accept Glass Farm offer

Village Council could give a significant boost to its goal to facilitate housing construction in Yellow Springs by agreeing to sell one acre of the Glass Farm to two developers, who want to incorporate the land into a new neighborhood of houses on the Catholic church property on King Street.

The builders behind this request, Cathy Phillips and Jonathan Brown, who operate Phillips-Brown Homes, have an intriguing plan to create a development that, in the words of Mr. Brown, would include homes that are “large and small” and “available to everybody.” They want to incorporate one acre of the Glass Farm into the 8.25-acre Catholic church property, which they will purchase this month.

Phillips-Browns Homes’ request of Council is a reasonable one. They have offered $25,000 for the land, a price they say is the fair market value of one acre of the property. The Village could certainly use the cash. Council could allocate those funds toward helping to pay for one of the Village’s many capital improvement projects or place the money in the Village green space fund. In addition, the Village would benefit from taxes and utilities generated by the residents of the development.

But striking a deal with Phillips-Brown Homes would mean more than generating additional money for the Village’s tight budget. The type of housing Phillips-Brown wants to build would be attractive to young families searching for reasonably priced housing in Yellow Springs, as well as older villagers who want to move out of their big homes into something smaller. When discussing their plan, Ms. Phillips and Mr. Brown paint a picture of a neighborhood that would fit nicely into Yellow Springs: a development of diverse homes in which a variety of people and families could live — not just the typical McMansions that most developers seem to favor these days. The plan is not to create an affordable housing development, though Mr. Brown said they want to build “housing that can be as affordable as we can conceive of it.”

The type of neighborhood Phillips-Brown wants to build incorporates smart growth principles, which many in Yellow Springs are now advocating. The housing stock would be a mixture of shapes and sizes and prices. The houses would be clustered on difference parts of the property. The neighborhood would feature walking and bicycle paths and may incorporate common buildings. The property also is within the borders of Yellow Springs.

Having the extra acre on which to build homes will make a difference for Phillips-Brown Homes. It will help them keep their costs down by dividing expenses among more houses. They would also be able to use land creatively by adding more homes along the access road they want to build off King Street bordering the Glass Farm. As Mr. Brown put it, the additional acre means the difference between creating a good plan and a great one.

Council is weighing the offer from Phillips-Brown Homes, though Council president Tony Arnett has said that Council members have not yet decided whether they want to sell the acre of the Glass Farm. He also said that the Village was not negotiating with the builders.

Choosing to sell part of the 44-acre Glass Farm is a sensitive decision. The community has fiercely debated two proposals to build affordable housing on the farm, including one that voters rejected at the polls in 2002. Some feel passionately that the Glass Farm has always been intended to be open space.

Agreeing to split off one acre of the farm and sell it as part of a housing development would be a bold decision for Council. This Council has made tough decisions in the past, and we hope it’s ready to make another one with Phillips-Brown’s offer

—Robert Mihalek