July 14, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

At its meeting Tuesday, July 5, Village Council considered two measures that will affect the status and use of the Glass Farm.

Council approved the first reading of an ordinance allowing the Village to sell an acre of the farm to Phillips-Brown Homes for the construction of up to 10 houses.

In addition, Council discussed a draft resolution that would create about 14 acres of green space in the farm’s eastern portion, to be protected under a conservation easement. The land Council is considering protecting borders the one-acre parcel Phillips-Brown wants to purchase.

The vote and discussion took place after Council met in executive session, which was not open to the public. The resolution was not listed on Council’s agenda.

Council approved the first reading of the ordinance by a vote of 4–0. Council member Mary J. Alexander was absent.

The second reading of the ordinance will probably take place at Council’s next meeting, on July 18, Council president Tony Arnett said after the meeting.

On that date Council will also continue its discussion of the green space resolution and, according to Arnett, may vote on it. Because the legislation is a resolution, it must be passed by Council in one vote to become official; most ordinances require two votes of Council.

On Tuesday, July 12, Arnett said that the resolution was not on Council’s meeting agenda because he had written it over the previous weekend. The agenda is usually finalized prior to the weekend before the meeting.

Council discussed the possibility of preserving most the eastern third of the Glass Farm, as well as selling one acre of the farm, at its May 16 meeting.

Arnett said that Council may move ahead with the green-space resolution because Council members “would like to take action hand in hand with the sale of the property. The feedback from the community is that this is an OK course of action.”

Council chose to move forward on both selling a section of the farm for development and preserving a different section as green space in order to respond to different needs of the community, Arnett said in a separate interview last week.

“I think Council is trying to strike a balance between all expressed interests in the property,” Arnett said. “It’s a careful balance.”

Cathy Phillips and Jonathan Brown, who operate Phillips-Brown Homes, offered several months ago to purchase about one acre of the farm’s eastern section, which borders the property they purchased from St. Paul Catholic Church and which they plan to develop. Phillips-Brown Homes plans to build 26 homes, priced between $135,000 and $250,000, on the farm’s eastern section in the development’s first phase and 40 townhouses on the western part of the property in phase two.

Phillips and Brown have said that purchasing the one-acre strip of the Glass Farm would improve the flow of traffic in the area and also would allow them to build more homes than they otherwise could, thus lowering the costs of individual homes.

The developers paid $57,500 for the 1.01-acre parcel, Arnett said.

The draft green-space resolution would designate as green space 14 acres of the Glass Farm, and would direct Village Manager Rob Hillard to prepare and execute a conservation easement for the property.

The resolution states that “Council has twin goals of promoting an increase in housing stock and protecting open spaces.” It also states that voters have in the past rejected using all of the farm’s eastern portion for housing development and that the recent community survey “showed only mixed support” for selling a portion of the farm. The legislation states that Council “wishes to protect a portion of the Glass Farm as open space for future generations while leaving the remainder of the Glass Farm available for potential future development.”

The Glass Farm was at the center of a controversy in 2002, when, in a referendum, villagers decisively voted down a previous Council’s proposal to build affordable houses on the property.

In other Council business
• Council approved 4–0 a resolution creating a task force to study and recommend a plan for the use of the two Village-owned cabooses, which are currently located on the bikepath downtown. The cabooses formerly housed Caboose Bike and Skate, a bike and skate sales and rental business owned by Chris and Doug Roberts. The Robertses shut down the business last year.

The resolution charged the task force with considering as “key elements” that the cabooses be moved to another location off the bikepath right-of-way, that the cabooses be restored and maintained “to preserve and protect their historical value and context in the community,” that as much as possible Village staff and resources not be responsible for caboose restoration and maintenance, that ideas for generating revenue be considered, and that either profit or nonprofit uses of the cabooses incorporate “museum aspects that display our railroading heritage.”

According to the resolution, task force members are railroad enthusiasts Ron Schmidt and Hugh Livingston, Chamber of Commerce employee Michael Cannon, Planning Commission representative Bill Bebko, Design Advisory Commission representative Karen Wintrow and Hardy Trolander, who is the board’s community-at-large representative.

• Council approved 4–0 the second reading of an ordinance amending the Village’s parking code to correct a mistake made last year when Council revised on-street parking times downtown. The ordinance does not alter the two-hour time limit on the east side of Xenia Avenue, between Glen Street and the crosswalk at Short Street, but instead clarifies a description of this area in the parking code.

• Council approved 4–0 the first reading of an ordinance that protects the Village water system from backflow problems. The legislation is based on a recommendation from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which recently concluded its annual inspection of the water system, Hillard reported. The EPA suggested that the Village require commercial and business users to install a device that would prevent potential backflow problems. The ordinance also requires the Village to conduct annual inspections of commercial establishments for their backflow control.

• Arnett reported that Yellow Springs could benefit from a $58.7 million appropriations bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives for local energy and water development projects. The bill included $435,000 for a sewer and water project that would serve the proposed Center for Business and Education, and $165,000 for running a sanitary sewer line to Morris Bean.

The bill must still be approved by the U.S. Senate.

• In the time allotted for citizens’ concerns, Michael Cannon requested that the Village replace the worn basketball nets at the Bryan Community Center’s outdoor courts. A regular basketball player, Cannon said that “there is nothing so satisfying as the single solitary swish of ball through net,” but that the existing tattered nets do not allow such a swish.

JoAnn Mahle reported that her house south of town is now afflicted with rusty water, and questioned if the problem could be related to backflow problems from new construction on her street. Arnett said that new construction causes rusty water by stirring up minerals in pipes, but that the problem has nothing to do with backflow.

Sam Young, the chairman of Friends of Glen Helen/Hyde, asked if Council has taken any further action on the five acres of Glen land included in the Birch III sale. The developers of Birch III, who originally planned to use the five acres for a stormwater retention area, changed their plans in response to those who argued that the land was donated to Antioch College as green space. The developers, Purple Sage, LLC, have said that they would donate the land to the Glen Helen Association.

Arnett, who is the president of the GHA, said that “there has been activity” on the property but he could not report it at this time.