February 23, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

The tension between residents of Peacock Road three miles north of Yellow Springs and the Clark County-Springfield Transportation Coordinating Committee (TCC) festered this week as the deadline, March 10, nears for TCC’s final decision on realigning State Road 794, which intersects Peacock Road.

The controversy reached a peak on Feb. 10, when the TCC met to vote on the road realignment. The TCC planned at that meeting to approve an alignment choice, called D-4, which the Peacock Road residents consider invasive to their homes. The residents had expected the TCC to approve D-1, which residents said they preferred as less invasive, and felt they had been kept in the dark about the meeting and the proposed change.

When the residents showed up at the meeting and expressed their concerns, the TCC postponed the vote until March 10. Stakeholders have been encouraged to contact a TCC representative in writing or by telephone to express their concerns, according to interim TCC Director Phil Tritler.

At issue is the proposed realignment of State Road 794, which intersects Peacock Road close to the Springfield Airport and Air National Guard.

Homeland Security requirements dictate that 794 be moved further from existing National Guard buildings, according to Tritler, and last summer the TCC began considering 19 alternative ways to change the road.

Also at issue are future plans by the city of Springfield to expand the airport. Recently, the city purchased 117 acres of land continguous to the airport site, according to Assistant Springfield City Manager Jim Bodemiller.

The city has leased about 40 acres of the land for the construction of a new $31 million facility to house two units of the Ohio Army National Guard and a U.S. Army Reserve Unit, which should be constructed around 2009, according to Mark Wayda, director of public affairs for the Ohio National Guard.

Both the D-4 and D-1 road alternatives will meet the federal security setback requirements, according to Scott Schmidt, TCC transportation planner. However, TCC chose the D-4 alternative because it will be more conducive to further expansion of the airport, Schmidt said.

TCC has been trying to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of the city of Springfield and the airport-area residents, Schmidt said.

“As far as the planning, the city side leans to not limiting expansion or future growth, and the other side is the stakeholders, people who live in the area, not to invade” their properties, he said.

Peacock Road residents prefer the D-1 alternative because they consider it far less invasive, said about 15 residents who met last Thursday to discuss their concerns.

As planned, the D-4 option calls for the destruction of at least one home, which was purchased last month by Mark Chenowyth, who said that before signing the contract he had been assured by a city official that the D-4 option would not be chosen. D-4 also calls for 794 to cut straight through from State Route 72 to U.S. 68, and on that straight route it would come close to the homes of at least two other residences, one a historic old school house. In general, the D-4 option brings a busy state road closer to the rural Peacock Road homes, and residents said they are worried about both the noise and safety.

Bodemiller said the D-4 alternative is preferred because D-1 runs through the property the city of Springfield recently purchased, and would make future airport expansion more difficult. It makes sense, he said, to choose a plan now that doesn’t later need to be revised.

The D-4 option “allows for future opportunities for growth,” he said.

According to a newsletter sent to airport area residents in the summer of 2005, a public involvement campaign was one of the first tasks of the 794 decision-making process. The campaign included the sending of three newsletters to update the residents of the TCC’s work, and two open houses, according to Schmidt. The first open house, in the summer, introduced the 794 project and the second one, in October, offered residents the opportunity to learn about each of the 19 alternative road alignments and to express their preferences.

“Public involvement is a critical component to the success of this study and your participation is strongly encouraged,” the newsletter said.

However, Peacock Road residents said their needs were not considered and they were not kept informed about the decision-making process.

“The community was ill-informed at best,” Elliot Gaines said. “As a member of the community, I felt they made it difficult to understand what was really happening.”

Glenn DeHart, who has lived on Peacock Road for 30 years, said, “I don’t like being lied to. I don’t like being deceived. We here, to an individual, believed they were choosing D-1 and we were happy with that.”

Another longtime Peacock Road resident, Diana Seward, said, “It’s so disturbing. We ask frank questions and no one will answer the questions.”

At a presentation given by the TCC at the initial July gathering, TCC members said they were not seriously considering the D-4 alternative.

“That put everyone at ease,” said Peacock Road resident Doug See.

The public involvement project was flawed from the beginning, said several residents.

At the October open house, residents had the opportunity to discuss the 794 alternatives with people at various stations, but were never given the opportunity to speak as a group. Rather, they could write their concerns or speak with TCC representatives individually.

The open house format was chosen to allow “being able to speak to people one on one,” Schmidt said. However, he also said that one-on-one encounters could also have happened following an open forum.

Peacock Road residents were further angered when their addresses were left off the mailing list for the January newsletter that announced the February meeting and upcoming approval of the D-4 selection. The newsletter was hand-delivered to residents’ mailboxes late in the day before the Feb. 10 meeting, Lloyd Daniel, the TCC planner, said last week. Daniel said he didn’t know why the addresses had been omitted.

Daniel, who is identified in the SR 794 Area Study Newsletter as the contact person, did not return phone calls seeking additional comments this week.

Schmidt said TCC was not aware of opposition to the D-4 alternative until this week.

“We had not heard anything before last week as far as their being against it,” he said.

TCC will take seriously feedback from Peacock Road residents, he said.

“We will go back and review and get the study team” together again, Schmidt said. “I think the TCC board is pretty clear that they want to hear the public comments.”

Springfield City Manager Matthew Kridler said that he “didn’t know why” the D-4 selection was made, and that Bodemiller was overseeing the airport expansion project. However, he said, if Peacock Road residents have concerns, the city will listen.

“Generally, the city doesn’t want to disturb folks,” he said.

Bodemiller said the city will listen to the stakeholders’ concerns but must also balance them against the needs of Springfield as a whole.

The airport and National Guard is “a large employment base for our entire community. This is something of value to more than those people,” he said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com