February 1, 2007

The Village Greene includes 60 attached single-family homes (center) and 150 attached multi-family units.

By Diane Chiddister

A family with a baby, young couples, singles, middled-aged parents, elders — on Monday, Jan. 29, a cross-section of Yellow Springs braved the cold to attend a special Village Council meeting to address the proposed Fogg farm annexation. More than 100 villagers crowded into the Bryan Center gym to hear presentations about the development, to raise questions and to express their opinions.

Most of the villagers who spoke expressed reservations over the proposed Fogg farm annexation, and the evening’s strongest response, a standing ovation by about half of the audience, followed comments by Mary Donahoe, who urged Village Council to give villagers more time to address the question of annexation.

“This is a momentous decision for the village. It will affect us for decades,” Donahoe said. “The people of Yellow Springs need more time to debate this. We need to do soul-searching.”

In the end, Council agreed to hold another special meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 13, for a dialogue between Council and the public on the annexation request. However, the majority chose not to pursue a more extended dialogue proposed by Council member Judith Hempfling and other community members, saying that they were mindful of Council’s upcoming deadline in making the annexation decision. Council is mandated by state law to either accept or reject the annexation request by its April 16 regular meeting; if it does not make a decision by then, the request will be considered to have been rejected, according to Village Solicitor Shannon Martin.

Council is responding to the expedited annexation request by owners of the Fogg farm, an almost 40-acre plot on the western edge of the Village behind Yellow Springs High School on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road. For the first time Monday night, Fogg farm co-owner Doug Miller said that he would develop the project himself, rather than sell it to a developer.

In the meeting’s opening remarks, Joe Roller, the designer of the proposed Fogg farm development, described the project, which has been named The Village Greene, as a “chance to create a new front porch into the community.”

The Village Greene would be zoned as a planned unit development, or PUD, and would include about 210 new housing units, with about 150 of those units attached multi-family dwellings and 60 attached single-family units, Roller said. The development would also include a common green area and a bike path on the edge of Dayton-Yellow Springs Road.

According to Roller and Miller, the development would include houses starting in the $140,000 to $175,000 range, and going up to those priced at “what the market can bear.” In response to a questioner who asked what percentage of the homes would be in the lower price range, Miller stated that “a good portion” would likely be in that range. The development would probably include some housing for seniors, he said.

The developers want to incorporate designs and elements that are consistent with Yellow Springs’ uniqueness because that’s what makes people want to visit and live here, Roller said.

“We want to be a part of this village,” he said.

During the community comment segment of the meeting, Dimi Reber expressed concern that the cost/benefit study on the Fogg farm annexation focused mainly on financial considerations, without considering other ways the development could affect the village.

“I’d like to see the study talk about a village that’s walkable, committed to the diminishing use of fossil fuels and supports downtown businesses,” Reber said. “These are benefits. What is the cost of not doing these things?”

Several who opposed the annexation stated that all villagers should vote on the annexation question.

“The majority of the village should decide, not five people,” said Jeff Reich.

Five out of about 15 villagers who spoke expressed support for the annexation, citing what they perceive as the development’s potential for lowering property taxes and for increasing the number of children in Yellow Springs schools.

“If you got your property tax bill today like I did, it’s a big jump,” former Council member Joe Lewis said. “We need to be able to spread it out over our tax base.”

While they stated that they neither supported nor opposed the Fogg farm property, school board members in a letter stated their desire for population growth that could strengthen local schools. Board President Angela Wright read the letter, which was written by board member Richard Lapedes.

“Without population growth, our schools will be forced to contract in size or in quality,” Wright said.

A plea for open-mindedness for evaluating all sides of the annexation issue was made by Marianne MacQueen of Home, Inc., who expressed her concern that villagers were seeing the issue only through the lens of their preconceived ideas.

“I agree this is a tremendously difficult decision,” MacQueen said. “I ask everyone in the village to step back and weigh the pros and cons, the benefit and the risks.”

MacQueen also stated her opposition to what seemed a growing support for a community-wide referendum on the annexation, stating that previous referendums, on issues like the Glass Farm affordable housing project, had been divisive in the community.

Also on the agenda were Jack Pflum of the Cincinnati engineering firm Edwards and Kelcey, which wrote the cost/benefit study of the Fogg farm annexation, and Martin.

The cost/benefit study was “an informational document” which was not intended to make a recommendation for or against annexation, according to Pflum. Rather, he said, the study’s recommendation was that, if the Village chooses to annex, it would be best served by rezoning the property as a PUD for the highest density housing.

Cost/benefit studies are often inaccurate, according to Pflum, who said that studies are asked to predict the future, and those predictions are necessarily risky.

During the question/answer segment of the meeting, several villagers questioned the study’s conclusions that the Fogg farm annexation would provide significant income to the Village at little cost, a result which Pflum stated was “unusual,” given that most cost/benefit studies identify residential development as costing a town more than it brings in.

“We scratched our heads about it but I think we’re right,” Pflum said, stating that the village’s “unique nature” and its property tax structure contributed to the unusual outcome.

But several villagers disagreed with the study’s conclusion, including Ali Thomas, who noted that the study’s conclusion that the development would provide the Village with $120,000 additional annual income tax revenues assumes the creation of about 200 new $40,000 jobs in Yellow Springs.

“I take issue with that,” she said. “Are we going to suddenly get 200 new jobs in town?”

The study bases its income tax revenue figures on the construction of homes in the $250,000 range, while the developers said they would mainly build homes in the $150,000 range, Stan Bernstein said. If the homes cost less, than the people who live in them will have lower incomes and the income tax revenues received by the Village will be signicantly lower, he said.

“I question some of the assumptions made in the consultant’s report,” he said.

The study also assumes that the Village already needs a new $3.5 million electrical substation, but the decision on whether or not to build the substation has yet to be made, according to Benji Maruyama.

Members of the Yellow Springs Environmental Control Commission, represented by Chad Runyon, stated that they wanted the opening sentence of the study’s section on the environmental impact to the village to be revised. While the study currently states that the development would have “minimal” environmental impact, it should read that the environmental impact is not yet known, Runyon said.

Following the questions and comments, Council Acting President Karen Wintrow asked Council members to consider when they would be ready to give the annexation request a first and second reading. Hempfling stated that she is not yet ready to consider legislative actions, given the many questions raised about the annexation.

Council will consider the agenda for its special meeting on Feb. 13 at its regular Council meeting this Monday, Feb. 6.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com