Greenbelt to be on Council agenda

By Diane Chiddister

If you drive west out of Yellow Sprngs on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, you’ll come to a slight dip in the road and the tiny Jacoby stream. If you pull over to the side of the road there, before the bridge that crosses the stream, you can see to the north a white farmhouse and gently rolling hills and, to the south, a leafy woods. What you may not know is that you’re standing in the midst of the approximately 1,400-acre swath of farmland known locally as the Jacoby greenbelt.

More than 30 years ago, a visionary Village Council defined this land as a critical segment of the green doughnut-shaped belt which they hoped would some day encircle Yellow Springs. In the years since, much of that green belt, intended to limit the village’s growth and to preserve farmland, has been officially preserved through conservation easements, most notably the 900-acre Whitehall farm on the village’s northern edge.

But what many villagers don’t know is that, 30 years after those Council members envisioned a green border circling the village, the Jacoby segment on the western edge of town remains largely unprotected and vulnerable to development.

To consider whether Village Council should take a direct role in addressing this situation, Council will discuss the greenbelt at its regular meeting on Monday, July 16. Beginning at 6 p.m., Tecumseh Land Trust will host a Jacoby greenbelt information session in rooms A and B at the Bryan Community Center, where villagers are invited to snack on pizza and drinks while they peruse a number of maps that illustrate the history of the greenbelt. Council will then meet at 7 p.m. to discuss future funding options for the greenbelt.

The vulnerability of the town’s western edge came into sharp relief during last winter’s controversial proposed development of the Fogg farm, also on the western edge of town. While the 40-acre Fogg farm is not itself located within the originally-envisioned greenbelt, properties bordering it are, and some villagers worry that developing the Fogg farm would lead to greenbelt development. The Fogg farm was purchased by an anonymous buyer in April, and the buyer’s intentions remain unknown, although the land is currently being farmed.

The Fogg farm debate clarified the importance of addressing the greenbelt issue soon, according to Council member Judith Hempfling.

“A lot of people in the village see this as a priority and Council has had it as a goal,” Hempfling said in a recent interview. “We need to move forward with a discussion on how to secure it.”

While some disagree on how large, exactly, the greenbelt should be, most villagers seem to favor the existence of a green border around the village, according to Hempfling, who believes that a community-wide discussion on the issue could bring people together.

“It’s a place of unity,” she said. “As a community it’s good when we can act out of a place of agreement.”

At issue specifically is the question of how to fund easements on greenbelt properties, and how much the Village can afford to contribute. Until about five years ago, Village Council had set aside estate tax revenues each year up to $60,000 for greenbelt use, according to Tecumseh Land Trust Executive Director Krista Magaw. When the Whitehall farm suddenly came up for auction in 1999, Council contributed a significant portion of the $385,000 that it had accumulated in the greenbelt fund to help purchase easements for the property that preserved the space as forever green.

However, several years later, a different Village Council, under President Tony Arnett, voted to discontinue using the estate tax revenues for the greenbelt, due to financial constraints. Currently, the greenbelt fund has about $87,000, and there is no regular means for replenishing the fund.

Magaw hopes that Council decides to again earmark specific funds yearly for green space acquisition. Along with the threat of development along the town’s western edge, Antioch University’s June announcement that Antioch College would close in a year puts Glen Helen at some risk, she believes. While the Glen is protected by a common law easement, it is not formally protected, she said. And while university officials seem intent on following Hugh Taylor Birch’s directive to use the Glen for the good of the college, it cannot be assumed that the Glen is completely safe from sale or development.

“I feel there’s more urgency at this point,” Magaw said in a recent interview.
What’s important to remember, Magaw believes, is that the amount of money Council sets aside would likely be matched by state or federal funds, so that even a moderate amount of money can end up making a significant difference to green space acquisition.

“Over 10 or 20 years, if the Village were continually generating funds to match federal and state money, we could leverage a good deal of protection,” she said.
Currently, the Miami Township Trustees follow the model of consistent contributions to green space, and use up to $100,000 yearly of estate tax revenues for that purpose. With that amount, the trustees have partnered with the TLT to purchase four easements in the past four years, preserving more than 400 acres of green space altogether.

Most critical, Magaw believes, is that Council put aside money so that when the chance to purchase easements comes up, perhaps sparked by availability of state or federal grants, the Village is in a position to move quickly.
The Jacoby greenbelt segment currently covers about 11 or 12 farms, Magaw said. Several of those farm owners have expressed interest in the possibility of purchasing easements for their farms, but would need financial help to do so, she said.

“A couple might be ready to act if money is available,” she said.
In the near future, TLT plans to seek grant monies to fund a community survey in order to identify what areas surrounding the village Yellow Springers see as priorities for preservation.

What they don’t need to survey, she said, is the value that villagers place on green space. According to the Community Health Survey conducted several years ago by Antioch College Professor Ann Filmyer, villagers identified green space as the number one village amenity, Magaw said.

In the past, villagers have tended to act on green space acquisition following periods of intense development, according to Doug Bailey, who this spring completed a history of the Jacoby greenbelt for TLT, of which he is a member.
The push for a greenbelt in the early 1970s followed a period of local development and annexation, he wrote in the study. However, when the development dies down, the move to acquire green space seems to dwindle as well.

Hempfling and Magaw hope that villagers concerned about green space keep their interest alive even if specific threats, such as that of the Fogg farm, disappear. Hempfling hopes that the Council discussion is one way to continue the community conversation on green space.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com