VACATION? Donate your copy of the News. 767-7373. An INDEPENDENT JOURNAL of NEWS and OPINION YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS SI NCE 1880 YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO T HURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011 VO LUME 132, NUMBER 36 PRICE: $1.50 Council to No return for consider senior clinic; possible housing plan fire station site By Lauren Heaton By Diane Chiddister Over the summer Home, Inc. came to Due to a lack of fund-raising success, the the Village with a plan to develop a senior Wright State University Boonshoft School apartment building on the Barr property, of Medicine no longer plans to rebuild the with the help of development partner, school’s health clinic that was located for Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, three decades in Yellow Springs. based in Columbus. The developers pro- “It’s unfortunate that we weren’t success- posed using the housing credit �nance ful. It’s a site we used for years and years,” model, a housing management team from said Boonshoft Dean Howard Part in a outside the community, and elibigility stan- recent interview. “But you can only try for dards that were new to the community. Not so long and then you make a decision that surprisingly, questions on the details of the it won’t work.” project persist. However, the Miami Township Fire- Village Council will hold a public hearing Rescue department hopes to provide a new on Monday, Sept. 19, to consider rezoning community use for the site right across the property from residence B to planned Herman Street from Friends Care Commu- unit development, in order to accommodate nity. Recently, the �re department submit- a higher density on the lot and allow the ted a proposal to Wright State asking that developers to apply for federal �nancing. three acres of the four-acre Xenia Avenue If the PUD is approved, the project would land be donated to the department for con- come back to Village Planning Commission struction of a new �re station and Township and Council for �nal approval. of�ces. Home, Inc., the local sponsor, and Buck- The former clinic site is the �re depart- eye, the lead developer, are proposing a SUBMITTED PHOTO BY LOOK PHOTOGRAPHY ment’s �rst choice for its new �re station 37-unit, two-story building on the 1.6-acre because out of two potential new locations, Barr property on Limestone Street and Bird food the former clinic site offers the fastest Xenia Avenue. The facility includes one- Some of the region’s top chefs will prepare a six-course meal with local foods for this weekend’s Whoo Cooks for You? fund- response time for medical calls, according and two-bedroom units that would rent for raiser dinner for the Glen Helen Raptor Center. Tickets are still available for the event, which takes place on Sunday, Sept. 11. to Fire Chief Colin Altman. approximately $560 and $660, respectively, See the article on page 6 for more details. From left are chefs Carrie Walters of Dorothy Lane Market, Mary Kay Smith of The Wright State of�cials just received the including utilities. The facility will mainly proposal this week, according to Vice Winds Cafe and Elizabeth Wiley of the Meadowlark preparing last year’s Whoo Cooks feast. See page 6 for the complete story. serve seniors age 55 and over with incomes President for Planning Robert Sweeney in at or below 60 percent of area median an interview on Monday. Because he hadn’t income for Greene County, which would had time to review the speci�cs, Sweeney equal about $30,000 for a couple. The said he had no comment on the university’s building is designed to meet Enterprise response at this time, including the pos- Foundation’s Green Communities stan- Honoring AME’s rich local history sibility of the university donating the land dards and is expected to cost about $6.19 rather than selling it. million. Construction would be �nanced By Megan Bachman The Xenia Avenue property, which is primarily through federal tax credits, which zoned Residence B, is subdivided into 22 are purchased by Ohio businesses via the In 1886, as the area’s educational oppor- residential properties, each appraised at Ohio Housing Finance Agency for use in tunities continued to attract African Ameri- about $50,000, Sweeney said. affordable housing projects. cans 23 years after the Emancipation Procla- The Wright State University Board of Buckeye has an option to purchase the mation, 13 families from Yellow Springs and Trustees will meet next week and likely Barr property from Friends Care Com- Miami Township formed a local chapter of consider the proposal at that time, he munity, who received the property as a the African Methodist Episcopal Church in said, stating that the board’s response will gift from the Morgan Family Foundation a schoolhouse on what is now Ohio 370 near probably be announced at its Oct. 7 public in 2007. According to Home, Inc. Execu- John Bryan State Park, according to church meeting. tive Director Emily Seibel, the option is history. By the turn of the 20th century the In recent interviews both Sweeney and contingent on receipt of project funding. congregation had built a one-room church Boonshoft Dean Howard Part emphasized Developers Seibel and Roy Lowenstein, on South High Street referred to as Central the school’s desire to �nd a use for the vice-president of Buckeye Foundation, Chapel, had local landowner and freed slave land that is bene�cial to the Yellow Springs hope to secure the rezoning by the Novem- Wheeling Gaunt as a member, and was community. ber �nance application date. They would serving the spiritual needs of a growing “We’re open to any suggestions,” Swee- �nd out in March if the project was funded, local African-American community. ney stated last week, saying that the land according to Lowenstein. Now a longstanding Yellow Springs insti- was not on the market yet. “Before we move tution, the Central Chapel AME church forward with a sale we want to make sure Buckeye Hope Foundation is celebrating its 145th anniversary next that the use is something consistent with Buckeye Community Hope Foundation weekend with liturgical dancing, an old- the values of the village. We’re trying to �nd was chartered in 1991 as an affordable fashioned picnic, dinner-theater, music out, is there a function for the land that is in housing nonpro�t for low-income families. and, of course, worship. Because its church the best interest of Wright State and also in According to the group’s Web site, Buckeye members are active in the community and the best interest of the community?” has created, owns, or operates more than the community is active in the church, the 1,500 housing units in Ohio, West Virginia, entire village is invited. Clinic won’t return Indiana, Nebraska, Tennesee and South “Throughout the 145 years, members The former Wright State Physicians Carolina, and over 500 additional units of have been very involved in Yellow Springs Family Health Center on Xenia Avenue was PHOTO BY MEGAN BACHMAN housing are currently under development. community in every aspect — “we’d love closed two years ago due to falling revenues Buckeye has also administered over $25 for the whole community to come,” said The Central Chapel A M E Church is celebrating its 145th anniversary next week- caused partly by maintaining an expensive million in federal, state and local grants for church member Denise Lennon last week. end, Sept. 17–19, with a Friday evening banquet, Saturday afternoon picnic and two old building, clinic leaders said at the time. housing and other social service projects. Lennon is planning the anniversary cel- worship services on Sunday. Members of the organizing committee, from left, Carolyn The 50-year-old building located across the In 1994, the organization expanded its mis- ebration along with fellow church members Walker-Kimbro, Nan Harshaw and Denise Lennon, met last week at the chapel on High street from Friends Care Community was sion to include diploma-track education Shirley Smith, Carolyn Walker-Kimbro, Street to finalize the festivities. razed later that year and the clinic moved and vocational training programs for at-risk Nan Harshaw and Ernestine Benning. to a temporary site at Greene Memorial youth in the Columbus area. Looking to the next 145 years, church Hospital, with the plan to rebuild on the Buckeye’s development division has leaders say that despite an aging congre- including interpretative dance to Christian church will provide meat to grill in addition previous site at a later time. recently helped to complete several afford- gation, with an active youth community, a music performed by the women and girls of to throwback games — potato sack races, At the time, medical director Dr. Cynthia able housing projects around the state, new pastor at the helm and new bible study the Central Chapel liturgical dance group egg toss, corn hole. Attendees should bring Olsen said that the center served about including one in Mount Vernon called Dog- group, spirits are high. and the staging of an original play written a dish to share and can, if they wish, wear 4,000 patients from the village and sur- wood Hills, which is somewhat similar to “The church is such a stronghold in and directed by Walker-Kimbro. The play, their fancy picnic dresses, bonnets and hats rounding area. Olsen, who continues to the one proposed for Yellow Springs. Buck- the community,” Lennon said. “There will called “Carry On,” is about differences of of the style popular in the 1950s and ’60s.