Phil,
Here is more on you screwjob in the Darby.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/contentbe/dis...0410-C1-00.htmlA tenuous balance
Scenic creek in tug of war between preservation and development
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Stories by Spencer Hunt
Photos by Mike Munden
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Richard Schellhaas and his sister, Dianne Bradford, can?t sell their land to developers even though hundreds of suburban homes crowd their 80-acre field in western
At Thorn Apple Country Club in western Franklin County, a golfer crosses Clover Groff Ditch, part of the Big Darby watershed.
Union County farmer Michael Funderburgh says a 9-mile detour is his only alternative to driving his tractor through Big Darby Creek to reach his fields.
Richard Schellhaas can?t see the Big Darby Creek from his family?s farm.
But it?s there, flowing less than a mile west of the 80-acre field in western Franklin County where the family has grown corn, soybeans and wheat for three generations.
The Darby?s out of sight, but always on his mind. And even more so recently.
While the creek and the Schellhaases have been fixtures, a lot around them has changed. Many farmers have chosen growing land values over crops and have sold to developers.
Standing outside a house he built on the farm more than 40 years ago, Schellhaas can see three new subdivisions and a sea of houses across the fields.
His family isn?t going to fight the growth. He and his five siblings want to sell and think they can get as much as $50,000 per acre.
But after all these years, the Darby stands in the way.
??We had two potential buyers," said Dianne Bradford, Schellhaas? sister. ??Then the county?s moratorium happened.
??It just stopped it all."
Franklin County?s yearlong ban on new housing subdivisions, announced in November, is only the most recent attempt to protect the Darby. More than 30 government agencies and advocacy groups have spent years studying the watershed and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars trying to preserve what one national environmental group calls ??one of the last great places on Earth."
Ultimately, developers, farmers, governments and residents will choose the Darby?s future. Whether they live within its watershed, all taxpayers in the state have a stake in this stream.
Many supporters say the Darby can still be saved, but others are less certain. ??There is no real progress," said Steve Gordon, an Ohio State University professor who has studied the stream for about 20 years.
??Unless some conclusions are made soon, I?m not too optimistic this watershed will survive."
Cloudy future
Franklin County and Columbus officials have ordered a moratorium on development while they create a plan to protect the stream and still allow some building. The city and county also are part of a group of local governments called the Darby Accord, which hopes to have its own plan by the end of this year.
??We?re looking to protect the watershed first," said Steve Campbell, Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman?s deputy chief of staff for policy.
At the same time, Columbus officials have approved six of seven proposed construction projects in the watershed since 2002, allowing homes, apartments and stores to be built on 430 acres.
However local plans are cast, the Darby faces many more threats, chiefly from landowners.
Farmers, developers and investors
Nearly a third of the western Franklin County farmland the Darby drains ? more than 10,000 acres ? is owned by development companies, speculators, home builders, businesses and individuals. The same applies to nearly 20,800 acres of Madison County farmland and more than 12,100 acres in Union County.
Macy Block, founder of the nowdefunct Sun TV electronics stores, owns more than 800 acres in all three counties. Jim Schmidt, chief operating officer of Block?s MTB Corp., said the company recently sold 150 acres near West Jefferson in Madison County and helped develop a distribution center for Target stores there.
??I?m sure there are a lot of investors like us," Schmidt said.
There are. Among them is Honda of America Manufacturing, which owns 530 acres in Union County, and Battelle, which owns more than 1,000 acres in Madison County.
Identifying land likely to be developed is difficult. Farmers often form corporations to run their businesses, and absentee owners might intend that their land be farmed forever.
Agricultural Lands ? a subsidiary of The Dispatch Printing Company ? owns about 900 acres in Madison County. Edward Goodyear, treasurer for Agricultural Lands, said the land has been farmed since the 1930s.
??I?m not aware of any plans to do anything with it," he said.
Property records rarely reveal option agreements landowners sign with developers to sell their land later.
Options make up almost all of a recently announced plan to build homes and businesses on as many as 3,000 acres in Union County. That area is drained by Sugar Run, an already polluted Darby tributary.
The project, developed by Glacier West Venture, is part of a 25-year development boom the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission projects for Franklin, Madison, Pickaway and Union counties.
New homes, industry and businesses are expected to fill in more than 21,000 acres of Darby land, mainly around Columbus? western edge. MORPC expects a lot of the growth to occur near Hellbranch Run, a polluted 13-mile tributary just west of Columbus that flows into the Darby near I-71.
The commission estimates population along that section of the Darby will increase by 60 percent ? from 68,124 people in 2000 to 109,392 in 2030. They will live in nearly 25,000 new homes and apartments.
And the space occupied by businesses will more than double, from 6.8 million square feet in 2000 to 18 million square feet in 2030.
Bill Habig, MORPC?s executive director, said those projections could change if governments agree to control development. So far, he said, that hasn?t happened.
Houses for barns
While Franklin County?s portion of the Darby is poised for growth, other rural areas in the watershed also could see huge increases in development.
MORPC estimates that new homes and businesses will consume 4,736 acres in Union County by 2030. The Glacier West development alone would take up more than half of that.
Union County officials have approved permits for more than 880 houses in the Darby watershed since 2000. Many were built on 5-acre lots off country roads.
Four planned subdivisions would include as many as 200 homes on land drained by Robinson Run in Union County. The tributary is among the most polluted on the Darby.
In northern Pickaway County, two gravel pits and an asphalt plant are proposed near the stream. David Douglas, a Columbus lawyer who owns a house near 170 acres proposed for one of the gravel pits, said he is afraid it will increase runoff and cause more flooding.
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