Antiochiana Archivist Scott Sanders presents a monthly series of one-hour talks exploring the history of Antioch College on the second Wednesday of each month, 12:30–1:30 p.m., in the Olive Kettering Library.
The next talk is July 8 and titled “Antioch and the Civil War.”
Sanders has been with Antioch since 1994 and has stewarded the college’s historical collections for more than three decades.
The series is free and open to the public. Those who cannot attend in person may view each session live via Zoom; the meeting ID for the events is 820 8896 1530, and the passcode is 405208.
Each session will include time for audience questions and will be recorded and later posted to Antioch’s YouTube channel.
Local free-meal nonprofit “Who’s Hungry?” received a $2,500 grant from Hall Hunger Initiative on Wednesday, June 24, during the group’s biweekly community meal at MAZU restaurant.
Hall Hunger Initiative Development Director Alex Klug presented the funds to “Who’s Hungry?” co-founder Jim Zehner and longtime volunteer Robert Bolen as local residents — including one News reporter — dined on linguine with meat sauce, vegan pasta salad and rolls.
The grant will help repair electrical service in the garage of the home Zehner shared with “Who’s Hungry?” co-founder and his longtime partner, Carl Moore, who died unexpectedly in May. The nonprofit cooks meals in Zehner’s home — about 5,500 meals were served last year, according to Zehner — and stores food for the meals in refrigerators and freezers in the garage. Zehner said the appliances had previously been powered using extension cords before an electrical fault caused the garage to lose power and “Who’s Hungry?” to lose some stored food intended for regular diners. Zehner said local electrical outfit Regulator Watts quoted the cost of the repairs at nearly $4,000, but offered to complete the job for the $2,500 grant amount.
Bolen also recently raised more than $900 for “Who’s Hungry?” by creating a vegan “crunch wrap supreme” that was prepared and sold through MAZU.
Hall Hunger Initiative is a regional food-system advocacy nonprofit that works to address the root causes of hunger while supporting organizations that feed their communities. According to Klug, HHI is in the process of developing a local food aggregation program that would purchase food from Antioch College and other area farms, combine and store it centrally and redistribute it to participating restaurants, schools and other buyers.
The News will provide additional coverage on the program in a future issue.
“Who’s Hungry?” operates most Mondays and Wednesdays, from 3 p.m. until food runs out. All are welcome. To support “Who’s Hungry?” drop by during open hours or donate online at http://www.bit.ly/WhosHungryYS
Three days before Antioch College’s June 20 commencement, graduating student Lark Orbe and first-year student Zion Villines entered President Jane Fernandes’ office hoping to persuade her to reconsider a decision.
Suspended professor Michael Casselli had been told he could attend the upcoming July reunion, where he was set to receive the J.D. Dawson Award presented by alumni, but was barred from events where students he had taught and mentored would present their work and graduate.
Orbe had helped circulate a petition asking college administration to allow him to attend, gathering 181 signatures from students, alumni, current and former staff and other community members.
Orbe and Villines went into the June 17 meeting with another student — a small delegation that, as they told the News this week, they believed reflected Antioch’s tradition of community governance: students bringing a concern to institutional leadership and trying, together, to find a solution.
By that evening, the students believed they had reached a framework with Fernandes that limited Casselli’s presence to specific events, buildings and times. It would have allowed Casselli to attend the senior Colloquia, commencement, Grawlix creative showcases and the already-approved reunion events, while leaving the rest of his campus ban in place and acknowledging that the College would respond within the bounds of its policies if he exceeded the agreed-upon limits.
Orbe and Villines said Fernandes verbally agreed to the framework and told them written terms would be sent to Casselli the following day. Later that night, however, they said they learned that Fernandes had reversed course.
Casselli provided the News with an email, sent the following morning, in which Fernandes cited “fear and anxiety that has emerged on campus” and said Casselli would not be allowed to participate in any upcoming college events, including commencement and reunion.
Orbe and Villines said some students were disappointed that Casselli ultimately wouldn’t be present as they presented projects and crossed the stage at the Foundry Theater to graduate. But moreover, they said, they had counted on the shared governance that’s part of Antioch’s institutional character to illuminate a path forward for addressing a student concern.
“We don’t have to protest,” Orbe told the News. “We just need to sit at the table with [Fernandes] and talk to her.”
“It’s not my goal to see anybody lose at the end of the day,” Villines added. “If [Fernandes] were to get along with that, if we were able to get along with it, and also the community was aware of what was taking place, I felt like that would have been a win across the board for everybody.”
The News reached out to Fernandes this week with questions about the conversation she had with the student delegation; though she declined to respond to the students’ account point-by-point or comment on whether an agreement had been reached and reversed, or why, she provided a written statement:
“I respect and value students’ perspectives and contributions in all decisions that impact their education and overall experience at Antioch College. Student voices and inclusion are the foundation of Antioch College. As President I have to balance student input with the safety of campus and all community members.”
The statement continues: “We understand the community’s interest and concern, but we must reiterate that we will not publicly share specific details related to a personnel matter.”
As the News reported earlier this month, Casselli — a member of Antioch’s arts faculty since 2011 who earned tenure in 2021 — has been barred from campus since February after he was initially terminated that month following an argument with another faculty member. The Board of Trustees later suspended the termination and restored his pay and benefits pending review of the incident. On May 20, Fernandes placed Casselli on indefinite suspension without pay with conditions for a possible return.
In the weeks since his suspension, Casselli has acknowledged in the pages of the News and online that the argument became heated and said he apologized for his behavior, but has disputed the College’s characterization of the incident and argued that he was denied the process owed to a tenured faculty member. The American Association of University Professors has also raised concerns that the College subjected Casselli to what they called a “major sanction, second in severity only to dismissal,” without a hearing before an elected faculty committee.
Orbe, who graduated last weekend, said the visit with Fernandes grew out of student discussions and wasn’t initiated by Casselli. Villines said he joined the student delegation because he believed the campus restrictions were disproportionate and the dispute had escalated unnecessarily.
“We didn’t have to get here,” he said.
The student body wasn’t unanimously energized with regard to Casselli’s campus ban, Orbe said, as some students were overwhelmed by the final weeks of the term, and others didn’t take an active role. But Orbe said the proposal came out of student meetings and did reflect a broad student concern, particularly among those who had worked closely with Casselli. Those students, and others, protested Casselli’s initial firing in February, carrying signs that read: “Be ashamed to die until you rectify.”
Villines, who transferred to Antioch during the winter term, said he had expected Casselli to teach some of the courses in which he’d enrolled, but the professor “disappeared” from campus not long after Villines arrived. Though Villines is up to speed on the circumstances of Casselli’s suspension, he said the College hasn’t yet clearly explained to students how it intends to fill the educational gap left by his absence.
“I understood Casselli would be my professor for a lot of the classes that I would be involved in,” Villines said, adding that he had hoped Casselli would teach him about how to use CAD, a 2-D and 3-D modeling software. “Are you gonna hire somebody else to fill that gap? Are you consolidating the program into a different program? What is your strategy moving forward in this?”
Orbe said they first emailed Fernandes about the petition and asked to meet; when no meeting had been scheduled by the final week of classes, Orbe raised the request during a campus community meeting. Fernandes agreed to meet, and the students gathered the next morning.
A member of Antioch’s human resources staff expressed concern before the meeting that what was initially understood as a one-on-one meeting had expanded to include several students, writing that the College did not want “a group against one.” Orbe responded that the delegation’s attendance was not intended to overwhelm Fernandes, writing: “I invited other students because, though I have spearheaded the initiative of the petition, it is not just me, but a community effort.” They also told the News that they had asked Fernandes in advance if they could invite other students to the meeting, and Fernandes had responded affirmatively.
Orbe said they appreciated that Fernandes agreed to the meeting at all, particularly during a crowded final week that included commencement preparations and a Board of Trustees meeting. They said they entered the conversation believing that an in-person exchange — even if it ended in disagreement — could still build trust.
“It’s important that we meet face-to-face on something that’s really important to me and the community,” Orbe said.
Orbe and Villines said the June 17 meeting began with the students asking Fernandes to reconsider Casselli’s exclusion from the senior Colloquia and commencement. They said Fernandes agreed within a few minutes of discussion, and those gathered in the room moved swiftly on to discussing guardrails.
“[The meeting] wasn’t centered around whether he could or couldn’t be present,” Villines said. “It was how his presence was going to be governed.”
During the meeting, the students said they began drafting a document to outline the course of the discussion, titled “Official Terms of Institutional Permittance,” which identified the specific events and spaces where Casselli would be allowed. It was drafted by the students, though Villines and Orbe noted that it was not signed by Fernandes.
Orbe said that, in a second meeting with Fernandes later the same day to review a final draft of the “Official Terms” document, they asked whether anyone else on campus needed to be notified or consulted because of concerns about Casselli’s presence, and that Fernandes indicated she would handle those conversations. Orbe said they left expecting the terms to be finalized and sent to Casselli the following day.
Instead, Orbe received a text message from Fernandes that evening indicating that the decision had changed. The next morning, Casselli received an email from Fernandes that read: “Given the fear and anxiety that has emerged on campus, I will not allow you to participate in any of the upcoming events at Antioch College including Commencement, visiting [Olive Kettering Library], Reunion and others. As is currently the case, you are not allowed on campus and you are not allowed to teach students. Failure to comply may result in termination.”
Villines said that he and other students were confused by the apparent about-face in the decision, and that they weren’t given an answer on what constituted the “fear and anxiety” that had apparently caused it. He said he would have respected a clear refusal from the outset, particularly if the College had clearly explained that safety or personnel considerations made the request impossible.
“Sometimes we have to make hard decisions and give reasoning towards those hard decisions,” Villines said.
In a public statement released June 19, Villines wrote that the administration should have said “no” from the beginning if it was unwilling or unable to approve the students’ request. Students spent part of their final week working toward a solution they believed had been accepted, he argued, only for it to be reversed in “whiplash decision-making.”
Orbe said they felt similarly: “We would have been like, ‘Well, we’re disappointed that this is still the case, but we appreciate that she met with us and could say ‘no’ to our faces,” they said.
Addressing the commencement audience at the Foundry last weekend, Orbe spoke to the responsibilities that come with living in a community and participating in its governance: “Antioch is special because we have community governance. Students, staff, faculty, administrators and alumni serve on committees and make decisions collectively — which is unheard of at many other institutions.”
Orbe went on to urge students to commit to institutional work at Antioch, saying: “When you have an issue, don’t just chat with each other about it. Document it, send that email, go to Community Meeting, join a committee. Commit to the long term process. Be heard!”
Their advice resembles what Orbe and Villines said they attempted in Casselli’s case: discussing the issue among students, circulating a petition, asking for a meeting, negotiating terms and putting those terms in writing.
Orbe said that, in their view, shared governance doesn’t mean every student demand must be granted, nor does it remove the difficulty of making decisions when people have competing needs, access requirements or fears. They acknowledged in their speech that governance can be “messy and riddled with missed communication,” and told the News that students also bear responsibility for how they enter difficult conversations.
“We might be responding to something that we don’t have enough context around, but then help us understand,” Orbe said, adding that students can’t function as meaningful participants if decisions are made or reversed without a clear explanation of what changed.
“An agreement was made, and then that was broken. What happened in between, we don’t understand,” they said.
Orbe said they still hope to speak with Fernandes again directly; the president had proposed another in-person conversation during commencement weekend, Orbe said, but the timing didn’t allow enough space for the discussion they wanted to have.
“I hope to still meet with her; I hope to actually genuinely be curious about some of these things,” Orbe said. “As long as she’s in this position, we should be trying to work with her. I want her to see students and community members as people who want to work with her.”
Villines said that, as a new student, he came to Antioch expecting shared governance to mean difficult conversations among people with different perspectives, not the absence of conflict.
“I understood that there was probably going to be a lot of points of conflict,” he said. “But I also understood that there is a more beautiful way to move.”
Atop Yellow Springs’ highest point is a little oasis.
Head over to Gaunt Park on some sweltering day and you’re bound to hear the sounds of summer: a chorus of kiddos squealing in delight to a whole symphony of splashes. Here and there, the tweet of a whistle (“No running!”) and the rattling thwang of a board.
Such is the music of Gaunt Park Pool — the county’s only public pool — which turns 70 years old this summer.
In speaking with the News earlier this month, Village Parks and Rec Supervisor Sam Stewart said she and her team of 23 teenage staffers are wading into one of the pool’s busiest seasons in recent memory.
Barely a month past opening day on Memorial Day, more than 750 passes have been sold, forcing Stewart to frantically make more.
“We sold out last year, but definitely not this fast,” Stewart said.

Several hundred villagers and out-of-towners converged on the Gaunt Park pool on Monday, a sweltering hot Memorial Day in 2018. (News archive photo by Diane Chiddister)
Owing to the predicted hotter-than-ever days ahead, Stewart said this summer will likely outpace last year’s numbers — an average of 95 visitors a day, with the busiest day bringing in 318 pool-goers.
“I think these numbers really show that people still value this pool — that it’s only getting to be more important than ever before,” Stewart said. “We get so much positive energy from not just people who live here, but people in other communities.”
Stewart is especially grateful for Village Council’s support.
As she noted, Gaunt Park Pool has never been a money-maker for the Village, nor will it likely ever be.
According to past News reporting, it loses an average of more than $50,000 per year, mostly owing to the ever-rising costs of chemicals — about $1,000 a week to chlorinate the 225,000-gallon big pool and the 2,500-gallon baby pool — as well as staff wages.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to make any money. This is a labor of love that thankfully so many people see as worth it,” Stewart said.

Summer-saults: Jumpers rose to the occasion to show off for the camera at Gaunt Park pool’s deep end in 2012. (News archive photos by Suzanne Szempruch)
Despite the pool’s annual deficit, Council continues appropriating funds to keep it filled and functional. For 2026, Council built in $147,033 to the general fund for the pool — $77,508 of which cover personnel costs.
Some of Gaunt Park Pool’s financial losses are incurred charitably: the “Swimming for All” program offers half-price passes to money-strapped Yellow Springs residents.
“Just come with some paperwork that shows you’re getting some kind of assistance — from the county or any governmental organization — and you’re eligible,” Stewart said. “And it’s not just for families with kids. Seniors are absolutely eligible. Please come swim. We can help you!”
Ongoing maintenance costs are also no drop in the bucket. Stewart said that a new coat of paint on the pool costs $26,000. Though a $9,000 grant from the Community Foundation helped offset some of that this year, the Village was essentially obligated to cover the rest.

Greg King, above, appeared to plunge from the heavens into the pool in 2009. (YS News archive photo)
“There was no way we were going to get this pool open through the Greene County Health Department if we didn’t get a new coat of paint on. It just had to be done,” she said, noting that the last time it had been done was eight years ago — just beyond the expected lifespan of pool paint.
Stewart also thanked a few others for keeping the pool afloat this year: Dustie Pitstick, of Lucky Bunny Tattoo Club, and Don Beard, of Peach’s Grill, chipped in to cover all the costs of certifying and recertifying the 15 lifeguards for the season.
One such lifeguard is 16-year-old and rising Yellow Springs junior Matteo Chaiten, who’s returning to his all-seeing chair for the second year.
“These can be life or death situations,” Chaiten said, adding with a slight sigh of relief that he’s yet to encounter any worst case scenario. “But we try to focus on avoiding them. We make sure people follow the rules — that they don’t do anything stupid.”
Petra Nieberding, another 16-year-old and upcoming junior, takes her job just as seriously.
“People need to feel safe, they need to know that someone is able to help them if they need it,” she said. “These rules are here for your safety.”
Stewart beamed with pride at her lifeguards.
“My staff know what they’re doing,” she said. “Their job is to make sure people don’t get seriously injured. And that can be stressful.”
She continued: “That’s maybe one of the biggest struggles of the job — it can be hard to get the respect they’re owed. Being so young, they’re not always listened to. So, they very quickly learn how to be assertive, but professionally, and not being rude.”
This is the first year since 2016 — when Stewart first started managing the pool on the Village’s behalf — that she’s overseen this many new staffers at once. But she expects that’ll be different next year — “Kids tend to stick around here. It’s a good job,” she said.

A drawing of potential recreation activities on West South College Street. (YS News archives, 1955)
A new pool, from the ground up
In the early 1950s Gaunt Park wasn’t a park at all — it was the town dump.
Nearly all of the trash from the 3,000-some Yellow Springs residents of those days wound up on those 9.5 acres along West South College Street — the same land that the formerly enslaved entrepreneur Wheeling Gaunt had donated to the Village half a century before.
But sometime around the end of 1954, quite a few village residents began thinking about a different use for the land.
Per YS News archives, the Village Planning Commission conducted a villagewide survey to gauge interest in expanding recreation in town. The results couldn’t be ignored: Yellow Springs needed more of it.
Heeding the call was then-Village Manager Howard Kahoe who spearheaded the efforts to level out the land and install one “hardball” and another softball field. There were other proposals to install tennis courts, enough parking for 160 cars, a volleyball sandpit, a children’s playground and a shuffleboard court.
Suffice it to say, not all of those ideas manifested, but the “Wheeling Gaunt Recreational Area” still began to take form.

Read Viemeister’s vision of a pool at the Wheeling Gaunt Recreation Area. (YS News archives, 1956)
The biggest priority among the survey’s respondents was the creation of a community pool — one where “all-day, any-day swimming could be provided to all Yellow Springs and Miami Township residents.”
Taking up that mantle was a local group called the Jaycees, or the JCs for Junior Chamber, a civic group of young to middle-aged local residents and entrepreneurs bent on fostering development. That group committed to fundraising the needed $60,000 to build a 180,000-gallon, “L”-shaped pool.
From an early 1955 issue of the News: “To raise this sum of such magnitude will require the cooperation and generosity of every business and every citizen … it can be done if there’s will to do it.”
Was there ever.
The yearlong pool drive kicked off in early summer with a truly massive parade that wound through the village to build enthusiasm and raise more dollars.

A massive parade through Yellow Springs in May 1956 raised many thousands of dollars for the construction of the pool. (YS News archives, 1956)
Music acts in the incredible cavalcade were: the color guard of the Central State ROTC, the Central State band, the Bryan High School band, the elementary school band and the Dixieland Rhythm Kings. Local organizations represented in the march were: Morris Bean Foundry, Vernay Laboratories, DeWine and Hamma, Fels Foundation, Kettering Foundation, the Yellow Springs school board, Antioch College, Village Council members, Community Council representatives and several YS churches.
“Gaily uniformed Cub Scouts and Brownies manfully strode to keep up with the larger Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, whose steps were paced by a happy but unrehearsed bicycle brigade and a local horse troop.”
The column was punctuated by a barrage of balloons, Miami Township firetrucks and a jeep-drawn Conestoga wagon from the Antioch School.
The parade began at the Wheeling Gaunt Recreational Area where, at the top of the hill, there were around a dozen town leaders ready to cut the ribbon on the pool project, say a few words and set the marchers marching.

“Arthur E. Morgan speaks at the brief meeting Sunday morning that kicked off the local campaign for funds to build a swim pool. On the platform with Mr. Morgan are, left to right, Ben Pinkston, Dr. Buckley S. Rude, Arthur Lithgow, school superintendent R. E. Augspurger, Russell Hay, Village Council President William Beatty, James D. Mitchell, A.C. Hoffman, Village Councilman Ted Hamilton, Mr. Morgan, Kenneth Coffman, Antioch College President Samuel Gould, school board president Bruce McPhaden, Stanley Garn, Village Manager Howard Kahoe, Donald Waetchter, Rev. Edward Miller. (YS News archive photo, 1956)
Arthur Morgan declared that the building of a new pool would help Yellow Springs become “a good town to live in, a good town to come to, instead of a good town to go away from.”
Over the course of that year, hundreds of individuals, dozens of businesses, a handful of organizations and even youth-led collections contributed to the pool fund. Farmers donated equipment and tractors to offset costs. By the middle of 1955, village kids had raised more than $150 in pennies.
All told, community-driven efforts raised more than $70,000 — enough to build a pool, and dollars that were turned over to Village government to do as such.
To the dismay of some eager swimmers, the project took longer than expected to complete. It wasn’t ready by the end of the summer of 1955. The delay did, however, give villagers more time to debate — or bicker, as some News letter-writers characterized — about pool rules, policies and hours.

Contractors worked swiftly in the early months of the year to get the pool ready for the first-ever swim at Gaunt Park, which happened en masse one sunny day in late June. The street pictured running left to right behind the pool is West South College Street. (YS News archives, 1956)
Unlike elsewhere in the country at that time, furrow-browed villagers weren’t concerned about race or any matter discriminatory, but when to restrict hours to adults only, if a family pass could cover five children or if $1.50 per day was too much for a pass.
Eventually, those issues were smoothed out — the pool opened to great fanfare at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 30, 1956.
The News reported that 50 adults and children dove en masse into the Gaunt Park Pool to initiate a full day of free swimming. By 8 p.m. that day, it had been enjoyed by 828 swimmers. In less than a week, 2,500 folks had taken a dip.

About a decade before pools throughout the country became a desegregation flashpoint in the Civil Rights movement, Black and white children regularly splashed and played together in the Gaunt Park Pool, which this year turns 70 years old. Building the pool was a years-long community-led effort — one that’s still appreciated today. (YS News archive, 1956)
More from the News about the first pool-goers:
“Rikky Appleberry, off Hyde Road, arrived at 9:15 a.m., and despite his lack of eye witnesses, maintains that he was the first in the pool.
“A more valid record, 55 high dives was set by Freddy Marba, 309 E. Whiteman St., who summed up his opinions of the pool with ‘this is what the town’s been needing for a long time.’
“The wading pool was not so eagerly filled by uncertain tots unable to believe it was not a bath. Soon, however, they were splashing with the best of them.”
To learn more about Gaunt Park Pool — its hours of operation, rules and rates — go to http://www.yellowsprings.gov or call 937-319-1440. The pool is located at 500 W. South College St.
It’s been about a month since the Village of Yellow Springs welcomed its newest staffer — Nía Holt has stepped in as the new planning and zoning administrator.
The Dayton-based planner fills a vacancy left open since last November when former planning admin Meg Leatherman left the Village for the private sector to work as a planning and construction manager for Premier Health Partners.
Still getting settled in her Bryan Center office, Holt’s already gotten an earful from village residents — that we need more downtown parking, that we need less, bikes should be better accommodated, rentals are too expensive and the for-sale homes are in bad shape.
“I definitely want to hear from people and learn from each person’s perspective, but be patient with me as I’m learning,” Holt said in an interview with the News earlier this week. “I know there are going to be competing points of view, but there’s also going to be some overlap. How can we work together to find that?”
Holt comes to the Village with more than a decade of professional planning and economic development experience.
For nearly four years following grad school, she worked as a planner for the Louisville Metro Government. There, Holt helped the city meet some of the charges of a recent housing report. Along with others, she conducted a major review of Louisville’s zoning code and made adjustments to such provisions as minimum lot sizes that made new build costs prohibitive.
“It was a balance in preserving the character of neighborhoods, but also allowing those who live there to get additional income,” Holt explained.
Then, in late 2020, she returned to her hometown of Dayton to reunite with her family, and served as the City of Riverside’s zoning administrator for three years. After that stint, she ascended to the role of the city’s community development director.
When she got to Riverside, the city had just updated its land use plan. Holt was tasked with facilitating a change in the way the city enforces its property maintenance rules — what she described as a swing from proactive enforcement to an approach that was more resident-friendly.
Holt said that meant giving homeowners a little grace — as opposed to imposing an immediate penalty — on cutting their overgrown grass or painting their homes if they could show they were at least working toward a solution.
The best part of her job as Riverside’s planner: “Engaging with people and the community — having open houses, going to schools to talk to students about zoning.”
The latter bit included reading the children’s book “Ava Tanner the City Planner,” by Corrin Wendell, at all four Riverside elementary schools to get kids jazzed about the wondrous world of municipal design. Holt said that something like that could be possible here in Yellow Springs, but cautioned that it took a great deal of work and coordination.
When she became the community development director of Riverside — overseeing the planning department — she focused more on the city’s economy writ large: business retention, connecting residents to development grants and more.
Though Holt said she’s still parsing out the nuances between approaches to urban and rural planning, she sees a number of parallels between her past experiences and what’s ahead of her here in Yellow Springs.
“People want to be heard,” Holt said. “And you can’t just hear what someone said and move on. You need to actually respond to their concerns. Does a project need traffic mitigation? OK, would speed bumps work? A different traffic pattern?”
She continued: “That was a lesson from a neighborhood plan I helped with in Walnut Hills community [in Dayton]. It’s the people who live in and have an understanding of a neighborhood who are the experts about their community. You need to get Grandma Josephine and the small businesses and the developer and the neighbors to come together to make decisions and come to a consensus. Then you can move forward on a plan.”
And a lot of plans are in motion here in Yellow Springs that will soon call for Holt’s scrutiny:
There’s Columbus-based real estate developer Windsor Companies’ intentions to build more than 100 apartment units on properties formerly associated with Antioch College; the final plat plans for those apartments are anticipated to be submitted within the year.
In the northwest quadrant of the village, there may soon be a 190-unit subdivision expansion to Spring Meadows, involving the proposed construction of 120 attached single-family units — 12 condos with 10 dwelling units in each — and 70 detached single-family homes. Planning Commission approved a preliminary plat application for those plans in November.
In the western-most part of Yellow Springs is the 35-acre Center for Business and Education — a good majority of which is unoccupied, and which the Village has sought to commercially develop for more than a decade.
Empty storefronts, Airbnbs, vacant homes, costly rentals and accessibility are also not infrequent topics brought before Planning Commission and Village staffers.
Holt will make her first stab at helping the current Village Council address some of Yellow Springs’ housing-related ambitions at a day-long retreat on Thursday, June 25 — which had not yet occurred by press time, but will be covered for next week’s issue of the News.
According to documents made available before Thursday’s housing retreat, Holt will give a “SWOT analysis” of the Village zoning code — honing in on the code’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
“Basically seeing what in the code is salvageable,” Holt said.
In a memo to Council for the group’s consideration on Thursday, she wrote, “Several modest amendments to the zoning code could address housing attainability without fundamentally changing the village’s development character.”
She continued: “Examples of potential amendments include permitting accessory dwelling units by right when objective standards are met, reducing or eliminating parking requirements for smaller housing types and mixed-use developments [as well as] allowing greater flexibility for pocket neighborhood developments.”
As Holt suggested, these amendments would heed the recommendations outlined in the Village’s last Comprehensive Land Use Plan updates in 2020 — many of which called for additional housing, and few of which have been fully addressed.
“Making more housing a reality was up front in every interview with the Village I had,” Holt said. “I’m excited to get back into that realm.”
How best to do that, Holt believes, is to focus on in-fill — “probably the better way for Yellow Springs to grow and grow responsibly.”













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