When Megan Sparks heard the development wouldn’t move forward, “I screamed so loud. My son, who’s five, heard us and was yelling, ‘We saved the wetlands. We saved the wetlands.’ "
Continental Properties, the developer, didn’t give a reason for abandoning the project, so it’s hard to tell how much citizen pressure played a role in the decision. We don’t know if Centerville officials would have sided with the protestors who wanted the project stopped or approved of the development anyway.
We do know for sure that community grit and drive delivered an unmistakable message:
Not in Centerville.
This effort should resonate well beyond the city of just over 26,000 residents. It shows what can happen when a small group of dedicated people fight for a cause and rally their neighbors. More than 660 citizens signed up to be part of the Facebook group Stop the Bellbrook/Centerville multi-family land development! The group raised money, made signs, and attended council meetings in Centerville and Bellbrook.
They also ran this campaign without the partisan animosity that too often poisons our society. Conservative or liberal, Trump or Harris, Brown or Moreno didn’t matter. One thing mattered to those who lived nearby — stop the project.
Citizens from both cities had concerns. The proposed development would have been close to single-family homes and increased traffic in an area with children. Bellbrook residents worried about increased cars and traffic along Wilmington Pike.
“It wasn’t just the Centerville people,” Sparks said. “It wasn’t just the Bellbrook people. It was all of us working together. That was another high, having two communities come together for one purpose — to save history and the wetlands.”
But there were also low points. Erica McCormick, who, along with Sparks and Heidi Maddern, spearheaded the opposition, remembers hers.
“My low point was seeing the deer in the morning and thinking that their home might be destroyed in a few months,” she said.
Staving off development is a huge win, especially when you see all of the former farmland becoming havens of densely compacted homes. It would be easy for these volunteers, who have jobs and families, to pat themselves on the back for a job very well done and give up the fight.
But Sparks, McCormick, and Madden aren’t finished. They’re meeting with local groups in hopes of finding a buyer who would keep the land as a park or some other green space benefit. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before another developer tries to buy the land.
If something similar happens in other cities, don’t sit on your hands. Act.
“Get your neighbors together, get everyone on the same page,” Sparks said. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to your representatives. I know a lot of time people put them on pedestals and get nervous around them, but they’re just regular people.”
Erica McCormick cited the need for perseverance.
“Even when you think all hope is lost, just keep going,” she said. “There were times when I would be like, there’s no way, we’re not going to be able to fight this, and then they pulled their application way sooner than we thought they would if they were going to. I know a lot of people think that fighting the big man doesn’t work, that, oh, we’re just, community members. But we are very fortunate that this time it did work.”
Yes, it did. Residents used their voices and delivered a message that will resonate for a while.
Not in Centerville. Not this time, anyway.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday.
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