The Battle of Miami Township

It's a thoroughly modern tale of defiant individuals against business interests who have become accustomed to unfettered growth at the expense of local values.

Classic Properties of Symmes Township has developed beige-box subdivisions all over the outer exurbs of Cincinnati. One after the next they buy up rural farmland, seek the necessary permits from local government - who are anxious to comply - and soon afterwards the subcontractors fall into formation with trucks and backhoes. When they came around to Miami Township to begin the cookie-cutter assembly for the upscale "Reserves of Grey Cliff" (love the name, by the way - it sounds like either a malt liquor or a D&D module) - they thought it must be business as usual, based on recent history.

Until they met Theresa Ervin Conover.

Theresa didn't want them widening the road in from of her house and knocking down a stand of pine trees. And she had serious concerns about the impact of all of the new traffic and infrastructure on the 19th-century home she had recently purchased with her husband. And unbeknownst to the development company - who must certainly be accustomed to muscling over any opposition - Theresa Ervin Conover had degrees in urban planning and public administration, and she knew the game cold. In an out-of-court settlement the developers have been forced move the road, build a concrete wall, re-locate utility lines, and insure against any future harm to the Conover's property. How did the president of Classic Properties feel about this?

“She’s costing us a fortune,” Farruggia said at the time, referring to legal fees and the inability to bring in money while the project was stalled.

Show of hands - who feels sorry for Mr. Farruggia? The lesson learned is about, for lack of a better term, "sustainable growth". Many local governments are so blinded by tax revenue that they have little interest in supporting their constituents, and they are willing to agree to any demands made by developers, who are often very close, both personally and politically, to the people in public office. And the Conover case suggests that without advanced degrees, few people will have the knowledge (much less the financial wherewithal) to defend their rights in the maze of regulations and laws that are in place.

I'm not a weepy-Indian-by-the-landfill environmentalist. But I've become concerned about the trend towards building endlessly outward, ripping up land haphazardly, and never sparing any expense to preserve or repurpose old neighborhoods or the original land. Something is wrong when it has become more lucrative to build a new, bigger strip mall down the road than to renovate the boarded-up old one lying in disrepair. The Christians among us might even consider how this problem is informed by traditional virtues like stewardship and humility.

And everyone can contemplate the parable of Theresa Ervin Conover.

[HT Nixguy]

Tags: Classic Properties, Development, Exurbs, Joseph F. Farruggia