Small Town Kills Affordable Housing Plan After Opposition From Dave Chappelle

On Tuesday, the town council of Yellow Springs, Ohio, voted against its own plan to create affordable housing on a 53-acre lot as part of a new development meant to address the housing shortage in the “Bernie Sanders island in the middle of a Trump sea” as one resident described the village. It did so at the behest of the town’s most famous and influential resident, Dave Chappelle. 

The project’s developer, Oberer Homes, will still be able to develop the land into single-family homes that will likely sell for around $300,000, but not the affordable housing part of the plan, which a councilwoman said they spent more than a year negotiating for, because it would require a change in zoning the council did not approve.

Chappelle has voiced his opposition to this plan for months, testifying at a December council meeting that he’s “adamantly opposed” to the plan and that if it passed, he would leave town and take his money with him.

“Obviously I live behind the development, or the proposed development. I do have many business interests in town,” he said. “I’ve invested millions of dollars in town. If you push this thing through, what I’m investing in is no longer applicable. And Oberer can come and buy all this property from me if they want to be your benefactor, because I will no longer…” And then the audio cut out of his Zoom call.

Tuesday, at the meeting where the plan was voted down, Chappelle appeared in person briefly, saying, “I am not bluffing. I will take it all off the table.” 

Chappelle plans to open a restaurant and a comedy club in Yellow Springs, as well as host live comedy shows. He’s previously received zoning variances from the council for these and other business interests. In his public testimony, Chappelle never lays out his exact reasons for opposing the development.

Before Chappelle spoke on Tuesday, councilwoman Marianne MacQueen spoke in favor of the project, saying: “I have asked, what is it in their business interest that this development is going to hurt? And in the interest of transparency, I would like to know.”

Chappelle and other opponents of the development have made vague gestures to anti-corporate development leanings, but they have, perhaps unwittingly, enabled Oberer to do exactly what it had initially proposed, which is to build only single-family homes on land it already owns. 

MacQueen pointed out that Oberer bought land that had been for sale for “decades,” on which it can build single-family homes without needing any approval from the council. It was only Oberer’s desire to be “good neighbors,” she said, that they had agreed to an affordable housing component. She said it is her belief opponents like Chappelle plan to put up “roadblocks” to stop Oberer from ever building the subdivision and then sell the land to “a party who actually has love for the Village.” 

But other residents of Yellow Springs, which has a population of about 3,800 people, who did not support the development sometimes cited Chappelle as one of the reasons.

“I’m one of those people: I saw Chappelle on TV and he said, I live in a place called Yellow Springs—it’s actually the Bernie Sanders island in the middle of a Trump sea. I looked at my partner and said, ‘Let’s go,’” one resident said. “I’m here to say that Oberer does own the land, but we can do better, period. There are many options obviously … I’m here to support the wonderful diverse cultural loving place that I’ve only known for a few months, but I know about it because of Dave.” 

“The elephant in the room is it seems nobody wants to discuss the opinion or influence of Mr. Chappelle,” another resident, who attended the meeting virtually, said. “I recall him mentioning if we were to move forward on this project, he would pull out his holdings in the village.”

One of those residents was Chappelle’s sister Felicia, who wrote the council an email expressing her opposition to the project and mentioning her brother’s opposition as well. Although “housing is clearly a solution we seek as a Village,” Felicia Chappelle wrote, “timing is an important factor” and supply-chain issues will compromise the “craftsmanship and quality” of the homes. She also cited traffic concerns, school safety issues, and other common concerns of Not In My Backyard-style opposition.

“We must maintain the legacy of this sacred spot on Earth that was full of abolitionist and monied humanitarians like Gaunt and Mann,” she wrote. “The Greene County room has much information on how important we are in YS as influencers. This stretches back 150 years or so. Hopefully we are not perpetuating issues of race and class. Where that is contrary to our core values, these things are sadly deep in the fiber of Americans.”

She also noted “Mr. Chappelle has invested quite a bit into our town. It does seem like a personal slight to overlook how he influences the positive trajectory of a place in the world we all hold dear.”

There are currently two houses listed on Zillow for sale in Yellow Springs. One is a former wellness retreat converted into a six bed, seven bath listed for $3.9 million. In the Oberer/town council plan, 1.75 acres would have been set aside for the town to develop affordable housing at a later date.