Some very good news came out this week regarding the purchase of land in Delaware County and the greater central Ohio area.
- The new septic rules that went into effect on January 1 have been repealed by Ohio’s legislature. The two-year budget bill that Governor Ted Strickland signed yesterday returns septic rules to previous levels.
- The EPA has backed off its initial plan to create a no-build zone along Olentangy River waterways. This created a major headache for anyone with a stream or drainage tile that ran into the Olentangy River the EPA sought to create a 100- to 900- foot “no build zone” on the river’s waterways, as explained in this Business First article from May.
Both of these are going to make it easier and more cost efficient for purchasers to build on their new lots.
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Mr. Boyce,
I stumbled across your website today as I was looking for information about the new bike trails in Delaware.
In answer to your question above: no, I am not buying land, and I do not feel enthusiastic about protecting the supposed rights of the privileged and well-to-do — especially greedy corporate entities — who *can* afford to buy land along the Olentangy River.
With all due respect, I do not understand why you believe that the EPA’s “backing off” its plan to create a no-build zone along the Olentangy waterways is “good news.” I suspect you are speaking in the interest of the wealthy and the greedy — not in the interest of my family, my friends, or indeed most citizens.
Development is already running AMOK in Delaware County and in the City of Delaware. Please explain the assumptions behind your proclamation that this is “good news” — I genuinely do not understand your reasoning. Is it that developers’ greed should be considered the highest good? Should we be looking forward to the day when the fish in the Olentangy die from excess silt and sewage overflows (brought on by overdevelopment in riparian areas)? Are we supposed to be celebrating the accretion of ever more soulless, cookie-cutter subdivisions, with houses and condoniminiums built of the flimsiest and shortest-lived building materials (all in the name of the sacntified and holy profit motive, of course). If so, I simply cannot understand such emphasis on 1. the short-term gain of the few; 2. profits for avaricious, non-local, corporate developers; and 3. the supposed elevation of a few private citizens’ “property rights” over the rights of *everyone* to as clean an environment as it is reasonably possible to maintain.
Please consider the possibility that public sector oversight — in this case, via the EPA — of private sector greed and environmental destruction may, in the long run, be in the best interests of *everyone* (not just the wealthy corporations and the well-to-do citizens).
For a simple fable that offers a timeless reflection on such issues, I recommend you watch or read the Dr Seuss story called “The Lorax.”
Sincerely,
Martin Hipsky
(Delaware Resident)
Mr. Hipsky,
Thanks for your well thought out comments and as with most of the development vs. protection issues this is not a white-and-black issue.
Do we need to protect the waters of the Olentangy from increased run-off of the new development. Of course.
However, I believe that the EPA plan was too broad and would handcuff to much future development in our county.
We need a balance between the needs of the environment and managed growth in the county, and I don’t believe this mandate would have provided this.
Is Delaware at a crossroads? Yes. We need all these entities to come together and do what is best for all the citizens of Delaware County.