During a Village Council meeting Monday in Yellow Springs, Ohio – a small town with less than 4,000 residents – comedian Dave Chappelle came to the front of the room to issue public comments.
“Hi, I’m Dave Chappelle,” began the controversy-prone entertainer, who has had a 65-acre farm near the town for more than a decade.
This fall, Chappelle’s planned restaurant called Firehouse Eatery and a comedy club called Live from YS in Yellow Springs was unanimously approved by the Village Council. Chappelle’s company, Iron Table Holdings LLC, bought a former fire station at 225 Corry St. in December.
However, plans for an Oberer Homes development in a 53-acre area of Yellow Springs that would include duplexes and affordable housing made Chappelle reconsider his project. That’s what brought him to the meeting this week.
“I don’t know why the Village Council would be afraid of litigation from a $24 million a year company while it ekes out a $65 million a year company,” said Chappelle. “I cannot believe you would make me audition for you. You look like clowns. I am not bluffing, I will take it all off the table.”
Chappelle did not specifically say what about the plans he was opposed to during the meeting Monday.
Max Crome, an architect who works with Chappelle on his business interests in the village, said the development was designed to serve people from outside the Yellow Springs, the Dayton Daily News reported in December.
“It’s clearly not designed for the benefit of the villagers,” Crome said.
Other residents also complained about the proposal and voiced concerns about traffic flow, problems with a proposed homeowner’s association and water management issues.
“The village initially asked for the development to advance affordable housing in the village, including an area that the village would later be able to develop into affordable housing, as well as more duplexes and townhomes,” according to the Dayton Daily News.
According to a memorandum from Yellow Springs Council President Brian Housh, the council has prioritized affordability as a village goal and made the process to develop plans for the site with Oberer transparent. However, some villagers said they did not feel involved in the process.
Housh and representatives for Chappelle did not immediately respond to a request for comment this week, said NBC News.
Ultimately, the village council deadlocked 2-2 Monday with one abstention on the revised “planned unit development” zoning, blocking plans the village helped create. It would have included 64 single-family homes, 52 duplexes and 24 townhomes and an additional 1.75 acres to be donated to the community for affordable housing to be built later.
Village Council documents showed that the proposal was pitched as a way to reduce the cost of housing and allow workers for village services to live near their jobs, said NBC.
Oberer homes can still move forward with previous plans to build 143 single-family homes with starting prices around $300,000 at the site, according to village documents. Housh said that starting would prices are higher with this plan compared to the one with affordable housing.
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