The Whine of the Worthington NIMBY's
Maybe they should move
Worthington is a small city about 15 minutes north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. It was founded as a quaint WASPy town in 1803 and since then has tried, through vigorous zoning regulations, to suppress any growth or change. The problems I guess start there.
It’s hard to have an idyllic New England village inside of a fast-growing metropolitan area. It’s even harder when that area has built an outerbelt highway that the town is inside of. In that spirit, Worthington has grown and has effectively maxed out at 15,000 residents. There’s not many growth opportunities, the city is surrounded on all sides by Columbus and Dublin. A proposed annexation of neighboring village (really a neighborhood) Riverlea was soundly rejected by voters there.
With all that, it’s no wonder that developers want to squeeze in all the housing they can. The schools are good, it’s convenient to the city's highways, and the local amenities are great. All elements of an area that should be booming. Local residents though see it a bit differently.
Here’s also where I come in. I was born and raised in Worthington, attended the local schools from 1st-12th grade (my stint in a private Jewish Kindergarten was very short lived), and my parents are still residents.
The one thing that stuck out the most to me growing up there was the resistance to change. Change meant big city life, big city people, and losing the *charm* that made Worthington what it is.
In other words, it’s a white-flight suburb devoid of diversity and desperately trying to hang on to that.
This sets up for what has become the premier battle in Worthington, whether a developer can redevelop a pristine plot of land in the middle of the city.
In the summer of 2010 there was increasingly a problem in the city, the large Methodist children’s home. It was a home for troubled youth to stay, but due to the slight issue of being a non-state-sponsored home the teenagers were technically allowed to leave whenever they so desired. This was suboptimal.
After several teens ran amok through the connecting neighborhood, violently assaulting and breaking the arm of a beloved neighbor, the outcry was enough to have the home shut down. Thirteen years later and they’re still fighting over plans on what to do with that land.
Over 22 acres of pristine and very valuable land, off of High St. the commercial hub of Columbus, are fully vacant albeit a few old remnants of the home awaiting demolition. Resident outcry over the site has been so robust over the years that developers trying to purchase the site have been continuously cycling through.
The first plan was centered around a big box grocery store, which was summarily shot down in explosive public meetings, and it’s only become more intense since.
The latest, Lifestyle Communities, proposed a robust development that was shot down by Worthington City Council 4-3 and is still in the court system.
That proposal drew the ire of residents due to its details. Namely, 540 apartments in the development. It also called for 190 townhomes and single family homes, and 85,000 total sq. ft. of combined commercial space. It’s safe to say though that the 540 apartments are the catalyst of local hatred.
Residents, in the wake of the original proposal, formed WARD (Worthington Alliance for Responsible Development). From the name you can kind of read between the lines. The now-premier NIMBY group of Worthington really doesn’t want anything happening to the land, and their latest post spells it out even further:
“Worthington won’t be Worthington anymore.”
Why won’t it? Can an influx of residents in an apartment building be that scary? Or is it something more sinister, like the prospect of additional outsiders coming into the city that may not be white and upper middle class.
The “authentic” downtown is the one that is painstakingly zoned to be reminiscent of colonial architecture and ensure that nothing not matching the type will be permitted. There’s also the other aspect of colonial authenticity that the NIMBY’s here will never say but will always think.
They don’t want Worthington to turn into Columbus. The reason, the same as many NIMBYs, is tied into the racism and faux-security concerns that drive their day-to-day lives.
The addition of housing, especially high-density housing, won’t take away their Worthington. It’ll just increasingly make it a new one that they may not recognize, and for them that will never be acceptable.
It’s sad that it has come to this, that the city and developers couldn’t come to some amicable solution, but it’s because there’s nothing amicable about this. People that are so resistant to change that they make-up straw men and boogeymen to protect their suburb won’t concede to anything. It’s an existentialist threat to them for no other reason than they won’t be honest with themselves about why they’re so afraid.
Density and increased housing are good. Apartments are good. Low-income apartments are good. And if that scares you it’s time for you to decamp to one of Ohio’s many homogenous exurban communities that can help you sleep at night. It’s time to build.
This is the first in what I hope will be a new series of infrequent rants that I write when I have extra time. As usual don’t expect them, but perhaps be somewhat interested when they arrive. Thanks for reading.