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Homewood has not been a friend to Brown Township. One day in late 2002, an army of trucks began dumping load after load of dirt onto the Homewood property at the northwest corner of the intersection of Alton-Darby and Roberts Rds. The rumor that spread through the township was that the dirt came from the Alton-Darby Rd rebuilding project, managed by the Franklin County Engineers department. However, one of the residents along Alton-Darby Rd followed the dump trucks, and found that they were coming from an area along I-270 north of Mill Run. Dean Ringle, the County Engineer, later explained to us at a township meeting that he's not sure where any excess dirt from the Alton-Darby project might have been taken, but that the total volume of dirt on the Homewood property far exceeded what excess there might have been. Then over Thanksgiving weekend in 2002, the earthmoving equipment arrived on the Homewood property, and the huge piles of dirt were spread out to raise the surface level of these fields by several feet. The 100-year flood plain was gone. In its place is a field full of weeds, a partially completed pond, and line a of manhole covers which presumably give access to a new drainage line running from the eastern edge of the fields to Hamilton Run. We tried to stop this activity by requesting the Franklin County Municipal Court to issue a injunction until the legality of the activity could be resolved. The Court ruled that Homewood would be harmed if activity were stopped, and that for the case to be heard, a $10,000 bond would need to be posted by the plaintiff (the Darby Creek Association in this case) so that the court could be assured that if Homewood prevailed, they would be able to recover damages. This is a large amount of money to raise quickly in a community like ours, so the case was dropped. Read on here to get more details. The Darby Creek Association didn't give up. They found that Franklin County Development Director Dan Nichter had a hand in issuing illegally the permit to fill the floodplain. He was subsequently terminated (and is now a member of the Hilliard City Council!), but the damage is done. Additional details here |
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