MANSFIELD — The future of the former Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center may be decided Wednesday afternoon.
The Richland County Land Bank board has called a special meeting at 2 p.m. to discuss a proposed affordable housing development for senior citizens at 455 Bowman St. on the city’s north side.
The board will meet at the Richland County Regional Planning Commission conference room, 19 N. Main St., to consider selling the 3.7-acre site to a Wisconsin-based developer with plans to build the apartment complex.
According to the agenda sent via email on Tuesday morning announcing the special meeting, the board will convene and then immediately vote on a motion to enter executive session.
Once that closed-door session ends, the board will reconvene in public session and likely do one of three things: approve the sale; reject the sale; or take no action.
Under Ohio law, a public entity may go into executive session for several reasons, one of which is to consider the purchase or sale of property for public purposes, or the sale of property by competitive bid.
The meeting comes one week after a public meeting at the North End Community Improvement Collaborative, a 75-minute session during which residents provided Greg Baron from Volker a history and cultural lesson about the value of all the things that happened inside a now demolished century-old building — and what it meant to the north end community.
Some in attendance also made it clear they didn’t feel the need to be rushed into a decision regarding the development of the site where the iconic building was closed in 2020 and then demolished in 2023.
During the meeting at NECIC, Baron said Volker is operating under a tight timeline to acquire the property and apply for the state tax credits needed to build an independent, senior housing complex with one- and two-bedroom units available to individuals 55 and older.
Baron said units would be available to households earning between 30 and 80 percent of the average median income on the 3.7-acre site.
He said the company needs to apply for the state financing by Aug. 14, which means the Land Bank must make a decision on the sale in the next few weeks.
After Wednesday’s special session, the next scheduled Land Bank board meeting is July 9.
Bart Hamilton, the Richland County treasurer and Land Bank board chair, cautioned those in attendance at NECIC that “these kinds of (development) opportunities” don’t often come around.
He pointed to an NECIC survey in 2023 on the future of the site that found senior housing was at the top of the list.
More than one in five respondents said they’d like to see senior housing on the lot, while 16 percent said they’d like to see low-income housing.
Other popular responses were a grocery store (14 percent), impact center (8 percent) community garden (7 percent) and market-rate housing (6 percent.)
Several people who spoke Wednesday acknowledged the need for affordable housing for seniors. But they also spoke of the need for places for young people to gather, something that happened daily at the former Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center.
