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General Ohio University Discussion/Alumni Events Topic
Topic: Population
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MonroeClassmate
1/6/2025 11:37 AM
What's going on in Athens County?

From AXIOS 2014-2018 change in population to 2019-2023

Athens County -6.6% was 65.9 now 61.6 thousand! (Morgan County -6.4% and Meigs -4.7%.) Are the folks leaving the county for other OHIO counties or leaving the state? With Ohio University as a hub I would at least think Athens County would be more stable than the numbers indicate.

(Rust belt: Mahoning and Trumble counties just off slightly and Ohio River counties with mixed results but none as high as -6.6%)

Meanwhile, Delaware County +12.3% (back in 1984 an older Bobcat told me to buy land in Delaware County--if only I had taken that good advice!)
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Alan Swank
1/6/2025 2:11 PM
One of the measures that I use to gauge growth or decline is the size of the local high school graduating class. Granted people are having fewer kids these days but my daughter graduated from Athens high in 2000 with 235 kids give or take. This past year, Athens graduated about 180.

Housing (senior housing in particular) is an issue in Athens as are non-service industry jobs. OU has reduced staff through the years. In the uptown area, there are probably less than 20 traditional retail shops.

This article written back in November discusses the decline in detail.

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/central-ohio-news/o... /
Last Edited: 1/6/2025 2:13:27 PM by Alan Swank
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greencat
1/6/2025 3:00 PM
Places like Kershaw Greene should be 55-&-up like Beaumont Greene.

Wouldn't that solve the senior housing issue?
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Alan Swank
1/6/2025 4:37 PM
greencat wrote:expand_more
Places like Kershaw Greene should be 55-&-up like Beaumont Greene.

Wouldn't that solve the senior housing issue?
Keershaw is a multifloor apartment complex designed for moderate to low income residents. I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
Last Edited: 1/7/2025 11:12:04 AM by Alan Swank
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BillyTheCat
1/6/2025 5:18 PM
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
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Alan Swank
1/6/2025 5:22 PM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
I've had multiple business owners tell me that.
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BillyTheCat
1/6/2025 5:23 PM
Alan Swank wrote:expand_more
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
I've had multiple business owners tell me that.
I can’t even begin to imagine what some of the non-university leased retail spaces pay in property tax. Has to eat at margins.
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greencat
1/6/2025 6:36 PM
Alan Swank wrote:expand_more
Places like Kershaw Greene should be 55-&-up like Beaumont Greene.

Wouldn't that solve the senior housing issue?
Keershaw is multifloor apartment complex designed for moderate to low income residents. I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
Beaumont Green is three floors.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNKk38eisnMykZYg...
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MonroeClassmate
1/6/2025 8:25 PM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
OUCH!

An 18% proposed increase is madness. Has there been a big drop off in revenues and officials not wanting to cut expenses must raise the tax rates for those who remain OR are there BIG spending plans on the table?
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Alan Swank
1/7/2025 11:13 AM
greencat wrote:expand_more
Places like Kershaw Greene should be 55-&-up like Beaumont Greene.

Wouldn't that solve the senior housing issue?
Keershaw is multifloor apartment complex designed for moderate to low income residents. I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
Beaumont Green is three floors.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNKk38eisnMykZYg...
My point exactly. Many folks would like one story places set up like Sandstone in The Plains.
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Alan Swank
1/7/2025 11:16 AM
MonroeClassmate wrote:expand_more
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
OUCH!

An 18% proposed increase is madness. Has there been a big drop off in revenues and officials not wanting to cut expenses must raise the tax rates for those who remain OR are there BIG spending plans on the table?
The city income tax is an earned income tax which means Social Security, STRS, other pensions and dividends and interest are not taxed even though the folks living in town who are exempt from the tax use city services. Another factor is the number of folks at OU who are working remote and live outside the city who only pay the percentage of income tax equal to their time on campus. Another factor is that our fire department provides services to OU but gets a mere $50K a year toward a fire truck.
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BillyTheCat
1/7/2025 11:50 AM
Alan Swank wrote:expand_more
Could it be some of the highest tax rates for property in OHIO, coupled with City and City School income taxes with a proposed 18% increase on the table? Athens is increasingly less affordable.
OUCH!

An 18% proposed increase is madness. Has there been a big drop off in revenues and officials not wanting to cut expenses must raise the tax rates for those who remain OR are there BIG spending plans on the table?
The city income tax is an earned income tax which means Social Security, STRS, other pensions and dividends and interest are not taxed even though the folks living in town who are exempt from the tax use city services. Another factor is the number of folks at OU who are working remote and live outside the city who only pay the percentage of income tax equal to their time on campus. Another factor is that our fire department provides services to OU but gets a mere $50K a year toward a fire truck.

Well let’s don’t leave out the $781k check the city wrote to the scam artist that we will never get back. And a person who works for the university but works remote does t have to pay but one working out of town does.
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OhioCatFan
1/8/2025 9:12 PM
Alan Swank wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
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Ohio69
1/15/2025 3:42 PM
OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
So true. Pretty sure President McDavis tried this as well with that area (the firehouse and Mill Street Apartments area) and the NIMBY's went ballistic and got it stopped. (Many of the NIMBY were OU faculty.) And now there's still nowhere for seniors to live and there's structures on that land anyway.... Uhg....
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OhioCatFan
1/17/2025 11:21 AM
Ohio69 wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
So true. Pretty sure President McDavis tried this as well with that area (the firehouse and Mill Street Apartments area) and the NIMBY's went ballistic and got it stopped. (Many of the NIMBY were OU faculty.) And now there's still nowhere for seniors to live and there's structures on that land anyway.... Uhg....
It's actually more than just a big "Uhg," though that's certainly appropriate. I'm not sure if this is true of McDavis' later efforts, but the original stop-the-senior-living-complex movement is rife with conflicts of interest and what appear to be under-the-table payments between co-conspirators. If we had any investigative reporters left in Athens, this would make a juicy story to look into. There are stones that could be turned over to look into this story even at this late date. I'm relatively confident that what would be revealed would be at least very unseemly, and quite possibly downright criminal.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
1/17/2025 1:14 PM
OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
So true. Pretty sure President McDavis tried this as well with that area (the firehouse and Mill Street Apartments area) and the NIMBY's went ballistic and got it stopped. (Many of the NIMBY were OU faculty.) And now there's still nowhere for seniors to live and there's structures on that land anyway.... Uhg....
It's actually more than just a big "Uhg," though that's certainly appropriate. I'm not sure if this is true of McDavis' later efforts, but the original stop-the-senior-living-complex movement is rife with conflicts of interest and what appear to be under-the-table payments between co-conspirators. If we had any investigative reporters left in Athens, this would make a juicy story to look into. There are stones that could be turned over to look into this story even at this late date. I'm relatively confident that what would be revealed would be at least very unseemly, and quite possibly downright criminal.
That's a pretty serious accusation. What makes you think there were under-the-table payments and what's the evidence of that?
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OhioCatFan
1/17/2025 7:01 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
So true. Pretty sure President McDavis tried this as well with that area (the firehouse and Mill Street Apartments area) and the NIMBY's went ballistic and got it stopped. (Many of the NIMBY were OU faculty.) And now there's still nowhere for seniors to live and there's structures on that land anyway.... Uhg....
It's actually more than just a big "Uhg," though that's certainly appropriate. I'm not sure if this is true of McDavis' later efforts, but the original stop-the-senior-living-complex movement is rife with conflicts of interest and what appear to be under-the-table payments between co-conspirators. If we had any investigative reporters left in Athens, this would make a juicy story to look into. There are stones that could be turned over to look into this story even at this late date. I'm relatively confident that what would be revealed would be at least very unseemly, and quite possibly downright criminal.
That's a pretty serious accusation. What makes you think there were under-the-table payments and what's the evidence of that?
My family and I were very close to several of those people who were in the group advocating for the senior living facility. I heard a lot of questionable stuff at that time. Some of what I heard was later confirmed by other parties. No, I haven't seen original documents, or transcribed phone calls, or a "smoking gun." But, what I'm saying is that if someone had the time and resources to do a thorough investigation of this it might be very interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a real, full=blown scandal. Of course not all leads end up being the story that they appeared to be on the surface, and my suspicions might prove wrong.
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BillyTheCat
1/18/2025 9:26 AM
OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more
... I'm taking about the kind of places that you see advertised in the Dispatch that are condos/townhouses on one floor like Kendall in Granville.
My brother-in-law lives in a place like that in Oxford, Ohio. If a certain x-city councilman hadn't connived to keep it out, with bogus crap about environmental degradation, we'd have one in Athens right where they just built the new fire station, without one whimper about negative environmental impact. This retirement village was proposed in the 1980s, and had funding to back it up, but it wasn't built because of this councilman and some of his fellow travelers. In addition to allowing older folks to stay in Athens, if this had been built, Athens would have had another source of income as part of the estate tax in Ohio goes to the county, and I believe city, where the person croaked.
So true. Pretty sure President McDavis tried this as well with that area (the firehouse and Mill Street Apartments area) and the NIMBY's went ballistic and got it stopped. (Many of the NIMBY were OU faculty.) And now there's still nowhere for seniors to live and there's structures on that land anyway.... Uhg....
It's actually more than just a big "Uhg," though that's certainly appropriate. I'm not sure if this is true of McDavis' later efforts, but the original stop-the-senior-living-complex movement is rife with conflicts of interest and what appear to be under-the-table payments between co-conspirators. If we had any investigative reporters left in Athens, this would make a juicy story to look into. There are stones that could be turned over to look into this story even at this late date. I'm relatively confident that what would be revealed would be at least very unseemly, and quite possibly downright criminal.
That's a pretty serious accusation. What makes you think there were under-the-table payments and what's the evidence of that?
My family and I were very close to several of those people who were in the group advocating for the senior living facility. I heard a lot of questionable stuff at that time. Some of what I heard was later confirmed by other parties. No, I haven't seen original documents, or transcribed phone calls, or a "smoking gun." But, what I'm saying is that if someone had the time and resources to do a thorough investigation of this it might be very interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a real, full=blown scandal. Of course not all leads end up being the story that they appeared to be on the surface, and my suspicions might prove wrong.
I remember this well, definitely a concerted effort to block this development, and every reason they gave went right out the window when they wanted to build the new fire station. The situation totally appears to have been contrived from the beginning.
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Alan Swank
1/20/2025 1:27 PM
Here's a good starting point.

https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/4/2007/200...

https://www.athensnews.com/news/local/athens-residents-ch...
Last Edited: 1/20/2025 1:32:20 PM by Alan Swank
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