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Dave Chappelle has purchased a block of land in the small Ohio town where he lives in an attempt to stop a building firm from constructing a $39million development in the area.
The new development would potentially have reached right up to the border of Chappelle’s property, according to zoning plans.
But now it appears the comedian has purchased around 19 acres of land in Yellow Springs, which had previously been owned by Oberer Land Developers, Ltd.
Oberer’s grand plans that would have occupied some 52 acres.
It’s believed Chappelle owns the southern portion of the block of land in order to create some distance between his own property and any new construction that may arise.
Dave Chappelle has purchased a block of land in the small Ohio town where he lives in an attempt to block a building firm from constructing a $39million development in the area
Chappelle has now bought 19 acres of land in the small Ohio village of Yellow Springs where he lives and plans to build his own restaurant and comedy venue
In February, Dave Chappelle was emotional as he spoke at the Yellow Springs Village Council opposing a plan that he believes would be bad for the community, and also neighboring his own home
Chappelle’s publicist told YSNews that Chappelle has bought some land, however they did not clarify how many acres in total the entertainer had purchased.
Some clues exist on the Greene County Auditor’s Geographic Information Systems website which confirms 19 acres of land previously a part of Oberer’s development plans are now instead linked to Iron Table Holdings LLC, Chappelle’s company.
The website lists the price of the 15 parcels as $1,715,000. This is the price Oberer paid for the entire 52 acres in November 2020 from the previous owner.
It is not known how much Chappelle paid for his slice.
The remaining 33 acres is still held by Oberer, although it is now unclear exactly what the developer will have in mind for what is a greatly reduced plot of land.
In February Chapelle made clear of his strong opposition to the new housing development and threatened to pull millions of his investments from the village of 3,700 people, if the project moved forward.
But now it appears an agreement has been reached that has seen Chapelle purchase 19 acres of the land for himself in order to stop any future development on the plots closest to his own estate according to TMZ.
Although the local council had approved the development by Oberer to go ahead, Chappelle’s purchase has now either blocked or at the very least curtailed some of those plans.
The new development would have potentially reached the border of Chappelle’s property, according to zoning plans. Chappelle has now purchased the southern portion of this land
Chappelle, who is worth an estimated $50 million, lives on the outskirts of Yellow Springs on a 39-acre farm in a three-bedroom home which he bought for $690,000 in 2015.
The new development would have potentially reached the border of Chappelle’s property, according to zoning plans.
Chappelle, meanwhile, has his own plan to covert an old fire station into a restaurant, called Firehouse Eatery, and comedy club, called Live from YS. He bought both properties for a combined $1.1 million in 2020.
Chappelle’s company, Iron Table Holdings LLC, is spearheading the project.
WYSO, the National Public Radio affiliate located in Yellow Springs, also plans to move into offices in the former Union Schoolhouse, which Iron Table Holdings owns, in 2023.
An artists impression of the model neighborhood proposed for the Ohio village of 3,700
The development project he had opposed involved more than 100 homes priced from around $250,000 to $600,000, a massive project for the village and one that opponents say does not cater to those currently living there.
The plans would have consisted of 64 single-family homes, 52 duplexes and 24 townhomes with an additional 1.75 acres to be donated to the community for affordable housing to be built later, according to the Dayton Daily News.
Chappelle himself has not articulated the reason for his opposition to the development, but his ally in town has previously said that the project is designed to serve people from elsewhere in the county, rather than Yellow Springs.
‘It’s clearly not designed for the benefit of the villagers,’ architect Max Crome, who works with Chappelle on his business interests in the village, told the Dayton Daily News
‘The developers rushed the project, and got a sweetheart deal with council that was not properly vetted,’ the person said. ‘It doesn’t even include affordable housing.’
Affordable housing should cost an average household one-third or less of its total income. The average household in Yellow Springs earns about $61,522-a-year and the average house price is about $215,000.
Chappelle has his own plans to convert a former fire station in town into a restaurant dubbed Firehouse Eatery and attached comedy club, Live From YS
The nightlife complex is being build on the site of an old fire station, but Chappelle was threatening to pull his investment if the housing plan went forward
The source close to Chappelle said that he opposed both of the plans, and argued that the underlying zoning rules were ‘complex’, and that the project would not necessarily be able to move forward along the original plan.
But he had previously spoken out saying that he was ‘adamantly opposed’ to the project as originally planned.
‘I have invested millions of dollars in town. If you push this thing through, what I’m investing in is no longer applicable,’ Chappelle said at a city council meeting last December.
He added that the average age in Yellow Springs is 49, and since there is no school in the area, it would be difficult to attract young families.
‘The changes are inevitable, but we do have a decision on what they will or could be,’ he said.
Chappelle’s ties to Ohio go back to his father, who graduated from Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, and later was a professor there.
Chappelle lives with his family on 39 acres of secluded farmland outside the village and also owns homes in nearby Xenia.
In October last year, Chappelle faced backlash over transphobic comments he made in his October Netflix comedy special The Closer.
Chappelle courted controversy with his jokes in which he asserts ‘gender is a fact,’ and criticizes what he says is the thin skin of the trans community.
In the contentious special, Chappelle also jokes that women today view transwomen the same way black people might view white women wearing blackface, and remarked that women are entitled to feel anger toward transwomen, since Caitlyn Jenner won Glamour magazine’s 2015 Woman of the Year award.
‘I’d be mad as sh*t if I was a woman,’ Chappelle says in the show.
The star also jokes about the anatomy of transwomen in the special, joking that they lacked real female reproductive organs and that they did not have blood but ‘beet juice.
His comments and Netflix’s refusal to pull the comedy special, The Closer, led to protests on the streets of Hollywood.
Netflix CEO, Ted Sarandos, initially defended Chappelle and said that it did not ‘cross the line’ on hate speech, despite various organizations including GLAAD and National Black Justice Coalition condemning the comedian’s comments along with a number of trans Netflix employees.
By November, Chappelle had shrugged the controversy off, telling a sold-out 18,000-strong audience at a screening of his Untitled documentary at the Chase Center in San Francisco that ‘it’s been a hell of a few weeks’.
‘Man, I love being canceled. It’s a huge relief!’ he joked.
He explained that he was able to ignore the controversy in part because ‘I’m rich and famous.’
He added: ‘When you’re in the eye of the storm, it all just swirls around you.’
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