By Terry Morris
Dayton Daily News
KETTERING, Ohio — Residents who live in neighborhoods just off Far Hills Avenue and near an old medical center wonder why the city is in such a hurry to put a fire station there.
The proposed new station took them by surprise when the city announced in February its intent to pay $750,000 for a former medical center, demolish it and put up a state of the art fire station. Vacant for three years, the property is valued at $3 million by Montgomery County.
City officials, who have been studying how to revamp the entire Kettering Fire Department since 2007 to meet current resources, population density, business concentrations and a rising demand for emergency medical services, are ready to launch a multi-year project they say will do more with less.
They want to reduce the seven existing stations to five — four of them brand new, starting at 3484 Far Hills Ave. Each new station would cost between $2.3 million and $4.5 million, with no tax, levy or assessment.
Interim fire chief Terry Jones said the Far Hills station, due to its central location, is crucial to proceeding with the rest of the plan. That station, along with the one (off East Dorothy Lane) at Bobbie Place, will establish “the baseline,” he said.
“If you change one part of the five-station model, every other part will have to change as well. Property for the other stations can’t be acquired until we know where this one will be. This is a site that meets all of our needs.”
Jones said the other general locations were chosen “based in large measure on response time and delivering the best service in a five-station configuration. We have looked at between 150 and 200 properties. The other four general areas for new stations are located where we need them and where suitable property is likely to be available. We considered more than 10 different five-station profiles.”
Specific sites for the other stations have not been identified.
City manager Mark Schwieterman said the real estate contract to buy the Far Hills property from Miami Valley Hospital expires April 30. “We did ask for a longer contract,” he said.
Some who live on streets that intersect with Far Hills, which is five to six lanes wide there, have asked Kettering City Council to delay its decision so more study can be done.
The Kettering Planning Commission and the city Board of Zoning Appeals have both approved the project without conditions. Council is expected to vote on it April 19.
David Homan of Green-dale Drive was one of a dozen citizens who spoke to oppose the station during council’s Feb. 28 meeting. “Please slow down the process,” he said.
“We just don’t have enough information,” said Richard Dungan of Bluegate Circle.
City officials have a wealth of information from a fire department management and personnel study by Matrix Consulting Group in 2007 and from an analysis of facilities done in 2010 by ARC Corp. that judged current fire station locations and buildings to be “insufficient and incapable of meeting the recommended objectives.”
It found that too many stations were on the city’s periphery. “Stations 32, 31, 34 and 36 are in locations that cover adjoining communities as well as they do Kettering.”
Kettering has mutual aid agreements with other communities and intends to keep them, Schwieterman said.
“All stations except for Station 33 (located off East Dorothy Lane on Bobbie Place) are in poor locations” to facilitate a five-station configuration, the evaluation stated. Jones said the Bobbie Place station and the one on Far Hills would forge the baseline.
The present seven-station system “has more to do with Kettering’s unincorporated origins as a township in 1922 than it does with the city today. The department was all volunteer. The stations were located based on firefighters responding from their homes,” he said.
Funding for the new stations will come from an Emergency Services Fund established in 2003 that can only be used for city fire department equipment and facilities. Current balance is about $10 million.
The fund collects an average of $1.5 million per year in insurance payments and other reimbursements for city EMS services.
The Kettering Fire Department’s 2010 budget is about $10.7 million, second only to $13.3 for police. Overall city budget is $39.5 million.
Resident David Schneider told council that “just because a special fund exists to pay for this doesn’t mean it’s the best use of the money.”
Schwieterman said what would happen to the old fire stations and their lots hasn’t been decided. “Will they remain public facilities? Will we demolish them? Will we sell them?”
He wouldn’t predict what might happen as a result of the April 19 decision.
“I’m either going to buy the property, call the owner and say I’m not going to buy, or I’m going to ask for more time. City council could overturn it. The citizens could appeal to the court system,” he said.
“We are trying to meet a timeline. The citizens are concerned that we’re going too fast. We want the public process to play out.”
Copyright 2012 Dayton Daily News