New Bremen discusses plan to spur growth

NEW BREMEN - New Bremen's school population has steadily declined in the past decade, a problem that may cause issues for the district, but village officials now have a plan to help reverse the trend.

"The situation has gradually been accelerating over the past decade. The school population is declining, through no fault of the school system," village administrator Wayne York said.

New Bremen economic development director Angela Hamberg noted most rural districts are experiencing a similar trend.

"But our concern is, based on area schools, comparing us to them, our decline is more rapid," she said.

The district's enrollment has declined 12.78 percent over the past seven years, Hamberg said.

"Meanwhile, other areas are seeing anywhere from 3 to 9 percent decline," Hamberg said. "And we feel that 12.78 percent for our community with all that we offer, it just doesn't align. There's an issue."

York and Hamberg have been studying the problem for the past year.

"It's not a situation of economic decline. Crown's still the largest employer in west central Ohio and they've been growing, as have our other companies. And the community is as appealing as any community in the area," York said. "We have economic prosperity, as good as you'll find in western Ohio, and an attractive community with many amenities that you rarely find in communities of 3,000 population. And yet we have a declining school population."

York and Hamberg identified one likely cause of the decline: slowing population growth.

The village had a growth rate of 2.5 percent from 2000-2013 according to census records, Hamberg said.

"Compare that to 1990-2000 when the village had a 13.72 percent growth rate," Hamberg said.

"And that's not what you would expect with growth indicators like our economy," York noted. "Until the recession of 2008, New Bremen was building in excess of a dozen new homes per year for at least a decade prior to that. Since the recession, we've been dropped down to where we've had only two or three homes built each year."

While the recession's effects have faded, he said, new construction has not returned to pre-recession rates.

"Local Realtors all say that they're getting inquiries every week of people wanting to come to town and there's virtually no housing inventory available to them," York said. "The part of the housing market that a lot of the prospectives want to land in is the $150,000-$225,000 homes. And there are virtually no existing homes in that range. And many prospects cannot wait six months to build a new house so they move on to other surrounded communities."

One solution York and Hamberg have decided upon, along with city and school board officials, is creation of community reinvestment areas.

The village has one CRA and is seeking state approval for another. Both offer eight-year tax abatements on home construction.

"We consider it (the CRAs) a piece of the puzzle. It won't solve the problem. But it's at least something," Hamberg said. "I look at it like there may have been people out there on the fence, considering building new. It helps tip the scale, to say 'yes I'm doing it in New Bremen.' The beauty of that is, if it's someone in New Bremen building new, that means their house just became available. And if it's someone outside New Bremen, OK, we gained another family who's paying income tax to the schools or bringing children or will have children in the future."

At a special meeting today, village council members learned that the Ohio Developmental Services Agency had concerns about CRA No. 2. The district applied to all land within village limits, overlapping with CRA No. 1.

To address the issue, the council rescinded the original ordinance and passed as an emergency a new ordinance with clearly defined areas. CRA No. 2 will now apply to the Cardinal, Walnut, Teton Two and Pioneer subdivisions. The terms, an eight year tax abatement on new home construction, still apply.

York and Hamberg believe another piece of the puzzle is construction of condominium or multi-unit housing and smaller single-family homes.

"According to local Realtors, there is a high demand for condos," York said.

"So if you have an empty nester that can't go to another home and a millennial wants to move in, sure sounds like we can have a twofold solution by having a condo available for an empty nester to go into," Hamberg said.

York and Hamberg view this as the second part of their plan, although they admit then cannot do much beyond outlining their vision and encouraging builders who are considering condominiums.

"The village is not in the habit of building residential homes," York said, laughing. "All we can do is encourage it."

School officials acknowledge that the decreasing school population poses a future threat.

Superintendent Andrea Townsend said the high school has only increased by one student from last year and districtwide, enrollment has declined from 996 in 2001 to 754 in 2015.

"If it continues, we have to take a look at our programs and see what changes can be made to attract new students," Townsend said.

High school principal Brian Pohl has already noticed a change.

"It's apparent this year on the football team especially," Pohl said. "But we've lost about 14-15 kids per year since 2001 and we're starting to feel the pinch.

"We have a lot of offerings for a school of our size but how do you keep that going if you don't have enough to go around?" Pohl said.

Mayor Jeff Pape, who requested that York and Hamberg investigate the issue earlier this year, said he believed the CRAs are a step in the right direction.

"We're doing our job. We've kept the area attractive, kept it economically successful," Pape said. "Beyond that, there's a lot of factors that go into the situation that are beyond our control."

"There's no silver bullet," Hamberg said. "But we think that this will help."