When country calls Rural areas begin to boom with residential growth

Youngstown and Sharon make the national index on sprawl.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NORTH LIMA -- This crossroads is on the verge of becoming a major intersection.
North Lima is sleepy at midmorning. At the northwest corner of state routes 7 and 164, the Idle Hour diner is serving coffee and $2.99 breakfast specials to old-timers and retirees.
An occasional car drifts past the plate glass windows. At the corner gas station across the street, pumps are long idle between customers.
But at "4:30, 5 p.m., you can hardly pull out on the road," said Pete Wellman, proprietor of the Idle Hour for the past 22 years.
On the rise: This little Beaver Township community is growing, and fast. New housing developments and assisted living facilities have brought in thousands of people in the past decade, increasing the township's population by 19 percent. It is a new beachhead in the Youngstown area's suburban sprawl.
"We gave out six candy bars the first Halloween we were here," said George Rohan, who moved to a development of $200,000-plus homes six years ago. "Now, it's hundreds of kids. We were giving out candy for a solid two hours."
Beaver Township was not the fastest-growing Mahoning County suburb during the 1990s. That distinction is reserved for Canfield city and township, each of which grew more than 30 percent. Farmington Township, in Trumbull County, also grew by more than 30 percent. Across the Mahoning Valley, the suburban area has crept outward, even as major cities emptied and the population as a whole fell.
"It has been a constant since the mid-1980s," said John Getchey, executive director of Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, a planning agency. "Development occurs in outlying areas."
Creeping out: Suburban sprawl, the gradual outward creep of cities into the countryside, is a national phenomenon, he said. Growth here typifies the trend.
The Youngstown metropolitan area ranked 39th among cities its size on a national sprawl index, compiled by USA Today based on population density. Relative to its total population, Youngstown has more sprawl than Cincinnati, Pittsburgh or Columbus, that newspaper found.
Sharon, Pa., also made the index as the 28th most sprawling area with a population under 250,000.
"There is growth and vibrancy in the suburbs, but there are a lot of problems caused by it," said Michael Pawlukiewicz, director of environmental land use policy at the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C. think-tank. "Traffic, the destruction of habitat, the destruction of open space."
Development is now lapping up against Beaver Township. Lured by good schools, new houses and wide-open spaces, well-heeled residents of older suburbs are moving to the country. There are new subdivisions, and several assisted living communities have sprung up on Market Street across the township line.
"Poland, Boardman, Canfield and Austintown are all filling up, and a lot of people in these areas want to go one more township out," said Anne DeLaCroix, manager of the 42-agent Howard Hanna Real Estate office in Poland. "Where are you going to get an acre-and-a-half lot in these other areas?"
More new homes: Austintown and Boardman still have more new home construction, according to housing start figures provided by the Home Builders Association of Mahoning Valley. But not by much: Austintown had 123 new homes started last year, and Boardman had 72, compared with 46 in Beaver.
Judged against Beaver's much smaller population, the impact of these houses is staggering.
"Our base population is being diluted," said Larry Wehr, a township trustee. "We were primarily an agricultural community."
The influx of people has broadened Beaver's tax base, making it easier to raise money for schools and government services. But many of the transplants are older, work elsewhere and don't participate in the community the way farmers did.
Volunteer firefighters: Take as an example the volunteer fire department. The department has some high-priced equipment, including a $16,000 thermal imaging camera and a new $686,000 firetruck with an extending aerial platform.
But the number of volunteers has remained constant, even as the number of calls has risen -- last year by 14 percent, and by 10 percent the year before that, said Chief Gary Borman, the only full-time paid employee. Without the volunteers, the department will likely switch to a professional, paid force.
"We are going to have to," he said. "It is the next logical step."
In general, officials and residents here say they welcome the growth. More people means more opportunities for businesses and jobs.
"Of course, there are a lot of people who don't want it to change very much," said Joe Kriedler, a white-haired construction manager who has spent all his 73 years in Beaver, except for some time in the Army and at Ohio State University.
"Especially people my age, they want to have it the way it is. They don't want another Boardman," he said.
While old-timers chew the fat in the Idle Hour, two Ohio Department of Transportation engineers pore over plans to widen the intersection in both directions. Nearly 23,000 cars pass through the intersection every day, and ODOT expects that number to increase to 29,000 by 2022.
Development catalyst: During rush hour, traffic can back all the way up Route 164 and to the intersection with 165, where a high-tech sewer pumping station is nearing completion. For 75 years, people in the township have wanted a sewer system, said Wehr. When it is finished, the floodgates for development will be open.
"I think that when they bring utilities, the whole area will just mushroom," said DeLaCroix, the real estate office manager.
The reason is no mystery to many who live there.
"We are as close to a mall as Boardman, and we can occasionally smell a cow," Borman said.