Westford is the first lifestyle community in the Youngstown area.

Westford is the first
lifestyle community in the Youngstown area.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

CANFIELD — The golf cart glided along a concrete pathway as its driver, developer Chuck Whitman, pointed out some features of his 400-acre vision.

It was quiet on the 227-acre golf course, which is pretty much the heart of that vision — the Westford Lifestyle Community, which includes eight separate housing developments and a retail/office complex along U.S. Route 224.

Woods turning fall colors ringed the greens and dotted the course in spots left natural here and there.

The golf cart rounded a bend and started down a hill toward a little wooden bridge over a trickling creek. He pointed out the natural grasses, growing on a mound of hill inside a circle of cart path. They were planted there, he said, as the golf course was developed three years ago from bare dirt.

Rising above the unassuming pockets of nature, houses in various stages of construction are boldly challenging the landscape and commanding views of the green, rolling golf course. Some are traditional single-family homes and some are single-family homes on small lots, or villas, as developers commonly call them.

The golf cart passed a man-made lake, startling a great blue heron that was drawn there, no doubt, by a full stock of fish.

There’s the golf course clubhouse, still under construction. To the left, a condo development is half-finished, and toward U.S. Route 224 was the back view of what people using that corridor every day see: Wendy’s, Dunkin Donuts and the office buildings. A Panera Bread is going up.

Whitman piloted the golf cart off the course and headed toward the condos — the community he’s calling Bradford Greene, where his office is set up in a model home.

He’s obviously proud of the golf course. Soon, Jonah Karzmer, the golf pro who oversees it, arrived at the office to explain why.

Karzmer talked about the comments he hears: People say they can’t believe how much land the course has, and how many elevation changes there are.

Elevation changes are good, Whitman explained — golfers love a challenging course.

Then, Whitman admitted he doesn’t golf. No matter. He’s put himself on quite a challenging course anyway in taking on the development of Westford.

One big trap he struggled in for years was running afoul of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency with stormwater management violations during construction.

His violation notices date back to January 2002.

“Failure to keep a copy of the Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan at the site,” reads that first one.

“Failure to install sediment ponds, silt fence or other perimeter sediment controls as the first step of grading and within seven days from the start of grubbing,” it continues.

The notices, of various dates through the years, continued to cite violations in similar EPA-speak, until the last one from January 2007.

It notes that Whitman’s company, CTW Development, had taken steps to correct some problems. But not all of them. And some new ones had cropped up.

“Failure to provide a structural post-construction best management practice for storm water runoff tributary to Catch Basin No. 11 and Catch Basin No. 12 along Kyle Ridge Road,” it insisted in one example.

At some point about two years ago, the EPA turned the violations over to the state attorney general’s office for enforcement, said EPA spokesman Mike Settles. Then in a new twist, the EPA discovered that CTW had installed sanitary sewers at Wakehurst Village, a plan of villas, without a permit.

That was in March. Because the EPA then refused to issue permits to install sanitary sewers at Wakehurst and two as-yet undeveloped gated communities, construction in those developments came to a halt.

The EPA never ordered the work stoppage, Settles said. But its refusal to issue permits caused a domino effect. CTW was unable to get sewer connection permits from Mahoning County, and then it couldn’t get its building permits.

Not all building at Westford stopped. Whitman said it continued at developments in the community not affected by the permit refusal.

Whitman said it was a misunderstanding that caused CTW to jump the gun on the Wakehurst sewer installation. He said the EPA had sent a letter indicating the permit would be issued, but CTW didn’t wait until it had an actual copy of the permit.

He blamed the stormwater management violations on miscommunication, saying he got conflicting information on what to do from the state and federal and county agencies. The EPA, he said he came to realize later, was the agency he should have worked hardest to please.

Compounding his stormwater problems, he said, were torrential downpours during the summer ground was broken for the golf course.

It finally appears, though, that Whitman is emerging from the quagmire. With the help of U.S. and state legislative offices, Whitman resolved his issues with the EPA. He signed a consent order with the attorney general’s office agreeing to a monetary penalty.

Settles said the penalty, $155,000 over payments in two years, is a significant one for the EPA. The consent order was to be filed with the Mahoning County common pleas court Oct. 1, he said, and a judge will finalize the order after a 30-day public comment period.

Settles said there are still some issues to address, such as draining of sediment ponds and areas that need seeding. Whitman said last week that the violations have been addressed.

Meanwhile, as soon as the state receives the signed consent order, building at Westford can resume, Settles and Whitman said.

Whitman got the idea for Westford when, as a pilot for USAir (now US Airways), he began noticing large lifestyle communities in other parts of the country. Westford is the first such development here.

He began piecing property together to get the 400 acres, including 140 acres of property from the Boy Scouts’ adjacent Camp Stambaugh.

He said that his work with the county and state to bring sewers and water to Westford has opened up development opportunities for nearby areas that previously had no access to utilities, including 1,100 acres to the south of Westford.

When finished, it will include 220 single-family homes, with 450 homes total. There are about 100 occupied households in the development now.

Whitman grew up in Youngstown, graduated from Boardman High School and moved to Canfield in 1981. He’s connected to the area and believes he’s helping it, he said, because Westford will draw jobs and revenue. That, said Dennis Johnson, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, is why legislators got together to help him.

From his office at Bradford Greene, Whitman talked about his vision of eight housing developments near stores, restaurants, golfing, a hotel, and even an assisted living center all forming one community. It will be a magnet, he believes, for retirees and professional people, some of them business owners who would bring their businesses here.

Even the much-publicized housing slump isn’t worrying him, he said, because he believes people are going to want to live at Westford. The trick, acknowledged his sales director, John Tomaino, is waiting for their old houses to sell first.

Whatever the future holds for the housing industry, Westford is rising to meet it.

On that calm, overcast September morning, the distant sound of construction machinery echoed over the vast acreage. It confirmed that Whitman’s vision was continuing, though sometimes painstakingly slow, to become a sight to see for everyone.