A town in Ohio scrapped its plans for low-cost housing after comedian Dave Chappelle threatened to pull several investments from the area.
Chappelle was among a group of citizens in Yellow Springs, Ohio, who expressed concerns at a Monday town hall about a residential development plan that incorporated low-cost housing options into the design. Chappelle even went as far as to threaten to withdraw his future business plans if the housing options were approved.
“I am not bluffing,” he said at the council meeting. “I will take it all off the table.” The comedian then walked abruptly away from the mic.
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‘You look like clowns’ — Dave Chappelle helped kill a proposal for affordable housing in Yellow Springs, Ohio, threatening to pull his plans for four businesses if the city council moved forward pic.twitter.com/DktEvBsxnJ
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 10, 2022
Chappelle currently lives on the outskirts of Yellow Springs on a 39-acre farm that the comedian purchased in 2015. The plans could have potentially reached the borders of Chappelle’s property, reported the Daily Mail. The comedian had also bought an old firehouse in Yellow Springs in 2020, with plans to convert it into a restaurant and comedy club.
The town had worked with Ohio housing company Oberer Homes to produce a plan that included low-cost housing options in a 53-acre area, reported the Dayton Daily News.
The village council voted 2-2 with one abstention, forcing the plan to revert to the previously approved plan, which would provide 143 single-family homes, each valued at $300,000. The new plan would have had “64 single-family homes, 52 duplexes and 24 townhomes with an additional 1.75 acres to be donated to the community for low-cost housing to be built later,” the Daily News reported.
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Chappelle and other residents expressed concerns about more mundane aspects of the construction affecting the town, including traffic flow, the nature of the proposed homeowner’s association, and water management.
“Dave Chappelle didn’t kill affordable housing,” Carla Sims, a spokeswoman for Chappelle, told the Washington Examiner. “Concerned residents and a responding Village Council ‘killed’ a half-baked plan which never actually offered affordable housing.”
Chappelle did not have a problem with affordable housing, Sims claims. What he had a problem with was the “poorly vetted, cookie-cutter, sprawl-style development deal which has little regard for the community, culture, and infrastructure” of Yellow Springs.
The comedian has been a source of controversy in 2021, with his latest comedy special drawing ire from critics over several jokes he made about the transgender community. The jokes eventually led several Netflix employees to lead a walkout.
