West Dayton residents upset over lack of development

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Some West Dayton residents are upset their neighborhood isn’t seeing as much development as downtown.

Zakiya Sankara-Jabar has lived in the north-west part of Dayton for about 20 years. She and her husband are raising a 9-and 2-year-old in the area.

“We have to drive long ways to go to a decent restaurant for dinner. It’s not in the Dayton, usually in another township or Vandalia,” said Sankara-Jabar.

2 NEWS reporter Maytal Levi sat down with Shelley Dickstein, Dayton City Manager who says she understands the concerns, but the city doesn’t have control over developers.

“We do not drive investment to downtown. We don’t tell developers where to invest. They go where they have an opportunity to get a return on their investment,” said Dickstein.

Sankara-Jabar says she disagrees.

“I do think they absolutely can control where developers want to develop by making a community and a city desirable to develop and they have done a great job of making downtown attractive for developers we can’t say the same for west Dayton,” said Sankara-Jabar.

“We know because of the demographics of west Dayton we are going to have to drive development differently because people aren’t knocking down our doors to develop,” said Dickstein.

A West Dayton Development Fund (WDDF) was established in 1996 to provide services to the community. 2 NEWS requested a detailed report of how much money has been spent. To date, $10,351,837 has been spent in areas including youth, retail and housing developments.

“I’ve heard that figure and it’s really tough to see when you drive down Gettysburg or West Third Street. There are dilapidated homes or boarded up homes,” said Sankara-Jabar.

Overall, there have been 105 projects funded. Since 2005, $2.5 million was invested and leveraged $36 million in private investment, according to city officials.

Dickstein says development downtown doesn’t only benefit the city center, but the entire metro area.

“Downtown provides 40-percent of our total income tax revenue. The better downtown does, the more funding the city has to provide services and other investments across the city,” she said.

The city says it is putting together an aggressive plan to help boost the west-side. Dickstein says she’s personally leading it. “People don’t believe it if they can’t see it, or touch it and so I’m looking for something that brings that hope back,” she said.

Video Link

UPDATE:

Weeks after 2 NEWS reported about the West Dayton Development Fund, Sankara-Jabar says she met with Mayor Nan Whaley to discuss her concerns.

She says no promises were made, but the mayor said she would continue to work on ways to improve Sankara-Jabar’s neighborhood.

We reached out to the city for comment, we were told the best way to make your voice heard is by coming to city commission meeting on Wednesday mornings.

As of June 1, there was $510, 576 in the fund. Below is a detailed report of where money has been spent since the fund’s inception: