@ExileGrimm/Twitter
February 10, 2022, 10:20 am*
Dave Chappelle is ruffling feathers yet again, this time for successfully helping to squash a proposed affordable housing plan in a small Ohio town.
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Yellow Springs, Ohio, is looking forward to a 53-acre development that includes 143 single-family homes at an opening price point of $300,000 each. There were initially plans to set up an affordable-housing development as well, but those were nixed after a Monday council meeting that saw Chappelle threatening to take his investments out of the town if it were to proceed.
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“I don’t know why the village council would be afraid of litigation from a million-a-year company while it kicks out a $65 million-a-year-company,” he said. “I cannot believe you would make me audition for you.”
He also said the council members “look like clowns” and insisted he wasn’t bluffing.
“I will take it all off the table,” he continued, referring to the businesses he currently has set up in Yellow Springs as well as the comedy club he has planned to open.
The council ultimately voted 2-2, with one member abstaining from voting, which effectively nixed the inclusion of affordable housing in the development.
All the details on why Chappelle was so against affordable housing were not immediately clear, although his opposition voiced during a previous meeting suggested it was, at least in part, because he lives behind the proposed development.
“I’m adamantly opposed to it. Obviously, I live behind the development or the proposed development,” he said at the time. “I do have many business interests in town. I’ve invested millions of dollars in town. If you push this thing through, what I’m investing is no longer applicable.”
Another resident of the town who was interviewed about the decision, Matthew Kirk, expressed concerns about “how [affordable condos] attract different homebuyers.”
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Affordable housing plans can be complicated, and misused by developers to get tax breaks without providing real value, which has left some hesitant to judge Chappelle without more information.
Others have looked at the videos and quotes of him opposing only the affordable housing portion of the development and grown frustrated at optics that appear to show just another rich guy not wanting his property devalued.
“the woke mob had cancelled me!!” I holler, as I intimidate my local government into denying housing for the poorest among us https://t.co/qnRkVHorVQ
— Jake
(@not_jake9) February 9, 2022
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dave chappelle threatening to remove all his funding from his local town if they went ahead with building low-income housing, which they stopped as a result, isn’t that surprising when you remember this: pic.twitter.com/G6MBWogXcc
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(@zei_squirrel) February 10, 2022
*First Published: February 10, 2022, 10:08 am
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