SEBRING, Ohio – Remediation of the former Royal China site is complete, and receipt of a letter from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is the final step before the property can be redeveloped.
“There is a need to obtain a no further action letter from the Ohio EPA,” said Debora Flora, executive director of the Mahoning County Land Bank.
The land bank is going through that process, and when it’s complete, the property owner, Mike Conny, has a clean property that’s ready for development, she said.
“And [there’s a lot of] acreage there, so the possibilities for that property are very promising as far as what could be built there and what it could do for Sebring,” Flora said. “And the property owner, Mike Conny, has pledged he wants to bring jobs to Sebring. And so what happens there, I think, is going to be a great benefit for this village.”
The site is less than a mile north of where the land bank and Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. celebrated a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for a new single-family house.
A Welcome Home Ohio grant to the land bank from the state made the project possible.
It marks an exciting chapter for the land bank, which for the past 10 years has focused on demolitions of dilapidated buildings, Flora said.
“We are now helping to rebuild neighborhoods, and we couldn’t be happier to be doing that,” she said.
Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director, hopes the South 15th Street house is the first of many his agency will see built in the village.
While most of the homes built by YNDC are in Youngstown, its home repair program operates countywide, as does the land bank.
“The village does have a tax abatement program, so not only will the homeowner be eligible for down payment assistance through our partnership with Huntington Bank – that will offer the buyer up to $18,000 in down payment assistance,” Beniston said, but the village will offer a 100% property tax abatement for 10 years.
The new house will have three bedrooms, 2 ½ baths, a basement, front porch and detached two-car garage. It will sell for $180,000. Joe Koch Construction of Austintown is the project builder.
“So it’ll be a great, affordable home ownership opportunity for someone to buy a house here in the village of Sebring,” Beniston said.
Jim Harp, Mahoning County Land Bank board of director and former Sebring mayor; Tiffany Sokol, housing director for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.; Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director; Tim Gabrelcik, Sebring city manager; and Debora Flora, land bank executive director, pose in front of a new house under construction in Sebring.
Both he and Flora stressed that the Welcome Home Ohio program provides for affordable housing, something that’s lacking in the region, state and across the country.
“We think that this program is an incredible one, because it kind of fills that housing gap for the average person,” Beniston said. “Welcome Home Ohio regulations that are under consideration now allow someone up to 120% of the area median [income] to purchase a house. That really is providing affordable homeownership opportunity for working people.”
Regulations in place allow for someone with up to 80% of an area’s median income.
Tim Gabrelcik, Sebring city manager, said the new house is significant not only because it will be affordable but because it’s being built on land where another house formerly stood and because it will bring in more revenue for the village.
“It’s a new water customer. It’s a new sewer customer,” he said. “In a small town like this, that’s important. Every little bit helps.”
He also hopes it encourages other people to buy property and build homes in the village.
Royal China, once a nationally prominent dinnerware producer with more than 700 employees, closed its plant in the village in the 1980s after more than 80 years. The property was contaminated, requiring cleanup before it could be redeveloped.
The 20-acre site sat inactive for decades before the land bank acquired it in 2020 through a tax foreclosure and applied in early 2022 for a $1.5 million cleanup grant. In 2022, the state approved that grant as part of a new program aimed at restoring brownfield locations across the state. Those funds, plus local investments from Mahoning County and the new property owner, paid for planning and testing activities, as well as the cleanup.