LOVELAND — A new group, the Greater Loveland Conservation Trust, is demanding that the city suspend negotiations with the developers determined to buy and develop the historic, 85-acre White Pillars property.

        The group, which has about 20 members, is demanding six other actions to protest how the city decided that the team of Hines-Griffin Joint Venture and Parrott & Strawser was best to develop the property along Ohio 48.

        The developers want to build 85 single-family houses valued at $450,000 each, 70 town houses worth $225,000 each and a 16-acre commercial development. They are willing to pay the city $3.4 million for the property.

        The new group doesn't expect much from their demand list but they insist that, in the end, they'll put up enough protest to stop the multimillion-dollar project from happening.

        Among the list of demands was a call for another public forum, environmental and archaeological impact studies, and a ban on commercial development.

        “We're going to lose. We're going to lose. We're going to lose. Then we're going to win. If that means legal action, so be it,” said Paul Elliott, a trust member who successfully kept a new YMCA facility from going into Phillips Park.

        Council members aren't sure about how to perceive the list of demands. The city has just begun negotiating a purchase agreement with the developers.

        “There's no reason to stop negotiations at this point. We're in the early stages of the process,” Mayor Donna Lajcak said. “When the time is right, we will certainly discuss this. (But) this is not for anyone to bargain. The decision will be the best for the city of Loveland. That's why we're elected to serve.”

        The city agreed to sell the property to the team of developers after they submitted the best of seven proposals. Council made the decision after at least 30 residents said they didn't want any commercial development coming into the area.

        City officials have long wanted to see commercial development on the property.

        Janet Kalven of Grailville, a 300-acre education center that adjoins the proposed development site, said that the new group needed to take strong action against city administrators.

        “The city is taking a very strong course of action. We see it under the heading of suburban sprawl,” she said. “People are feeling very strongly that they are not being heard.”

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