(Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jul. 22--Last summer, Cyndie Wintzer helped crush plans to develop an old ammunitions manufacturing site that abuts her property.

This summer, she's cheering a new proposal for the site: horse barns, grazing land and riding areas for Otterbein College students.

"I'm all for that," said Wintzer. "It'll be nice to keep it green."

Otterbein hopes the city of Westerville also will go for the plan to move the college's Equine Science Center from leased space in Galena to the old manufacturing site it owns on the east side of N. Spring Road between County Line and Maxtown roads.

The vacant 111-acre site, donated to Otterbein in 1962, was home to Kilgore Manufacturing during World War II. The company made flares and other munitions there.

Otterbein had planned to clean up the site and sell it to a homebuilder last summer, a move Wintzer and her neighbors loudly criticized. They worried that removing dirt from the site could stir up unhealthy chemicals that were better left buried.

Otterbein withdrew that proposal when Westerville City Council refused to endorse its cleanup plan this past July. That's when the idea of moving the Equine Center emerged.

Rick Dorman, Otterbein's vice president of institutional advancement, had been arguing for expanding the school's equine science program, which is one of a handful in Ohio. The studies offered -- business and facility management; health technology; preveterinary and pregraduate studies -- are popular, but the school's current facility is too small to accommodate more than the 75 students it has now.

Dorman said a business plan showed the program could double its enrollment by 2016 if its facility was bigger and better.

"The equine industry is booming," said Bruce Mandeville, chairman of Otterbein's equine department.

The center must find a new home by next summer because the owners of the property are selling it to developers, who plan to build houses there. A new center will cost $3 million, which Otterbein expects to raise through donations.

That's where the Kilgore site comes in. Except for a little farming, it has been vacant since the 1960s. Only the 31 acres on the east side of the site need to be cleaned up; the remaining 80 acres could be used immediately for an equine center.

Otterbein plans to build a barn with 50 horse stalls, an indoor riding arena, all-weather outdoor arenas, classrooms, tack and feed rooms and a small apartment at the new site. Because the number of stalls, 23, would more than double, students could bring their own horses. The only horses in the program now belong to Otterbein.

Otterbein hopes to have the center built by fall 2007.

The contaminated area would be fenced and left alone for the time being.

Dorman has been careful to keep neighbors of the Spring Road site informed about the school's proposal this time around. Residents felt last year the school was trying to sneak its plans past them, Wintzer said. Now neighbors get e-mail updates and Dorman has met with three groups of them about the plan, which also is posted on Otterbein's Web site.

Otterbein will present preliminary information about it to the Westerville Planning Commission on Wednesday, then will present a full plan to the group in September. The site is zoned rural residential; Otterbein hopes to have it rezoned as a planned neighborhood district with a conditional use for education.

Dorman doesn't expect the commission to vote on the rezoning until October. Then the City Council would consider it.

Scott McAfee, Westerville's community-affairs director, said it's unclear if the Kilgore site needs to be rezoned to accommodate the equine center. That will be up to Westerville planning officials.

Otterbein College's plans for a new Equine Science Center are detailed at www.otterbein.edu/resources/neighborhoodnetwork/equine_center.asp.

kgray@dispatch.com

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