MOUNT VERNON — The county body that deals with land use and planning had a busy year with many challenges, but many challenges lie ahead.
This was the message delivered by Fred Crowner, chairman of the Knox County Regional Planning Commission, on Thursday when he presented the 2007 annual report to other commission members. He said for the first time in a number of years the pace of development slowed in 2007. He said the land subdivision regulations were updated in the past year; updated flood plain maps were presented, those will not complete public review and become generally available until later this year; the commission received notice of Randy Pore’s resignation.
In the report, Crowner described the past work by the commission’s Land Use Committee, which reviews all matters relating to zoning, use and development of land and makes recommendations to the commission. The committee created reports on a number of matters in the past year, including changes to zoning regulations of College, Miller, Berlin and Clinton townships; rezonings of one or more parcels of land in Clinton Township; and plans for subdivisions in Milford, Morgan, Monroe and Pleasant townships. He said the committee’s reports also concerned proposed changes to county subdivision regulations.
Crowner said, in 2007, work completed by the Transportation Committee included the undertaking of advanced studies for Blackjack Road extensions, the intersection of Edgewood Road and Ohio 229, a proposed Sandusky Street bridge to extend south across the Kokosing River and Coshocton Avenue improvements. The committee also discussed improvements to Simmons Church Road at U.S. 36, a proposed turn lane at the new East Knox Middle School in Howard, replacement of a bridge on U.S. 36, near Monroe Mills Road and Schenck Creek Road.
The exurban committee studies reasons why people move out of the city and into more rural areas, a trend that leads to the conversion of open space, such as farmland. It proposes ways to reduce such open space conversions. Crowner said the committee gave presentations in 2007 explaining the beginning of the phenomena of so-called exurban development, its origins in Knox County, including one presentation outlining how improved development policies could benefit open space and farmland preservation and cut down on the negative impact on the overall cost of community services and at the same time benefit the local landowners interested in developing part of their land. He said the committee identified fragmented zoning, a lack of a unified building code and rural sewage disposal as issues that have tended to perpetuate the trend towards rural, housing developments.
Crowner said the commission has a lot of work to do in 2008, including the hiring of a senior planner and an office assistant, completing the electronic reformatting of township zoning regulations, and start preparations for updating the Knox County Comprehensive plan, one of the most important documents the commission deals with, as it provides guidance on the desires of the community with regard to future growth. He said Knox County is part of a secondary ring of counties around Columbus and Franklin County. The primary ring, those counties immediately adjacent to Columbus and Franklin County, have, to a large degree lost their rural nature and now suffer many of the problems of urbanization.
“These problems are slowly moving into our area,” Crowner said. “The policies, procedures and decisions we make will now affect the nature and character of the environment our children and their succeeding generations will grown up and live in.”
Later in the meeting, the commission voted to recommend proposed amendments to the county subdivision regulations to the county commissioners for official adoption. The changes centered around a new rule that would require subdivision developers to work with the commission to determine whether a proposed subdivision is compatible with and suitable to the environmental conditions on and surrounding the land slated for development. Factors to be considered include topography, water courses, vegetation, distance from schools and fire stations, as well as infrastructure such as roads and sewer and drainage structures. The amendments would require a special report be made before the sketch plan, the first formal step in the approval process of a major subdivision, is presented.
Crowner said many developers have not even set foot on the land they intend to put houses on. They often go simply by maps and legal, development restrictions alone, and, ignore environmental factors and the potential impact on the surrounding areas.
The county commissioners will hold a public hearing on the amendments on March 6, from 10 to 11 a.m.
In other business, the commission:
•Voted to enter into an agreement with outgoing RPC Senior Planner, Randy Pore. Pore will work as a part-time consultant to the commission until a replacement is hired and trained. The county commissioners accepted an offer by county commissioner’s clerk, Rochelle Shackle, to do office work for the commission office, without compensation, from Feb. 20 to April 30, including complete about 10 to 15 hours of work in the office, answering phones, attending meetings, preparing and distributing meeting notices.
•Presented a slate of proposed officers for 2008: chairwoman, Susan Oswalt; vice chairman, Richard Stallard; treasurer, Kerry King; and Land Use Committee chairman, Stallard. The commission will vote on these candidates at a later meeting.