Tuesday, January 26, 1999
West plan falls short of wishes
It's still sprawl, one critic says
BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Though deeply divided in their visions for western Hamilton County, residents and planners are united in what they don't want to see.
They fear the congestion of Colerain Avenue and the tangled retail district of Springdale; the community-dividing walls of Ronald Reagan Highway and the concrete fields of Fort Washington Way.
Both sides say it's impor tant to save the region's green fields and farmland.
Environmentalists and development experts agree.
They say it is possible to mix the tax-generating development favored by county officials with the open space and rural lifestyle coveted by residents of the region.
But that will not necessarily be the result of a collaborative plan that may be approved by a county committee next month. It would govern development of the townships of Colerain, Green, Whitewater, Miami, Crosby and Harrison; the villages of Addyston, North Bend and Cleves; and the city of Harrison.
“What they're proposing to do in western Hamilton County, while slightly better than what they've been doing (in Greater Cincinnati), it will still support sprawl,” said Glen Brand, Cincinnati director of the national Sierra Club environmental public information campaign.
The organization released a report in September that ranked Cincinnati No. 4 among the nation's 10 worst urban-metropolitan areas in dealing with growth.
So as county planners prepare to foster development in the 160-square-mile western region, the Sierra Club is watching.
“The way we would target pollution or polluters, we are now targeting poorly planned policies that promote sprawl,” Mr. Brand said.
Development experts say cities should rejuvenate existing urban areas before turning green space and farmland into extended suburbs. They should use zoning controls to protect resources and encourage limited growth.
More policy tools designed to control urban sprawl — including the “livability agenda” unveiled this month by the Clinton administration — are becoming available to planners nationwide.
Yet many cities fail to use them, said Melanie Blackwell, a natural resource and environmental economist at Xavier University.
“I think that growth in or der to improve traditional economic indicators is driving most of our policies ... not "What type of vision do we see for ourselves in terms of what would make this a better community — a better place to live,'” she said.
Collaborative plan steering committee members say they want to sustain the area's quality of life while opening it up to more people and lucrative development.
“We are trying to preserve the rural character of most residential areas,” said Colerain Township Trustee Joe Wolterman. “I don't want to have the hillsides overrun, either. ... But both sides have to look at being realistic.”
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