Saturday, August 21, 1999
Boone Co. planners want study of boundary
Controversial line would help manage growth
BY KRISTINA GOETZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BURLINGTON — Planners devising a blueprint for future development in Boone County want to study drawing a boundary line to manage growth.
The Boone County Planning Commission this week released a draft of goals and objectives for the county's 2000 update of its comprehensive plan, a document that guides land use.
In that draft is a provision that calls for exploration of an “urban service and development boundary.”
“It's a very controversial and complex idea,” said Dave Geohegan, director of planning services for the Boone County Planning Commission. “It's an area that we have never explored before.”
An urban services boundary would essentially hold water and sewer services to one side of the line. It would keep urban and suburban development in the eastern half of the county.
“As a community you make a choice not to run or to increase public utilities,” Mr. Geohegan said. “You hold development into a compact area.”
The idea came out of the public workshops the planning commission held in May and June on the comprehensive plan.
“A lot of people said, "How far are we going to go out? When are we going to call it quits?'” Mr. Geohegan said.
For some Boone Countians, the boundary is the answer to their prayers.
“I'm usually against planning and zoning but if that's their idea, I'm 100 percent behind them,” said Bill Sebree, who lives about three miles on Ky. 18 past the Boone County courthouse.
Developers, on the other hand, say it could cause the price of land to increase.
Shawn Cox, a spokesman for the Northern Kentucky Homebuilders Association, said it comes down to simple supply and demand.
“It really does constrain the market, the availability (of land and homes) and who can buy a home,” he said.
If the amount of land on which development is allowedis not increased over the years, that could cause prices to go up. More people want the same amount of land, Mr. Cox said.
That's what happened in Lexington, one of the first cities in the United States to use a boundary line to manage growth, said Bob Weiss, executive vice president for the Home Builders Association of Kentucky.
Lexington officials created
the line in 1958 to help preserve the horse farms and the character of the community.
“They usually draw a boundary for 20 years of growth,” Mr. Weiss said. “They didn't increase it until it was too late ... As the development within the boundary grows, so should the boundary by the same percentage.”
But Bob Joice, the long range planning manager for the Lexing ton/Fayette County Planning Commission, said he believes the boundary line works.
“It helps with the quality of life in this community,” he said. “If we lost our horse farms and our character it wouldn't be a suitable place for growth, and homebuilders rely on that growth.”
From 1967 to 1996 the urban service area increased by only three square miles (1,920 acres). Then in 1996, planners expanded the area by 5,400 acres.
“There was such a pressure to expand the urban service area it had to be done,” said Rob Hammons, a long range planner in Lexington. “There was an explosion of population, need for housing and such a driving force for commercial and retail development.”
Mr. Joice said an urban service and development boundary for Boone County can work if planners look at the idea responsibly.
“I obviously believe it's a helpful tool,” he said.
The next long range planning meeting in Boone County is Sept. 1. A public hearing on the draft of the goals and objectives has not been set.
“We're just trying to get the idea out there,” Mr. Geohegan said.
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