WEST CHESTER TWP. — Residents of one of Greater Cincinnati's wealthiest communities have been granted the right to vote to close their neighborhood to public traffic.

        A court settlement, stemming from a lawsuit filed against Butler County in 1999 by Wetherington community residents, was finalized this week. It sets up a privatization vote for the upscale West Chester Township neighborhood that surrounds the Wetherington Golf and Country Club.

        Within three weeks the 379 home and condominium owners of Wetherington will be mailed a ballot asking them to vote on whether they want to privatize their neighborhood, which would include installing gates at two major entrances.

        If the agreement is approved, it would be one of the largest privatizations of a Tristate community through the closing of entrance streets to nonresidential traffic.

        Under the agreement, authorized by Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Keith Spaeth, residents can privatize Wetherington if 285 of the 379 residents, or 75 percent, vote by May 18 to do so.

        The push for privatization began years ago, when residents voiced concerns about the dangers to children and pedestrians from thousands of cars that use Wetherington's streets as a shortcut between heavily traveled Tylersville and Cincinnati-Dayton roads.

        “We're trying to eliminate the cut-through traffic,” said Kevin Plank, president of the Wetherington Home Owners Association. More than 11,000 cars drive each day through the community of condominiums and other homes, ranging in price from $250,000 to more than $1.2 million.

        Wetherington is home to dozens of professionals, business executives and politicians, including U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, Judge Stephen Powell of the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals and developer Carlos Todd.

        Mr. Plank said details have not been worked out, but plans call for installing a gate where Eagles Wing Drive meets Cincinnati-Dayton Road. Another gate, with a guardhouse, would be installed at Wetherington's main entrance at Tylersville Road. The public would be able to drive into but not through the community from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Only residents would be able to enter at other hours.

        If residents approve, gates would be erected during the summer, Mr. Plank said.

        The agreement, which also addresses a number of concerns from two dozen condominium owners, was described by Mr. Plank as “a good agreement for all concerned.”

        “No taxpayers' money will be spent on our streets, but we continue to pay all our taxes,” he said in reference to the voidance under the agreement of all but emergency service responsibility from both Butler County Commissioners and West Chester Township Trustees, two parties of the agreement.

        Some residents of the adjacent Cobbler's Creek community, just west of Wetherington on Tylersville Road, said privatization and traffic gates would move the danger of cut-through traffic to their neighborhood.

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