By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LIBERTY TWP. - Jeff Marshall looks out at the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Ohio 747 next to his home, and figures it's time to get moving.

Jeff Marshall stands along a rapidly congesting Ohio 747 in Liberty Twp. (Michael Snyder photo)

"My wife and I love our house, but we're worried about more development because we see that as more congestion," says Marshall, who lives just north of the Michael Fox Highway (Ohio 129) in Southwestern Ohio's fastest-growing township.

For the second consecutive year, residential growth devoured farmland between West Chester Township and Monroe at an unprecedented pace. A record 870 single-family homes were started here last year, a 39 percent jump over 2002's record of 624 housing starts.

In fact, subdivisions in Liberty Township have sprung up so fast that firefighters draw their own street maps to keep up with the changes, says Fire Chief Paul Stumpf.

With an inviting location midway between Cincinnati and Dayton, with easy access to interstate highways and inclusion in the highly rated Lakota Schools, there's no letup in sight.

After quadrupling in 13 years, to an estimated 28,000, Liberty's population is projected to more than double by 2020 (to 60,835), and then surpass West Chester as Butler County's most populous township (86,691) by 2030.

"That means more kids, more schools, and more traffic," says Shelly Andrasik, the mother of two sons who attend Lakota Schools.

Fast growth also means more demand for grocery stores, gas stations, fire protection, police patrols and snow plows in the once-rural township, which is scrambling to keep up.

Click to view an Acrobat PDF file showing a detailed look at booming growth in Liberty Twp., including maps and charts. (File size is 356k.) (Zoom PDF)

Nowhere is the pinch being felt more than in Lakota Schools, which has become the state's eighth-largest school district in part due to the extreme makeover of Liberty Township, the northern half of the school district. Lakota, which opened two new Liberty Township schools last fall, plans $10 million in budget cuts over three years while seeking a 11.67-mill tax levy on March 2. If approved, owners of a $150,000 house would pay $536 more a year in taxes.

Lakota also plans to build two new elementary schools and a freshman school in Liberty - plus convert old Liberty Elementary into an early childhood center - with money from the tax levy. All would open in 2006.

"We've known for a long time we were going to see growth in Liberty Township ... because there is more residential land in there than in West Chester township," says school board member Dan Warnke. For years, the Lakota Schools' excellent reputation was what attracted people to the two townships. Now the cost of growth could be scaring some away.

"We moved here because we knew it was a great school system. But is there anyway they could stop building? It's a behemoth. It just keeps growing and growing and growing," says Andrasik, a seven-year resident who has considered moving out of Liberty Township.

"Lakota has gone over the line. It's overgrown. Our taxes are so high, it's ridiculous," she continues. "It's a great school district. But it's just too big."

Her sons attend seventh and fourth grade in the new Van Gorden Elementary and Plains Junior schools, about a mile northeast of her home. To avoid rush-hour congestion on two-lane Ohio 747, she drives almost two miles out of her way to pick up her son from after-school sports.

Ohio 747, the major corridor connecting I-275 to Ohio 4, is one of the biggest bottlenecks in Butler County.

Liberty's accelerated growth has choked the highway through from Beckett Square in West Chester Township to the Fox Highway. Traffic can turn a milk run to Kroger into an hour-long round-trip, says township resident Denise Armbruster.

Snarls are so severe that the Butler County Engineer's office, Butler County Transportation Improvement District, township trustees and developers are working to widen some parts of the state highway - without waiting for the state to pay.

First to be fixed this summer will be from Smith Road to Tylersville Road. Slated for 2005, Ohio 747 north from the Fox Highway through Princeton Road would be rebuilt, with developers kicking in $600,000 for road improvements to enable them to build a UDF, Walgreen's and shopping complex at the intersection, says developer Bob Hutsenpiller.

"If we waited on state funding, the earliest that we'd get to that project would be in '08 or '09," says Greg Wilkens, Butler County engineer.

Expanding Ohio 747 to five lanes north of the Fox Highway, and adding turn lanes at Princeton Road, becomes more critical this fall when the township's new $2-million fire headquarters opens along that road.

If Firehouse No. 3 opened today, "we'd be in trouble," says Bob Shelley, township trustee. Fire trucks couldn't get through the congested Princeton-Ohio 747 intersection at rush hour.

Inside the new firehouse will be Butler County's tallest ladder truck, another result of the township's growth. Trustees in December purchased a 110-foot aerial platform truck.

"Everyone says, 'You don't have any skyscrapers or tall buildings.' But our big problem is that some of the upscale houses have high peaks, and are set back so far from the road," says Stumpf, who was the department's only paid employee until three years ago.

By the time the $849,000 ladder truck arrives next year, plans could be ready for hotels or office towers along I-75 by the Fox Highway. The township is eagerly awaiting the so-called "Liberty Interchange," which will connect I-75 and the Fox Highway to Hamilton-Mason Road and Cox Road, just north of the West Chester's booming Voice of America Centre.

A major retail center is planned in the quadrant bordered by I-75, the Fox Highway, Lakota East High School and Cincinnati-Dayton Road, which will be widened to Millikin Road in 2005.

Offices and businesses are planned along an extension of Cox Road north toward Monroe.

Construction of the Liberty interchange could begin next year, says Trustee Christine Matacic. But Transportation Improvement District Director Rick Bailey won't talk about a possible start date.

"We won't have a completed project for a few years, but we're working on it as fast as we can. Our No. 1 priority is the Liberty interchange," Bailey says.

Barry Tiffany, the township administrator fired last week for misusing a township cell phone, said in an interview last month that commercial developments would be announced sometime in 2004 for that area.

"Once that first anchor comes in ... it's going to fill up quickly. I like to tell people: 'We'd love to have you in Liberty Township, but space is limited. So get there early'" Tiffany said. "We're very limited on commercial space in this township."

Residential growth has been rapid. To be exact, the township has 31 subdivisions in some stage of construction. The fast growth has forced trustees in the past year to hire six firefighter-paramedics and two planning-zoning employees; buy two more salt trucks and the fire truck; and build the new firehouse.

A relatively small office staff - five full-time employees and three part-timers - still does all the township's planning, zoning, administrative and clerical work.

"We've been very lean, very conservative," says Matacic, who is serving as acting township administrator. "Last year we had some growth so we added some people."

Since the Fox Highway opened five years ago, Liberty has added 40 miles of township streets that must be plowed and policed. The township has been growing so fast that the fire department makes its own maps, Stumpf says.

"As soon as they start building new streets, we need to know where they are. A fair amount of our squad runs are injuries from work sites," Stumpf says.

More streets will be penciled in soon. Some 3,000 vacant residential lots are plotted on developers' plans, Matacic says.

She predicts as many as 1,200 single-family housing starts here this year.

Matacic is confident the township has a handle on growth. Trustees rely on a three-person volunteer finance committee to review expenditures and prepare for meeting future needs - like the $2 million needed to equip and staff the new firehouse.

"We want to make sure when we open it, that we can operate it sufficiently. We don't want to over-extend ourselves," she says.

The new fire truck also shows that the township "is taking a proactive approach, and not waiting for something to happen," she says.

Matacic says the township will use a professional search firm to choose the next administrator to guide Liberty through its boom.

But with nearly 60,000 people moving here in the next 26 years, Liberty residents shouldn't expect any quick fixes for congestion on the township's narrow country roads.

"If you look at subdivisions filling up Liberty Township - off Millikin and Kyles Station roads and Ohio 747 - it's not going to get any better," says Bailey, at the county's transportation district. "In a state where development can take place so rapidly, we're almost always playing catch-up building roads."

"There are going to be growing pains for quite a while," Trustee Shelley says. "Our funds are more limited than West Chester, which has a lot of commercial development. So we have to get the most out of what we have. It's a struggle, and it's going to be a struggle."

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E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com