Fall 2015 Rural Progress Report

November 25, 2015 Report

The steering committee of the South Kenton County Citizens Group met on Monday, November 16th to discuss the upcoming survey with Dr. Garkovich from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Garkovich will write the actual survey questions. The meeting last two and a half hours and the discussion covered all the issues the four committees have been pursing. Dr. Garkovich took a lot of written material back with her and will make a preliminary survey for the steering committee to work through at a meeting on Wednesday, December 16th. After the December meeting Dr. Garkovich will work on the final version of the survey. The final survey should be completed by the end of January and mailed out to each resident of South Kenton County the first week or two of February.

October 30, 2015 Report

The big project occupying the group’s attention is the survey. This survey will be sent out to every home in South Kenton County. The survey will be more focused with specific questions on zoning, services, roads, and agricultural heritage. There will also be questions regarding parks in southern Kenton County. Information from each committee is being gathered to assist Dr. Garkovich in producing the questions for the survey. A meeting of the steering committee on November 16, 2015 is the kick off-date for producing the survey. The final draft is scheduled to be completed by the end of January 2016. We hope to have the surveys back by the middle to the end of February and the survey answers complied and recorded by the end of April.

The zoning committee is meeting on November 4th, at the Hoffman residence starting at 7:00 pm.

October 16, 2015 Report

The services committee met with representatives from Time Warner Cable to discuss the possibility of extending cable service further into south Kenton County. The meeting went well with Time Warner Cable agreeing to send Planning and Development Services (PDS) a map of the current extent of service in Southern Kenton County. Lewis Hill of PDS is examining the remaining area for locations of concentrated housing suitable for cable. The results of Lewis’s work will be presented at an upcoming meeting of the service committee within the next month.

The zoning committee met on Tuesday the 13th to review the Rural Commercial (RC) Zone. The RC Zone is the primary commercial zone in the southern part of the county. The committee reviewed the permitted uses of the zone and decided to make some changes. They removed five uses; automotive, motorcycle, and truck sales, new or used, building materials and lumber yards, tobacco warehouses and flea markets, supermarkets and service stations. The first four were deemed too big for the RC zone and service stations was considered redundant with auto repair shops with fuel pumps. They also plan on establishing a building size limit on some uses. This committee will meet again on November the 4th to continue working on the RC zone.

The South Kenton County Citizens Group steering committee meets on Thursday the 15th to discuss the progress of the group and the upcoming survey. This survey will be mailed to every resident in Southern Kenton County, and will focus on specific questions regarding zoning issues. The group is again working with Dr. Garkovich from the University of Kentucky in developing and interpreting the survey. It is hoped that this survey will be ready by the end of the year.

An article on the South Kenton County Citizens Group was published in Cincinnati.com on September 14. The article gives a brief history of the group and explains the actions being taken in some detail. The survey, conducted in 2014, is highlighted. Kathy Donohoue is interviewed and explains how the zoning committee is studying the zoning code and determining if it can be improved upon. Suzann Parker Leist relates the work the Agriculture Heritage committee is doing on agtourism. The article finishes with a request for south Kenton county residents to contact the group to give their opinions on the issues that concern them.