Fiscal court action on the Comprehensive Plan ignores research and public input

By Sarah Glenn, Dudley Taylor, Kevin Welsh and Eddie Gilkison, in a let­ter to the edi­tor. This piece was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished by The Winchester Sun.

Last month, the Clark County Fiscal Court broke a long-stand­ing prece­dent and ini­ti­at­ed uni­lat­er­al changes to the goals and objec­tives of the Winchester-Clark County Comprehensive Plan — an impor­tant doc­u­ment that guides growth and devel­op­ment in our community.

In doing so, the mag­is­trates reject­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Planning Commission and Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, the exten­sive body of research, the prin­ci­ples of good plan­ning and zon­ing, and most impor­tant­ly, the voice of Clark County’s citizens.

The Comprehensive Plan is the prod­uct of more than a year­long process. It involved sig­nif­i­cant work by an advi­so­ry com­mit­tee of 18 local cit­i­zens, plan­ning staff, and a hired con­sul­tant. The plan is the prod­uct of care­ful thought, delib­er­a­tion, and exten­sive com­mu­ni­ty input.

However, this care­ful­ly craft­ed plan and decades of estab­lished prece­dent have been cast aside — with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or sup­port­ing evi­dence — to accom­mo­date the per­son­al inter­ests of a hand­ful of magistrates.

The changes — which were ini­ti­at­ed by 5^th District Magistrate Chris Davis and passed on a split 4–3 vote — rep­re­sent a severe depar­ture from our community’s long-stand­ing growth plan which empha­sizes growth adja­cent to exist­ing devel­op­ment, as opposed to sprawl­ing, leap-frog development.

Davis’s changes pave the way for irre­spon­si­ble zone changes out­side of the urban plan­ning bound­ary while ignor­ing the fact that Clark County has over 14,000 acres of unde­vel­oped land inside our cur­rent urban plan­ning boundary.

His pro­pos­al also fails to con­sid­er the sig­nif­i­cant costs sub­ur­ban sprawl impos­es on Clark County’s tax­pay­ers. A 2022 study by the University of Kentucky shows that for every $1 in tax rev­enue gen­er­at­ed by res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment, Clark County tax­pay­ers spend $1.28 pro­vid­ing ser­vices such as water, sew­er, Fire/EMS, and law enforce­ment, among oth­ers. Consider this gap between income and expen­di­ture on a scale of mil­lions of local tax dol­lars, and it quick­ly becomes appar­ent that deci­sions on growth are a cal­cu­la­tion our coun­ty can’t afford to get wrong.

Sprawl is not only unwar­rant­ed and unwise, it is not want­ed by Clark County’s cit­i­zens. Public input through­out the Comprehensive Plan process demon­strates a clear desire for smart growth, includ­ing infill and rede­vel­op­ment on under-uti­lized land, com­ple­tion of and devel­op­ment around the Eastern Bypass, and min­i­miz­ing sub­ur­ban sprawl.

Clark County adopt­ed Planning and Zoning over 50 years ago, and for good rea­son. Planning and Zoning pro­vides many ben­e­fits to our com­mu­ni­ty. It pro­motes the effi­cient use of tax dol­lars in build­ing and main­tain­ing infra­struc­ture, it keeps prop­er­ty prices sta­ble, it offers pre­dictabil­i­ty to devel­op­ers and res­i­dents, and it enhances qual­i­ty of life by ensur­ing that land uses are com­pat­i­ble with sur­round­ing neighborhoods.

The impli­ca­tions of the Fiscal Court’s deci­sion are seri­ous. For the first time in our his­to­ry, we face the prospect that the City and County will adopt diver­gent plan­ning goals. This threat­ens the con­tin­ued exis­tence of our joint City-County Planning Commission — an asset that has served our com­mu­ni­ty well for more than half a century.

The Fiscal Court’s changes to the Comprehensive Plan also rep­re­sent anoth­er trou­bling devel­op­ment — it will dis­cour­age pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in future civic process­es. What does the Court’s action say to all of the cit­i­zens who sub­mit­ted com­ments in order to craft this Comprehensive Plan?

What does it say to the mem­bers of the Advisory Committee who ded­i­cat­ed count­less hours to review input, exam­ine the research and evi­dence, and update the plan? Why would any­one agree to serve on an advi­so­ry com­mit­tee in the future when the Fiscal Court has shown such dis­re­gard for the committee’s recommendation?

The Comprehensive Plan is not writ­ten for the ben­e­fit of a sin­gle per­son, neigh­bor­hood, or inter­est but rather for the entire com­mu­ni­ty. The Fiscal Court should reeval­u­ate its posi­tion and adopt the goals and objec­tives in accor­dance with the desires of Clark County’s cit­i­zens. The pros­per­i­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty depends on it.