We may have dodged a bullet, but development of Clark Co. needs to be more rational

A recent event at a Planning and Zoning Commission hear­ing serves to illus­trate the val­ue of hav­ing good plan­ning in place to guide the growth and devel­op­ment of the city and coun­ty.  It also illus­trat­ed the impor­tance of plac­ing a pri­or­i­ty on plan­ning as an adjunct to zoning.

The ques­tion before the com­mis­sion was approval of a devel­op­ment plan for a large (poten­tial­ly over 200 dwelling units) tract locat­ed off Old Boonesboro Road beyond The Quarry.

The plan had numer­ous flaws, not the least of which were two cul-de-sacs over one thou­sand feet deep, a sin­gle entrance off a road sub­ject to peri­od­ic flood­ing, and a num­ber of homes backed up to the main high­way (depriv­ing those homes of any pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing a pri­vate back yard.)

In fact, many years ago the Planning and Zoning Commission adopt­ed an infor­mal agree­ment that it would no longer approve devel­op­ments with rear yards back­ing to major road­ways (a fact which has appar­ent­ly been for­got­ten since sev­er­al devel­op­ments have been approved allow­ing this to occur.)

Fortunately for the neigh­bors who opposed the devel­op­ment – as well as for ratio­nal expan­sion in the com­mu­ni­ty – the plan was rejected.

But the fact that this plan was even con­sid­ered shows the impro­pri­ety of allow­ing large devel­op­ments on the fringe of town.  Such out­ly­ing devel­op­ments add to hig­gledy-pig­gledy growth, tax­es the infra­struc­ture sys­tem and gen­er­al­ly defines a lack of clear pur­pose in plan­ning and growth.

Of course there are numer­ous devel­op­ments which lie out­side the cur­rent bound­aries of the city: Lynndale, Calmes, Stoneybrook, McClure Manor, Mallard Place, The Ridings, Verna Hills and oth­ers.  Despite the exis­tence of these sub­di­vi­sions, that does not serve to sug­gest the sagac­i­ty of hav­ing allowed them or, cer­tain­ly, of allow­ing such devel­op­ments to con­tin­ue.  Many of these unin­cor­po­rat­ed areas were devel­oped long before plan­ning and zon­ing came to Clark County. And there are even some areas total­ly sur­round­ed by the cor­po­rate city lim­its but not with­in the city, Colby Hills being the prime example.

Apparently, under present statutes, annex­a­tion can only occur with the acqui­es­cence of the prop­er­ty own­er and once the first house is con­struct­ed and occu­pied with­in a devel­op­ing sub­di­vi­sion, annex­a­tion can­not occur if that one own­er objects.  When a devel­op­ment is pro­posed any­where, the first con­sid­er­a­tion should be whether it can rea­son­ably be incor­po­rat­ed into the city and if so, required to be incor­po­rat­ed before any con­struc­tion takes place.

A city’s growth should be care­ful­ly planned, espe­cial­ly to allow for the ser­vices typ­i­cal­ly pro­vid­ed to expand in a ratio­nal, rea­son­able and eco­nom­ic manner.

One of the most hor­ren­dous annex­a­tion deci­sions recent­ly made was the annex­a­tion of the George Rogers Clark High School prop­er­ty by extend­ing the city bound­ary out 627 South, incor­po­rat­ing only the high­way right-of-way and then the school prop­er­ty.  On a map this bound­ary would resem­ble a giant golf club.  At the same time, the city has thus far failed to annex the pro­posed Three Pines devel­op­ment imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent to 627 South and which was approved for over 160 res­i­dences but has yet to be developed.

To put it suc­cinct­ly, devel­op­ment and annex­a­tion is just too hap­haz­ard, despite a very good Comprehensive Plan whose for­mu­la­tion was aid­ed with much com­mu­ni­ty input, and which was for­mu­lat­ed (and has been for about four decades) to dri­ve ratio­nal growth of both the city and county.

There should be no doubt in the mind of any­one that pres­sure from Fayette County is prompt­ing the growth on the west­ern side of Clark County, and it will prove dif­fi­cult to accom­mo­date this pres­sure and at the same time assure ratio­nal growth here.

It appears that there is now a good deal of local pres­sure to great­ly expand the avail­abil­i­ty of devel­opable prop­er­ty along the U.S. 60 cor­ri­dor and growth in that area is sure­ly like­ly to con­tin­ue over the years and decades ahead. But it rais­es the ques­tion of whether Clark County wants to become like Jessamine County, which has an unin­ter­rupt­ed string of com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment lead­ing from Nicholasville to Lexington.

Those who trav­el dai­ly from Winchester to Lexington on U.S. 60 should cer­tain­ly pon­der the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing to deal with the type of traf­fic that explodes along U.S. 27 every morn­ing and evening.