STUDY REVIEW COMMITTEE FORWARDS ROAD CLASSIFICATION TO PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

On Wednesday night the Study Review Committee (SRC) held a public meeting in order to listen to comments from the public about the Oldham County Road Functional Classifications. The SRC was formed by the Oldham County Planning and Development Commission. The chairman of the committees is Kevin Jeffries.

Several people were in attendance and most of them were from the US 42 corridor. First and foremost on their minds were the planned “collector” roads that were designated as a result of the SRC work. None of the people from that area spoke in favor of the planned roads.

Some of the residents thought that once a line was drawn on a map indicating that road was planned for an area the value of their property could be affected negatively. Some thought that some of the roads presented safety and environmental issues. And, Bill Landes, a horse farmer, voiced his fear that the planned roads would damage an already fragile equine industry.

Members of the committee said that the planned roads were necessary in order to plan for future development. The committee also stated that just because an area was designated as a location for a road in the future, a road would not be built unless the area was developed. The committee added that if the people did not sell their land there would not be any developments and therefore no roads.

One has to question the need to plan for collector roads in the area of US 42 when a huge increase in traffic on US 42 would definitely create safety issues unless improvements were made to the highway. There was testimony last night that there are not any long-range plans in place to significantly improve US42.

Despite the assurances from the SRC that the fact that the roads were planned did not mean that they would ever be built the people in attendance were definitely doubtful. That is a clear indication that the public does not trust the government. A recent national poll indicated that over 75% of the people do not trust their government. We are now seeing that at a local level.

One positive thing that I noticed at the meeting was the way Chairman Kevin Jeffries conducted the meeting. He was thoughtful and treated the people with respect. Each person wanting to speak was allowed four minutes. Even though the time for people to speak was over and the committee was in the discussion phase of the meeting Jeffries did allow a couple of comments from the public. While that may not have been following the normal procedure it was the right thing to do and the meeting never was out of control. For that Jeffries is to be commended. However, I would recommend that the people be afforded an opportunity to speak again after hearing the discussion of the committee as new issues are often raised in that phase of the meeting.

The SRC removed the line from the map for the North Buckeye Lane/Shiloh Lane collector road. However, the language describing the road was left in the text of the plan. Thus, the removal of the line from the map is nothing more than an attempt to placate a few people. The proposed collector road connecting a new I-71 interchange with US 42 was removed as it conflicts with the Brownsboro Conservation Plan. However, I must admit that the language used to remove that was not clear to me. Hopefully this will be more clearly stated in the future.

At the conclusion of the meeting the committee voted to forward their recommended plan, with minor changes, to the full Planning and Development Commission. The commission will have a public hearing on the plan on May 25, 2010 at 9am.