When Jill Charles stepped into the Boone County Planning Commission chambers, she was ready.
“You can’t fight it if you come here and you go ‘the traffic is horrendous,’” Charles said. “It’s true, but everybody says that.”
So she brought the numbers — from growth rates to ongoing developments — to back up her argument. Charles lives in Union, Kentucky — near the highly contested proposed apartment development on an unincorporated part of Boone County off Highway U.S. 42.
She wasn’t the only one against the development. Dozens of residents from Union, Florence and neighboring towns filled the chamber for a public hearing on the development.
Representatives from Silverman & Company, Inc, the developer of the 340-unit luxury apartment complex, said this complex is for renter-by-choice looking for a resort-style lifestyle.
“Our goal is to create a fantastic living experience for our residents, and with that in mind, we want our residents to feel like they are living in a resort,” Ryan Silverman said. The site design contains plentiful green space, pocket parks, a streetscape main entrance with parallel parking that will create a village-like sense of place."
If it’s built, apartments would range from studio to two bedroom/two bathroom size, with rent from $1,450 to $2,850 a month.
Florence is in support of the development and would annex the complex. The city has been working with the developer on a proposed industrial revenue bond — which would place responsibility on the city for the project’s loans and offset cost for developers. No representatives from the city of Florence spoke at Wednesday’s public hearing.
‘I don't know what the answer is — I just know that there's a problem’
Civil engineer from Bayer Becker Rob Keller said the developer’s traffic study was approved by the state transportation cabinet. They use a state-provided growth rate to predict traffic patterns for the next ten years — compounded to account for future developments.
“So in 10 years, the traffic volumes will increase roughly by 23%, that's the basis of the TIS, and the recommended traffic improvements,” Keller said, using the acronym for traffic impact study.
But Charles is not convinced the growth rate is a fair measure anymore.
“Best practices recommend using a growth factor when there's very little development in the pipeline, but that's not the case in this area,” she said, before listing more than 10 unfinished, but approved developments around the proposed development site.
One of these developments is the new Boone County Public Schools’ preschool off highway U.S. 42 that will use the same intersection as the apartment complex. The developers said they have obtained a letter of support from the school district, but WVXU was not able to obtain the letter at the time of publication.
Even so, Boone County Board of Education member Carolyn Hankins Wolfe spoke against the proposal. She said the letter of support does not take into consideration the new preschool.
“The actual preschool center was not part of that,” Wolfe said.
Overall, current traffic was at the center of the concerns from residents who spoke at the meeting. Trevor Nelson lives in the neighborhood next to the proposed site. He wants to see the county address the traffic concerns first and approve zoning amendments later.
“It is a very nice apartment complex, but we need this road more than Florence needs more apartments,” Nelson said.
The Boone County Planning Commission is expected to make a final vote on the zone amendment at a Sept. 2 meeting.
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