Reports indicate that Kenton County is running out of developable land, and leaders have agreed to continue with a plan that they hope will mitigate the effects of this possibility.
The county is moving ahead with its site readiness initiative, a multigeneration plan to prepare land in the southwest of the county for light manufacturing development.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the fiscal court passed a resolution officially acknowledging the legislative body’s support and endorsement of the Kenton County Site Readiness Initiative.
“We really just wanted to make sure that everyone understands that this is the start of a process,” Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said. “We wanted to make sure that we went through the next steps, first of all with the fiscal court, to say, ‘hey, are we on the right track to look at this?’”
Kenton County Planning and Development Services Community Manager Josh Wice initially presented the initiative to the fiscal court at a meeting on Oct. 15. On Tuesday, Wice presented it once more to add context and offer transparency to the public regarding its details.
For a synopsis of the original presentation, click here.
Wice’s presentation explained that Kenton County was running out of developable land. Past development trends show that much of the county’s land is either already urbanized or undergoing suburbanization. If current land use trends continue, Kenton County will run out of suitable land for industrial development in the coming decades.
“BE NKY (Northern Kentucky’s primary economic development company) informed the fiscal court that, according to real estate experts, Kenton County would run out of industrial land in approximately 10 to 20 years based on current market demand,” Wice said.
This could, in turn, stymie Kenton County’s efforts to attract prospective employers to relocate to the county.
To combat these trends, Kenton County Planning and Development Services, along with a variety of private companies and regional nonprofit organizations, crafted the Kenton County Site Readiness Initiative. Essentially, it seeks to create an inventory of readily available sites for purchase and development to reduce uncertainty for manufacturing prospects.
The land identified for these potential development sites is in the southwestern portion of the county. Furthermore, the county wants to prioritize courting manufacturing facilities rather than speculative warehousing and logistics developments. To make the land suitable for future development, the county must install proper utilities, including improving access to electricity, water, sewer, and gas.
“We do know that we want to have a vibrant community that has sights available,” Knochelmann said. “We do know that by market standards that we just don’t have anything available, and we want to have that available.”
During the presentation, Wice clarified that Kenton County Planning and Development Services was targeting light manufacturing, which is defined as making goods for everyday consumers using light machinery and equipment in an enclosed space. He said that light manufacturing offers the potential for a “business park” type setting.
After the presentation, Knochelmann emphasized that the initiative would be “multigenerational” and could take decades to fully realize. He noted that the county had been working for over a year alongside consultants to scope out the initiative.
Knochelmann said the next step for the initiative is to present it to the Kenton County Planning Commission at its next meeting in December. He hoped the presentation would help increase public awareness of the initiative, eventually leading to more input and feedback from the community.
“Public involvement, insight, infrastructure needs, the overall zoning needs – all of that is gonna be vetted and discussed and looked at and evaluated,” said Knochelmann. “This doesn’t lock anybody’s property up. It doesn’t mandate any activity today at all because it’s simply an idea of saying, ‘we know we need to have a proactive plan in place that says what are we going to do in the community to have sites available?’”
Two representatives from the Southern Kenton County Citizen Group, Henry Menke and Gailen Bridges, spoke during the public comment section of the meeting and provided feedback to the fiscal court, mainly related to developing a potential I-75 interchange and the public input process.
“I once had a commissioner a long time ago told me it (southern Kenton County) was an uncut jewel of Kenton County and people always want to cut it,” Menke said.
In response, Knochelmann said the fiscal court operates on a model of “full transparency” and would continue to court the public’s input about the initiative.
“It’s going to be a good experience,” Knochelmann said. “I’m sure we’re gonna have some disagreements here and there, but in the end, I think it’s a really well-informed process.”
