A long-worked-on revision to Park Hills’ zoning structure cleared the Kenton County Planning Commission Thursday night.
The process by which the city has tried to update its zoning has at times been rancorous and legally ambiguous, but the unanimous recommendation from the planning commission marks a milestone in the process.
“I’m glad that the city is approaching it the way they’re approaching it,” said Planning Commission Chair Brian Dunham. “It makes a lot of sense.”
Still, potential conflicts remain, and the Park Hills City Council still needs to issue a final vote on the new ordinance.
Setting the stage
Thursday’s vote focused on revising the city’s zoning ordinance to bring it more in line with county planning. This process is referred to as the Z21 process in Kenton County, and Park Hills is somewhat of a latecomer to this process; many major cities in the county have already revised their zoning to be more in line with the county’s recommendations.
The process entails the city council coming to an agreement after discussing the zoning revisions over a period of time. From there, the city council votes on a resolution to ask for a recommendation from the Kenton County Planning Commission and its subcommittees. Once the planning commission issues a recommendation, the city council casts a final vote to enshrine the new ordinance.
This process has been characterized by disagreement and conflict among the council members. The city council first voted on a resolution in August, which would have sought a recommendation for the Z21 plan with one caveat for a piece of land where the old (and now defunct) Szechuan Garden restaurant sits on Dixie Highway.
The site’s zoning is unusual, with a commercial zone in the front of the land, where the Szechuan Garden building itself is located, as well as a residential zone for single and two-family homes in the back, which is currently vacant. The August resolution would have converted the backland to an urban residential zone.
In August, Council Member Cardosi had made a motion to “approve the resolution to move forward with the Z21 package to the Kenton County Planning Commission for review, with the exception of the proposed changes dated 7/29, [20]25.”
The exception Cardosi mentioned was in reference to a memo dated July 29, which laid out the exceptions to the Z21 proposal, one of which was zoning for the Szechuan site. The following month, at a special meeting in September, the council voted on a resolution seemingly aimed at revoking the resolution from August. This would have the effect of turning the back portion of the Szechuan Garden site to a mixed residential zone, allowing for possible future development.
Three developers, Greg Berling, Mark Zimmerman and Jeff Nienaber, who’s also a Kenton County Commissioner, have expressed interest in developing the land into townhomes.
Council Member Sarah Froelich walked out of the September meeting in protest, arguing the process was rushed and surreptitious. Two of the other council members, Laura Cardosi and Emily Sayers, did not attend the meeting at all.
Froelich was present at the beginning of the meeting but left before the rest of the members cast their votes, leaving the body with only three members.
Her walkout seemingly aimed to deprive the body of the minimum number of legislators needed to cast votes, but Mayor Kathy Zembrodt instructed the city clerk to call for a vote anyway. The remaining three council members voted in favor of the new resolution.
After this, Park Hills resident Gretchen Stephenson sent a complaint to the Kentucky Attorney General challenging the legitimacy of the vote. At the council’s October meeting, the members fought over whether or not Froelich had, in fact, left the room when the vote was cast. The draft of the September meeting minutes counted Froelich’s walkout as an abstention, and Froelich wanted the minutes to reflect that she was out of the room.
After some back and forth, the final motion before the vote on the minutes did not include the addenda about Froelich’s presence that she wanted, so she voted against the minutes. Sayers and Cardosi abstained because they didn’t attend the Sept. 29 meeting.
Council Members Greg Claypole, Pam Spoor and Steve Elkins voted yes. As such, as far as the official record was concerned, Froelich abstained from voting in September. Abstentions count with the majority of votes.
The Attorney General later declined to rule one way or another on whether Froelich’s actions led to a lack of quorum.
The planning commission’s Z21 subcommittee met on Oct. 21 to offer a preliminary recommendation on the September resolution. Froelich, Spoor and Zembrodt attended the meeting.
The committee members, all of whom are also members of the planning commission, noted the unusual nature of the process and expressed discomfort that the city seemed to be using the Z21 process to facilitate a zoning change.
Committee chair Gailen Bridges, who represents Bromley on the planning commission, said the Z21 project was meant to be about “form over substance,” i.e., about smoothing out processes and structures to zoning broadly, rather than handling discrete development projects.
“It just seems to be a misuse, to me, of the Z21 process to go in the back door with a controversial zone change,” Bridges said.
Although planning professionals with the county noted that there was nothing illegal about doing it this way, other committee members agreed with Bridges. In the end, they all recommended against the city’s draft ordinance.
Planning Commissioner Paul Ryan, who represents Park Hills on the Planning Commission, compared using the Z21 process to change the zone to the typical map amendment process, which has stricter criteria.
“My concern is that if this goes through Z21 – and this is for the mayor and council people – if it goes through Z 21, there’s no development plan,” Ryan said. “The developer can come in there, he could have shown you pictures, a hundred of them, now [he] has the authority to go in there and do what he wants to do within the parameters, which can be totally different.”
Finally, on Oct. 27, the city council met again to vote on revoking the September resolution, which would have the effect of essentially turning back the clock to the August resolution that lacked the mixed residential zoning change for the Szechuan property. If passed, anyone who wanted to develop the property would have to go through the typical map amendment process, development plan, and all.
“Let’s put this internal conflict to rest,” Zembrodt said on Oct. 27. “As mayor, I want the city to be prosperous and to get along.”
Zembrodt spoke too soon. Froelich had brought a substitution resolution that included the same revoking of the zoning change proposed, but added language that would have corrected the city’s record of her actions at the September meeting. Sayers and Cardosi were both in favor of Froelich’s substitution resolution.
“When residents raise questions about process, as they did regarding resolution five [in September], it should not be seen as confrontation but accountability,” Sayers said, reading from a prepared statement. “Citizen engagement is a healthy and necessary part of democracy, and it helps maintain transparency and trust in how we govern. The substitute resolution before us provides a clear and lawful path forward, corrects the record to reflect that no quorum was present for resolution five, and amends resolution four [in August] to align precisely with the action taken by council in open session.”
A vote on Froelich’s substitute resolution ended in a 3 to 3 tie: Froelich, Sayers and Cardosi voted in favor, and the remaining council members voted against.
More discussion followed before a vote on the meeting’s initial draft resolution took place, resulting in a 3-3 tie along predictable lines. The mayor cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the resolution, but this, too, ended up being shrouded in disagreement because mayors usually can’t cast tie-breaking votes on zoning matters.
City Attorney Dan Braun, however, argued the tie-breaker vote was allowable as it was a resolution asking for a recommendation, rather than a direct action on zoning. This assertion would later be challenged by residents.
“Is there any single thing we can agree on?” Spoor said.
At the planning commission
With the passage of the new resolution, the disagreement about the September resolution, save for the exactitude of Froelich’s walkout in the official record, was effectively moot. As a result, Bridges informed the planning commission that the subcommittee had revised its position and was in favor of recommending the new ordinance. Likewise, Zembrodt had accepted at that point that any development on the Szechuan property would have to go through the typical amendment process.
“We’ll do it as a map amendment at another point,” said Zembrodt.
Several residents, including Stephenson, had submitted emails to the commission challenging the legitimacy of Zembrodt’s tie-breaking vote. Yet, the planning commission was clear: Determining whether or not what the mayor did was legal was not under their purview.
“We received confirmation from the city attorney [Braun] that he believes is properly before us, so we can’t look past that,” said Planning Commission Attorney Matt Smith. “No jurisdiction, no authority, we have to comply with our standard duty, which is to act on the application before us within 60 days. And so the only issues we’re going to be allowed to have testimony about or discussion about is whether these new proposed the Z21 ordinances are reasonable and appropriate.”
Several residents attempted to speak on the merits of the Szechuan land’s zoning, but Dunham cut them off, affirming that the planning commission was only there to discuss the city’s request for a recommendation, which, he reminded the residents, now didn’t include rezoning of the Szechuan property.
The planning commission cast a unanimous vote in favor of the draft ordinance.
The city council will cast a final vote on the ordinance in the coming months.
You can read the full text of the draft ordinance, as well as the write up on its details by county planning professionals below.