BURLINGTON, Ky. — Boone County Commissioners unanimously approved zoning changes for an assisted living development in Union, but not without opposition from the public.
The 33-acre assisted living complex will be built at the farmland located at Richwood Road, Davis Lane and Grand National Boulevard. The complex will be a multi-purpose community that includes memory care, independent living villas and public space.
Provision Living, which is managing the development, is a St. Louis-based company that also recently opened a similar property in Union Township, Ohio.
Dennis and Michelle Kelley, a husband and wife at Richwood Road, said they were against any further development in their area.
“We moved out to the country to live in the country,” Dennis Kelley said, adding that his once-rural neighborhood is turning suburban.
When it would normally take three minutes, he said it took him more than 30 minutes to get to the expressway on Tuesday due to the increased traffic businesses have brought to that section of the county. The Kelleys were worried this new development would only make matters worse.
They also shared concerns that the private-pay facility would struggle to find staff and patients who could afford to live there.
“I don’t know that it’s not going to be anything but a big empty building,” Michelle Kelley said.
A report from the Planning and Zoning Committee’s hearings on the development shows no one gave opposition on the matter when it was being considered by the committee, according to county administrator Jeff Earlywine, who reviewed the report at the ordinance’s first reading.
He said nearby property owners are sent certified letters, notifying them of the proposed development. The hearing is also advertised online and in local newspapers, Earlywine said.