The Kenton County Planning Commission has approved variance requests and a conceptual development plan for the construction of 17 townhomes in Crescent Springs, in spite of disapproval from both residents and local elected officials.
“I’m pretty confident it’ll be appealed,” said Crescent Springs City Attorney Mike Baker at the meeting of the Kenton County Planning Commission Thursday evening.
The land only spans about an acre on the northeast corner of the
intersection of Ireland Avenue and Harris Street in Crescent Springs. Queen City Avenue flanks the land to the east. The areas around the parcels are a mixture of single-family, multi-family and commercial developments, most notably a nearby Panera Bread and a paint store.
Plans to develop the land date back to 2007, when former owner JACS Property submitted a development plan to the county to build 32 townhomes across three buildings.
Only a portion of the roughly two acres in the original development concept got developed into condos, and the remaining land eventually fell into receivership before being sold by the county master commissioner, effectively dividing the property rights of the land in half.
Ireland Properties, an LLC, bought the remaining land in 2017 but struggled to find a way to develop it. Ireland Properties later contracted with Legacy Management, a Covington-based property management firm, to revise the original concept plan and head up asking for a variance from the county.
The new concept plan calls for two buildings with a total of 17 housing units. Plans for the first building call for a 15-foot setback from Ireland Avenue and Harris Street. Plans for the second building call for a 12-foot setback from the adjacent commercial lot and a 15-foot setback from Ireland Avenue.
Setbacks refer to the distance from the road to a building. The variance approval Legacy Management sought on Thursday was for the setbacks to the second building; the first had been granted back when the original concept plan had gone before the commission.
Plans also call for a water detention basin (in addition to the one that’s already nearby) as well as attendant landscaping and signage.
Rob Kreutzjans of Legacy Management, which is planning to lease the units once completed, told the planning commission the townhomes would have three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.
Don Stegman, an engineer and vice principal for Cardinal Engineering, the firm that developed the plan, explained what the developers were trying to accomplish. Stegman said the area had become significantly more developed since 2007, and the original plan did not include a detached garage structure; the current condo complex does. Many of the utilities and infrastructure from the original plan, however, were already installed.
Typically, the zone where the property sits requires 25-foot setbacks, but due to the numerous changes to the property, the land wasn’t developable under those conditions, hence the variance request.
Stegman said he’d been working on the site since 2017, saying one of the challenges to the site is “how to find the right product to go on here that will blend these two uses and allow them to be adjacent to each other and still utilize the building. I don’t know how you do it, other than what we’re trying to propose here.”
Three Crescent Springs City Council Members, Carol McGowan, Jeannine Bell Smith and Jeff Smith, all spoke out against the variances and the development generally, citing concerns about traffic, safety, and storm water retention.
Jeff Smith even shared some photos of a nearby retention area that had become backed-up, describing it as a “mosquito haven.”
“There are some condos in this area that are already having drainage problems,” McGowan said.
The commissioners were quick to point out that stormwater control fell under the purview of Sanitation District 1, rather than the planning commission.
The commission eventually granted the variance request and approved the new concept development plan. McGowan inquired with county planning professionals after the hearing about how to appeal, so the final approval of the concept plan is likely to go before the city council in the coming months.
If the city council votes down the concept plan, the variance request will also dissolve, meaning the developers will then be bound by their previous development plan. If the council approves the concept plan, the variance request will take effect and cannot be appealed.
You can view and download both past and present development plans for the site below. More recent development plans appear first in the file.