A concept plan for a 17-townhouse development in Crescent Springs came before the city council this week for a first reading and discussion after City Council Member Jeannine Bell Smith appealed the Kenton County Planning Commission’s approval of the plan in September.
No official action took place at the meeting – the council will cast a vote on the development plan, which is in its very early stages, in November – but it served as a forum for the city officials, land owner and developers to discuss the issue out in the open.
Bell Smith told LINK nky that she appealed the approval, which would have gone into effect after 90 days if no one touched it, to help keep the community informed.
“The people need to know,” Bell Smith said.
At the beginning of the meeting, land owner David Heidrich’s attorney, Cincinnati-based Thomas Breitenstein, asked three of the council members who had spoken out against the development in front of the planning commission, Bell Smith Jeff Smith, and Carol McGowan, to recuse themselves.
“Any decision that they make would be tainted by bias, prejudice, conflict of interest and blatant favoritism,” Breitenstein said.
Breitenstein submitted the sign-in sheets from the planning commission meeting, which the three council members had signed as opposition parties, and the documentation of Bell Smith’s appeal as evidence, as well as a single case law citation.
Mayor Mike Daughtery deferred to the city’s present legal counsel, David Steele, sitting in for City Attorney Mike Baker, who didn’t think Breitenstein’s cited precedent sounded “definitive of what you’re asking.”
The discussion continued with all of the council members present.
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 was developed into condos, and the remaining land eventually fell into receivership before being sold by the county master commissioner, effectively dividing the property rights to the land in half.
Read our latest deep dive into NKY’s housing shortage here.
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 Fort Wright-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. Each unit would have rear-entry two-car garages and walk-out access onto Ireland Avenue.
Typically, the zone where the property sits requires 25-foot setbacks, but the planning commission had approved variances with the concept plan in September. While variances from the commission are treated as final, in this case, they depend on the whole plan being approved; if the council eventually denies the concept plan, the variances would dissolve.
Plans also call for a water detention basin (in addition to the one nearby) along with attendant landscaping and signage.
Ross Kreutzjans of Legacy Management, which plans to lease the units once completed, told the planning commission the townhomes would have three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
You can view a full concept development, as well as prior development plans, below.
Bell Smith wanted to know why the setback variances were necessary.
Heidrich said one could still build there, but it wouldn’t be a quality product, he argued.
“It’s not going to have two-car garages attached to every apartment,” Heidrich said. “It’s going to be a small, little apartment, [a] two-bedroom, one-bath apartment that’s going to have very minimal stuff.”
Council Member Mark Wurtenberger asked why they didn’t build something smaller, and the developers said that building smaller didn’t make economic sense.
Heidrich said that he was unable to attract larger developers like Fischer Homes and Drees because, even at its current size, the development wasn’t going to bring in enough money to be appealing for them.
Other discussion points included the water infrastructure, the prospect of Section 8 tenants, and access onto Harris. The developers said the rents they planned to charge wouldn’t be enough for most Section 8 tenants and that they had no plans to take Section 8 tenants. The Harris access, meanwhile, would better serve the rear-garage layout.
Jeff Smith raised the issue of detention during the planning commission meeting. Don Stegman, an engineer and vice principal for Cardinal Engineering, the firm that developed the plan, said, “It’s going to meet today’s regulations, today’s SD1 regulations.”
SD1 is responsible for inspecting stormwater infrastructure, but the developers will build and maintain the new detention basin. Stegman said the regulations had only become more thorough over time, even since the construction of the first basin.
“They haven’t made them any smaller,” Stegman said.
The council will vote on the concept plan at their meeting on Nov. 24. The developers will have to submit a final development plan to the planning commission again if the council approves the concept plan.