Boone County closer to adopting comprehensive plan update

Boone County is finalizing its ‘Boone County – Plan 2045,’ an update to its comprehensive plan that will steer land use decisions in the coming years.

In 2023, Boone County initiated the process to update its comprehensive plan, a long-term, strategic document that guides future development and land-use decisions in unincorporated Boone County and the cities of Florence, Union and Walton.

According to documents from the Boone County Planning Commission, the county’s comprehensive plan is updated every five years, as required by Kentucky law. The most recent update was published in 2019, with prior updates occurring in 2010, 2005, and 2000.

Residents can view the most recent version of the draft plan here.

In 2024, the planning commission approved its Goals and Objectives for the comprehensive plan update, which provide the basis for developing the recommendations inform the decision-making process for the final version of the plan. These elemental categories include demographics, environment and natural resources, cultural resources, economy, public facilities and services, transportation and land use.

After conducting several public forums and soliciting input from residents, county officials, and community stakeholders over the past two years, Boone County Community Development Services Director Jenna LeCount and Boone County Preservation Planner Bridget Striker unveiled the latest draft of the comprehensive plan update and presented it to the public and the full planning commission on Jan. 21.

During the meeting, LeCount noted that Boone County experienced several changes since the COVID-19 pandemic, which the planners considered during the review. She cited shifts in consumer retail behavior, workforce trends, housing affordability, freight logistics, and infrastructure development, including the swift expansion of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport into a major global cargo hub, as factors that influenced the process.

“Obviously, with Amazon coming into Boone County just before the pandemic, and then seeing the online retailing take off in the way that it did because of the pandemic, we’ve seen CVG really transition into a very fast growing cargo hub, not just for the nation, but for the whole world, and also seeing the impacts of all of that online retailing and CVG as a cargo hub,” she said. “You see the impacts and how much we’re really relying on our roadway infrastructure within Boone County to really support the entire region.”

Land Use

The public hearing helped shed light on technical changes to how existing land use is categorized. The comprehensive plan separates land-use acreage totals between Existing and Future Land Uses, with each classification comprising distinct land-use categories.

A major update involved removing ‘Woodlands’ as its own land-use category under Existing Land Use. Instead, wooded areas will now serve as an overlay that can apply to multiple underlying land uses, like Agriculture, Residential or Parks.

Striker explained that this change shifted about 58,000 acres from the now-defunct Woodland category to other land-use classifications, adding 40,000 acres to Agriculture, around 1,000 acres to Recreation, and nearly 4,400 acres to the new Open Space category. Open Space will represent vacant land without a current land-use.

“What we also did, in 2017, we had 58,000 acres listed as Woodland,” Striker said. “Well, we’ve already established that that’s an overlay. That’s not a land use. So many of those, you’ll see that the woodland acres were assigned to other places, but a lot of it you’ll see on the map that follows is back into Agriculture.”

Moreover, Striker said the ‘Business Park’ category was going to be removed from Existing Land Use, with the acreage instead being reclassified under a more accurate usage category, such as commercial or industrial.

It should be noted that while Business Park will be removed from Existing Land Use, it will remain as part of the Future Land Use classification. LeCount stated that the Business Park will essentially serve as a mixed-use employment designation, encompassing commercial, office, and light-industrial uses. It is not intended to accommodate large, standalone logistics or fulfillment centers.

“The change here in the definition is to make that a little bit more clear, and essentially adding some detail to better clarify that intention, that it’s a mixed-use, it is not intended for large-scale, standalone logistics or fulfillment centers,” LeCount said.

Geographic Focus Areas

The revised plan structures future land use guidance around five geographic “focus areas,” each representing unique development patterns and community traits. 

These five focus areas are geographically consolidated umbrella categories, each containing several of the 24 ‘Community Character Areas’ from the 2019 comprehensive plan update.

Hebron/Burlington – This area spans northern Boone County along the Ohio River and includes downtown Burlington, Hebron and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Although commercial and industrial uses have increased in this area since the last plan update, a significant portion of the focus area remains Agricultural or Open Space. Future development is expected to balance economic activity with infrastructure capacity, as well as the protection of environmentally sensitive lands.

Florence – The Florence focus area is the most built-out part of Boone County, acting as its main hub for population, retail and jobs. It is centered around Florence Mall, Turfway Racing & Gaming, Northern Kentucky Industrial Park and key interstate interchanges.

Future planning emphasizes redevelopment, mixed-use infill, infrastructure upgrades, and improved traffic management, while balancing economic growth with neighborhood stability, and mitigating CVG’s potentially negative impact on residential neighborhoods.

Richwood/Union – The boundaries of this focus area extend from Longbranch Road, US 42, Mt. Zion Road, Camp Ernst Road, and I-71/I-75. It includes the City of Union and several fast-growing residential areas.

Planning priorities in this focus area involve managing growth by enhancing road connectivity, implementing infrastructure upgrades, expanding utilities, supporting neighborhood-scale commercial development, and ensuring smooth transitions to the more rural Western Boone and Walton/Verona areas.

Walton/Verona – The Walton/Verona Focus Area is concentrated at the southern end of Boone County, and includes the City of Walton, Verona, and surrounding rural lands bordered by Gallatin, Grant and Kenton counties.

Since 2017, this area has seen a slight growth in commercial and industrial land. Most of the land continues to be used for agriculture or rural residence. Future planning focuses on improving infrastructure, preserving historic and scenic sites, regulating development around the interstate interchange, and maintaining the area’s rural character.

Western Boone County – This is the largest of the county’s five focus areas, covering roughly 45% of Boone County and stretching along about 25 miles of the Ohio River. The area remains mostly rural, with Agriculture and Open Space comprising about 70% of the land.

Since the last plan update, the area’s rural-density residential growth has increased. However, overall planning policy still favors low-density development and the protection of agricultural and environmentally sensitive areas.

Next steps

Following the presentation, several residents provided feedback to the planning commission. The next step is for the planners to review the suggestions brought forth by the public.

After that, the comprehensive plan will move toward formal adoption, with the draft presented to the Boone County Planning Commission on Feb. 18.

Planning Commission Chair Charlie Rolfsen thanked LeCount, Striker, and everyone involved in the drafting process.

“It’s a thankless, absolutely exhaustive job,” he said.