- Boone County Fiscal Court voted 2-1 to deny Corporex’s request to rezone nine acres near Mineola Pike for a proposed 190-unit apartment complex.
- Opponents argued the project conflicted with Boone County’s Plan 2040, which envisions the area for business park, office and industrial uses rather than residential development.
- Supporters, including Judge/Executive Gary Moore, said the project would help meet workforce housing demand near CVG Airport and major employment centers.
Boone County has rejected a proposed residential development plan from Covington-based real estate investment firm Corporex on the grounds that it did not properly align with the county’s comprehensive plan, among other concerns.
The Boone County Fiscal Court, which has final authority over all zoning map amendments in the county’s unincorporated areas, denied the proposal by a 2-1 vote on June 9.
Commissioners Chet Hand and Jesse Brewer voted to strike down the proposal, while Judge/Executive Gary Moore voted in favor. Commissioner Cathy Flaig was absent from the meeting.
Prior to advancing to the fiscal court, the Boone County Planning Commission conducted a vote on the project, resulting in a 6-6 stalemate—a rarity for the legislative body. Usually, the planning commission votes decisively either for or against the proposal. Although there are instances of close votes, the commission’s decisions rarely result in a tie.
The planning commission’s goal is to either recommend approval or denial of a zoning-related matter, with the governing body of the affected area, such as the Florence City Council, the Union City Commission, the Walton City Council or the Boone County Fiscal Court, holding final authority.
“I, too, reviewed it, and with planning and zoning giving us what they said on both sides of it, I feel there’s too many unknowns right now just to move forward with the unknowns and any concerns that come with that,” Brewer said.
Corporex sought to rezone a nine-acre parcel of land off Mineola Pike from Rural Suburban and Industrial One to Urban Residential Three/Planned Development in order to build an apartment complex. The parcel in question is sandwiched between the U.S. Playing Card Company manufacturing facility and Velo CirclePort, an upscale apartment complex.
Previous planning commission documents show Corporex wanted to develop four apartment buildings: three with 45 units each and one with 55 units. In total, the complex would feature 50 studio apartments, 97 one-bedroom apartments, and 43 two-bedroom apartments, in addition to 307 parking spaces.
The area, located near the CirclePort office park and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, has experienced tremendous residential growth over the past few years.
Before the recent development boom, Mineola Pike was lined with several single-family homes. As developers moved into the area, they purchased many of the plots from homeowners, with the goal of increasing the area’s residential housing supply and supporting workforce growth generated by the airport. Today, all but one of the single-family homes has been demolished to make room for denser housing developments.
Corporex Executive Vice President Nick Heekin, who has presented the proposal on behalf of the developer at prior planning commission meetings, questioned the basis for denial. Heekin said he believed Corporex did an adequate job of addressing and alleviating concerns about the project.
“I didn’t hear any facts during the planning commission hearings that said, ‘this is why we deny it,’ other than I don’t know that we need more housing, which of course we all know there are studies out there to say we do,” Heekin said.
In response, Boone County Attorney Jordan Dallas Turner read the planning commission’s ‘findings of fact’ aloud before the fiscal court chambers. The project’s dissenters voiced several concerns, including that it conflicted with the Boone County Plan 2040 land-use recommendations, that the development would undermine the intended mix of industrial, office and business park uses in the area, and that there was insufficient separation between residential and industrial uses.
Another issue is that the project surrounds the sole remaining single-family home lot on Mineola Pike, as developers have yet to convince the owner to sell the land.
Before the vote, Moore voiced his support for the project, highlighting the region’s need for workforce housing, as well as the site’s closeness to employment centers.
“I thought, with the apartments that were built recently, with this being an infill project between it, the new Mineola (Pike) five lanes—it has the road capacity, it has multimodal sidewalks, multi-use paths connecting back to the new Donaldson (Road),” Moore said. I thought it made sense, and so that’s why I was hoping we would keep it alive, but I’m one vote.”
