Before second grade, Rachel Franzen played in the creek and picked wildflowers for her mom in the hayfields on her neighbor’s land that stretched around her parent’s property in California, Kentucky.
When Franzen was in second grade, her neighbors sold their field, and a subdivision took its place.
“Even that climate jump was very strange just because we couldn’t go anywhere we wanted to go anymore,” Franzen said. “We saw it as a shock, like oh my gosh, people are intruding on our home.”
Now 24, Franzen recently closed on her mother’s childhood home, which happens to be next door to the house where she grew up. Franzen said she is a “for lifer” when it comes to rural living.
What is life like on the Southern ends of Northern Kentucky today?
The communities have continued to grow, as any long-term resident of the area can attest. Northern Kentucky has diverse areas that make up the region, and who you are as a Northern Kentuckian might differ from urban to suburban to rural living. Where you live also affects how you view the growth in population that is forcing more development in each area.
“Kentucky cities collectively increased their population by 7.1% from 2010 to 2020,” According to klccitylimit.com. “Central Kentucky – particularly the ‘golden triangle’ area between Louisville, Lexington, and northern Kentucky – remains one of the highest growth areas.”
Living Rural Feels More Like Home
Rural areas are stereotyped as being for people in agriculture, but many people who live there prefer it to a city or suburb because of the privacy it holds and the land they can own. Many people who live in rural areas have grown up in less populated areas, and enjoy the seclusion it offers.
Jim Lackey grew up on Uhl Road in Silver Grove. He has lived within about a 10-mile radius his entire life, aside from when he moved away for college. He now lives in California, Kentucky, with his wife and two dogs.
Living out in the country feels more like home, Lackey said.
“My closest neighbor right now is probably a mile away. We help each other all the time. His cows get out; I run them back down to him and fix his fence,” Lackey said. “But there’s peace and quiet. You just get out here and do your own thing. You don’t have to worry about an HOA or somebody imposing rules and regulations. You just have your own little piece of the pie.”
Convenience and privacy are aspects of rural living that Franzen can appreciate.
“I do love where I live,” Franzen said. “Being probably a half an hour from whatever- I mean, I could go a half-hour south and be in the middle of cow pastures, and then I could go a half-hour north, and I’m sitting downtown Cincinnati. It’s rare that you can do that. And still have the privacy of where I live.”
Everyone has heard the phrase southern hospitality, and for Lackey and Franzen, it perfectly describes their corner of Northern Kentucky.
“In the rural parts, people are a little more to themselves,” Lackey said. “They’re a little more private. But if you had something go wrong at home, they would come to help you.”
Franzen said she feels like there is a sense of family among her neighbors that have lived around her entire life.
“I would definitely say that I have no doubt in my mind that the people around us, if I ever needed anything, or even if I didn’t need anything and just wanted to go talk to somebody people are always so welcoming to do that,” Franzen said. “I don’t think you can find that everywhere. I think that’s a luxury that people in this area kind of take for granted. Rarely can you walk up to somebody and just not have a full-on conversation with them.”
Watching Your Home Change
People who live on the southern end are proud of where they live and come from. Many residents are protective of their homes and have fears of unwanted developments encroaching upon them.
“I even look at Alexandria as an example right now because you still have some rural parts of Alexandria, but you cannot go down 27 without being stopped 10 times from either traffic or red lights or whatever it might be,” Franzen said. “That all has to do because of the development, and they just keep coming and coming with it. And it’s just going to keep getting worse and worse because they’ve already set that precedent. And you can’t undo it. You can’t stop it.”
Lackey, who is in his 50s, has seen the progression of development around Northern Kentucky while growing up and continuing to live in the area.
“Tommy Shultz owned part of the land where Arcadia is, and I remember back in the day that was a hog farm,” Lackey said. “I mean, they would raise 250 to 300 hogs a year right there where Ford is and the drive that goes back to Arcadia. It’s just gotten so congested now. Walmart went in, and now we have a Walmart, so subdivisions started going in. For some reason, we need a Ford dealership and a Chevy dealership. We’ve got all this now you need restaurants for people, and Alexandria is the Mecca for car washes.”
Residents of rural areas chose to live there for a reason. They like their privacy. When more businesses pop up in places, it causes more people to move to the area, bringing traffic with them.
“It’s all coming further South,” Franzen said. “It’s because of demand, and I don’t blame anybody for that. It’s a demand for the influx of people that are coming into the rural areas. Still, the rural areas that they’re moving to really aren’t rural anymore because they’re just being developed into being subdivisions or whatever it is.”
Franzen said that people in rural areas see what development is doing to other parts of the county, and they don’t want that for themselves. She relates it to everyone’s preferences. Having your home change or daily endeavors change based on what other people think the area needs or should want is scary for her.
Neltner’s farm in Melbourne, Kentucky, was a full-time vegetable farm from 1978 until 12 years ago when the family started implementing their fall festival and eight years ago when they began their wedding venue business on the farm.
Kevin Neltner is the fifth generation on the farm.
“We were a full vegetable farm,” Neltner said. “I mean, that farm dates back to the families in 1892. We were full-time vegetables; we produced a massive amount of vegetables, and as time evolved, things like the public not consuming in great volume. They don’t can them; they don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. So, we cut back on the vegetable part, and that’s why you see we went towards the agritourism part.”
The Neltners have benefitted from the influx of people moving to the areas because they attend their festivities at the farm and use their wedding venue.
“I think developments have sort of slowed down over the years,” Neltner said. “And I think we’re all pretty comfortable about it.”
The expanding population in Northern Kentucky’s suburbs and cities like to get out into the country and enjoy what it has to offer too.
“Because we’ve opened it up to agritourism, I feel like a lot of people get to experience what we see every day,” Neltner said. “It sort of brings the city out to the country; it’s a neat feeling to let everybody enjoy since there’s not a lot of farms in Campbell County.”
Planning and Zoning Requirements
More goes into finding a field of open space and deciding you want something to be built there. Whether for residential purposes or commercial, zoning laws and regulations play a factor in developments. Specifically looking at rural areas, it can be hard to develop due to sewer and water systems in place – or a lack thereof.
“It’s [development] limited by the utilities available,” said Campbell County Planning and Zoning Director Cindy Minter. “Do you have water, sewers, gas? Then, the roadway systems, is it designed to handle the traffic? Are the school systems in place? All of it has to be balanced together.”
The capacity of what things can handle comes into play, Minter said. Water lines typically tend to be smaller on the county’s southern end than on the northern end. Some areas have Northern Kentucky Water District, while some have Pendleton County Water District.
The typography in the area has many ridges and hills, which she said makes the area great for residential builds but not as much for commercial builds as you might see in Boone County, which has a lot of flat land.
“Opinions vary widely,” Minter said. “We try to be respectful of those opinions, and the voices are heard. If there is pushback, the project could go away, most projects go forward, but there are some that never make it to the table.”
Lackey can attest to some of the issues when building in southern Campbell County. He had his home built and found a few challenges along the way.
“There are conveniences when you buy a house in the suburbs or a subdivision you got sewage industry, you got water industry, you got gas industry,” Lackey said. “Out here, we had to put a huge cistern in because we don’t have city water, and we put in a septic system because we don’t have city hookups for that.”
He also said that internet hookup was nonexistent for their first three years of living there. They used hotspots for internet connection.
Protecting Your Land
One specific project that has made Franzen fearful of development in her area is a highway extension that would run through California Ky.
“It’s been a few years, but there was talk of an interstate extension,” Franzen said. “Looking at where that map would have been, it would have taken out a lot of the homes around me. I think that’s when development in general kind of like hit us like a rock wall because it would affect every aspect of life.”
Franzen is not the only one familiar with the road extension. Campbell County Conservation District and Campbell Conservancy board member Jim Benton said it is called The Eastern Bypass.
“The Eastern Bypass is championed by Drees, Home Builders,” Benton said. “This ultimately would be like a 275 loop around the city. Primarily going to interstate 71-75, cutting across somewhere in the northern Pendleton, California area. I spoke with the transportation cabinet about the likelihood of this happening, and currently, it’s just too expensive.”
Franzen said though the road would be great for commerce, the noise and pollution that traffic would bring to the area would change many residents’ way of life.
“If you can place a conservation development easement on your property, it will make it much, much harder,” Benton said.
A conservation development easement is a voluntary way landowners can stick together to protect their lands.
“It’s a 250-acre minimum amount of land to fall under this agricultural district,” Benton said. “So, it could be you and your five neighbors, or 10 neighbors have a kind of handshake agreement, be part of this district, and that district can afford some protection from the county changing your zoning.”
Lackey is in what he refers to as a “Co-op” with eight neighbors. They went to the extension office and agreed on what could and couldn’t happen with their land.
“It gives us a little bigger voice if we ever get pressured to sell,” Lackey said.
Campbell County is 25 miles long, Minter said. It changes so much from one end of the county to the other, and every area has its own personality.
“Through the years that we’ve lived out here, things culturally and environmentally have changed, the speed of life, I go to work, and everything just seems to happen so fast,” Lackey said. “You get out of here, and you just get back to the basics. I get home, and it’s just quiet and slowed down.”
Now a homeowner in rural Northern Kentucky, Franzen thinks a lot about what could happen to the area around her as she sets permanent roots for herself. The land next to where she purchased her house is an open field that could have the potential to be developed just like the one that she used to play in back in second grade.
“I have thought about it,” Franzen said. “What would happen if technically two, three houses could fit on that land? What would happen if a zone changed in order for three or four houses to go in next door to my house? I would not be happy. I love the privacy that is my home, and I love being able to use every nook and cranny of the land that we have here.”
