Issues stall updates to zoning codes
Neighbors voiced safety concerns; a suit seeks to stop a wedding center.
Questions about rules permitting wedding centers in Warren County neighborhoods have stalled approval of close to 100 pages of amendments to the county’s rural zoning code.
Neighbors say safety concerns are behind their objections.
Last week, the county commissioners delayed until Feb. 26, a vote on changes, including those for conditional-use permits allowing everything from wedding centers to septic-tank cleaning businesses in otherwise residential neighborhoods in unincorporated areas of the county.
At the meeting, residents on Robinson-Vail Road in Franklin Twp. urged the county commissioners not to approve changes establishing a classification for wedding centers permitted with conditions in residential zones.
Larry and Pam Pockras said approval could create hazardous road conditions when people involved in weddings and receptions drive to and from the events on narrow, two-lane
Robinson-Vail Road.
“Somebody is going to get hurt,” Pam Pockras said.
The Pockrases live next to the 11,000-square-foot Stone Valley Meadows wedding center, under construction on 13 acres on Robinson-Vail, a few-minute drive from the Interstate 75 interchange at Ohio 123.
The proposed county code changes involve the board of zoning appeals, site-plan reviews, planned-unit developments, mixed-use zones regulations, residential uses, community and essential service uses, commercial business and service uses, professional and personal ser- vice uses, industrial man- ufacturing, research and supply services, and access management.
Wedding centers are for the first time defined, along with event centers.
The county’s conditional use rules are being challenged in another case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to intervene in a running dispute between residents in Franklin and Clearcreek townships and the county over a conditional use permit enabling neighbors to operate the Septek septic-tank cleaning busi- they all live on ness Beal said al-use The the Road. where Beal regulations county’s Road condition- residents underlegitimacy mines ernment of Since 26 applications “the 2012, throughout transparency of units they have said of Ohio.” been gov- and 25 approved cess. through the progroup The of Pockrases two dozen head Robin- a son-Vail county over residents a conditional suing the use permit issued for the Stone Meadows wedding center. The case is pending in Warren County Common Pleas Court. “It could be months and months,” Assistant County Prosecutor Bruce McGary told the commissioners. In response to the Pock- rases’ road concerns, McGary inson-Vail residents. also pointed out the wedYetter also said the county ding center was approved by was reviewing other wedding the county engineer’s office center proposals. without the need for a trafDuring a discussion with fic study or access-managethe residents’ lawyer, John ment concerns. Phillips, Commissioner Tom
Mike Yetter, the coun- Grossmann, an assistant ty’s zoning supervisor, also prosecutor in Hamilton supported the changes, County, said Warren County approved by the regional was currently “shoe-hornplanning and rural zon- ing in” wedding centers ing commissions. He said through another section the businesses are permit- of the code. ted with conditions, such Grossmann and Comas mounding, landscaping missioner Shannon Jones and a fence to block the Pock- voted to delay a vote for rases view of the wedding two weeks so Commissioner center’s 109-car parking lot. Dave Young, who was absent,
In response to the Robin- could participate in the decison-Vail appeals, Yetter said sion. the changes related to conditional uses were interwoven into the amendments, preventing them from being lifted out to satisfy the Rob-