BATAVIA TOWNSHIP, Ohio — At their first meeting since Batavia Township voters halted a planned development and scrapped the town's regulations allowing for and governing PDs, staff members and zoning board members confronted the prospect of rebuilding the code their constituents just eliminated.
A growing number of people in the Batavia Township and Village of Batavia sections of Clermont County have been telling us that development was one of their primary concerns.
Frustration reached a peak ahead of Election Day when a developer sought approval for Batavia Township's largest ever housing project: the 808-home Stonelick Ridge development.
At Thursday's zoning meeting, residents like William Albright warned the board against reintroducing code that allowed for large-scale high-density projects in the future.
"The people spoke loud and clear on election day just a week ago," Albright said. "The people are tired of tiny little lots."
Zoning and Planning Director Taylor Corbett urged the zoning board to delay official action toward reestablishing rules allowing for planned developments and guiding how they're governed until they can come up with something voters didn't immediately reject at the ballot box.
Still, he said the township needed to have something on the books under Ohio law.
"We're the only township in the state of Ohio, per my knowledge that I've looked for, that does not have PD regulations currently," Corbett said.
Corbett said he feared the township could be placed in legal jeopardy if it didn't have rules laid out in black and white.
"When you don't have a plan, bad things happen," he said.
Ken Cowan, a zoning board member, was among several board members who questioned rebuilding the code or how it would be done since voters rejected Article 36, the set of rules governing planned developments, by a double-digit margin.
"The community might think we're bypassing a recent election with them shooting down 36," Cowan said.
Corbett said the administration and the board would need to be as transparent as possible and listen to constituents to develop something that won't get outright rejected a second time.
"The trust has kind of been lost, regardless of who writes it. If I brought in a document from another township, I don't know if that has any trust," he said.
Township administration tells us the process of establishing public hearings and listening to people about what they'd like to see in updated regulations would begin at the next zoning board meeting in December.
