This month we continue a new feature initiated last September... for whatever it's worth. As NKAPC staffers keep themselves up to date regarding what's happening in other communities of the tri-state, the commonwealth, and the US, they find reports periodically that deserve a local audience.

This month we provide a September 2012 article from The Economist magazine. It provides information from recent studies that show automobile usage is declining in the US… and not just due to impacts of the Great Recession. If true, this trend could have far-reaching impacts on communities across the nation.

You can access the article here … for whatever it’s worth.

Views expressed in this article do not reflect an official position or policy of the NKAPC. The article is presented here to provide input for those interested in land use planning issues.



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Northern Kentucky’s chapter of the Kentucky Association of Professional Surveyors (KAPS) has elected Steven Lilly, PLS, as its chairman for 2013. Lilly works with local surveyors through his role as Land Surveying Analyst at NKAPC. He has been a professional land surveyor since 2002 and has worked in NKAPC’s infrastructure engineering department since 2004.

KAPS was founded in 1968 and has grown to nearly 400 public- and private-sector members in multiple states. Its purpose is to maintain and perpetuate an organization for members having common professional problems and interest; to provide effective forums for discussion and united action on the part of its members for the enhancement and betterment of professional recognition, status and conditions of employment; and, for other matters which will contribute to the welfare of its members and the government and the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.



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A proposed statement of goals and objectives for Kenton County’s first all-new comprehensive plan since 1972 is complete and nearly ready for legislative review. Final action will begin with a public hearing before the Kenton County Planning Commission and conclude with votes before each of Kenton County’s 20 local governments.

In its current form, the statement includes three guiding principles—public participation, economic considerations, and the necessary interrelationship between them. Each was a topic brought up frequently during the 70-meeting public input process that contributed greatly to the proposed statement. The guiding principles are intended to be considered in conjunction with each goal during the decision making process.

The goals and related objectives are organized in seven categories—mobility, the economy, healthy communities, natural systems, health, community identity, and governance. As with the guiding principles, these categories came directly from comments received at public meetings, small group meetings, city meetings, and subsequent discussions with the Direction 2030 task force.

“We took our time to speak and meet with any resident, organization, or legislative body that expressed an interest in the process,” said Sharmili Reddy, AICP, NKAPC’s planning manager. “We also sought out groups that are traditionally not involved in the planning process to get a well-rounded view on issues affecting our residents.”

When adopted by each of Kenton County’s 20 legislative bodies, the statement of goals and objectives will offer an integrated planning vision that recognizes the different planning needs of each of those elected bodies.

More information on Direction 2030—including the most current draft—can be found on the project website.



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Members of the area planning council—the 20-member board representing each of Kenton County’s local governments—met last week for their annual organization meeting. In addition to ongoing business, the group elected officers for 2013 and selected three individuals to serve on the area planning commission.

Those elected to serve as officers through next January’s organizational meeting are Fort Mitchell Mayor Chris Wiest as president, Edgewood Mayor John Link as vice-president, and Elsmere Mayor Marty Lenhof as secretary.
 
Covington Mayor Sherry Carran, former Park Hills councilman Dick Spoor, and former Fort Wright Mayor Gene Weaver, were selected to serve two-year terms on the area planning commission. These three will serve alongside former Fort Wright mayor Tom Litzler, Crestview Hills Mayor Paul Meier, former Fort Mitchell Mayor Bill Goetz, and Edgewood Councilwoman Nancy Atkinson through 2013.

The area planning council and area planning commission are responsible for the administrative affairs of land use planning in Kenton County. The council is made up of one elected official from each of the county’s 20 local jurisdictions. Among its responsibilities are review and approval of the annual budget, selection of seven individuals to oversee the staff, and selection of an independent auditor to review the organization’s books annually.

Despite assumptions to the contrary, the area planning commission holds oversight responsibilities for the staff. It does not make land use decisions as those duties are pursued according to state law by the Kenton County Planning Commission.

The area planning council and commission have served Kenton County since 1961. More information is available on nkapc.org.



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Last year at this time, LINK-GIS partners were anxiously waiting for good weather so that planes equipped with special cameras could capture images for their GIS programs. The resulting images are now about to be uploaded to the LINK-GIS website next month for use by the public.

In addition to the benefits provided by the updated photography, LINK-GIS partners saved approximately $90,000 through a collaborative effort with the Commonwealth of Kentucky. By flying Kenton and Campbell counties together, the partnerships were able to save an estimated 15 percent of the projected cost.

It is important to note that each county pays only for data collected within its own territory.

Between the March 2012 aerial flight and now, the LINK-GIS team conducted quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) review of the 1,693 individual images that provide a seamless view of Kenton and Campbell Counties. Every team member reviewed each product for image stretching, blurring, and precision standards that meet standards of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. LINK-GIS data has met these standards since the first aerial acquisition in 1999.

Each of the two LINK-GIS partnerships consists of the county fiscal court and PVA along with SD1 and the Northern Kentucky Water District with NKAPC as managing partner.

The last time the LINK-GIS partnerships acquired these same imagery products was in 2007; five years ago. More information on LINK-GIS can be found on its website or nkapc.org.


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Kenton County Planning Commission’s Subdivision Regulation Committee has completed its review of more than 600 suggested revisions to its draft subdivision regulations for Kenton County. That review resulted in a consensus between competing interest groups in most cases. The single issue that prompted the most discussion was street design and subsurface drainage.

“Since the Kenton County Planning Commission adopted its first subdivision regulations in the late 1970’s, the provisions haven’t included any requirement for subsurface drainage except in limited locations,” said Scott Hiles, NKAPC’s director of infrastructure engineering. “Staff was directed this time to change that and add new requirements that would achieve better performing streets that have fewer pavement failures over time.”

The draft regulations developed by staff included those provisions.

After months of review and comments from four main interest groups—the Northern Kentucky Homebuilders Association, the Northern Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers, Henry Fischer of Fischer Homes, and the Kenton County Mayor’s Group—the committee directed staff to revise the draft to:
•  limit concrete to crushed limestone aggregate to reduce D-cracking and surface deterioration;
•  increase pavement and subgrade cross-slopes for better pavement drainage;
•  increase the quality of expansion material at all expansion joints to increase their effectiveness and longevity;
•  increase amounts of expansion material at driveways, on the outside of street curves, and the terminus of the street to reduce the effects of street creep;
•  require edge drains under the curb where 51% of the adjoining lot drains toward the street and also in sag locations for increased subsurface drainage; and
•  require a detailed pavement analysis performed by a geotechnical engineer for each project to determine any other pavement and drainage enhancements that should be utilized.

The noted requirement for edge drains is similar to the design proposal made by the engineers’ group. While committee members did not direct staff to require a full drainage blanket under all pavements as the Mayor’s Group recommended, they attempted to address the issue by requiring a detailed pavement analysis on every project.

“The committee agreed that a drainage blanket is needed in certain situations,” said Hiles. “But it also believed that requiring them everywhere as a minimum standard was overkill. In the end they determined that a geotechnical engineer should decide precisely where they were needed following the required pavement analysis. The geotechnical engineer could also require other improvements such as more edge drains or longitudinal drains.”

Staff is currently in the process of crafting the new street design standards established by the committee. When complete, the committee will distribute the new standards to the four interest groups in preparation for a roundtable meeting tentatively scheduled for February 28th. The goal will be to give these four groups the opportunity to discuss the design proposal and to provide the committee with additional feedback. After this meeting, the committee will give staff a final directive on what design proposals should be included in the draft regulations.

The final step will be to schedule the resulting draft to a public hearing before the full county planning commission membership. The plan is to hold that hearing and adopt the new regulations this spring.



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The Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS), the University of Cincinnati (UC), and the local Hillside Trust are spearheading an effort to provide landslide information to local landowners in an easy-to-understand format. The organizations believe that more understanding is needed by local landowners regarding sensitivities present for landslides in this area.

Over the past year, KGS obtained LiDAR data from the LINK-GIS partnership and used these data to determine areas where landslides have occurred. KGS worked with UC staff to develop a large foldable two-sided document that has helpful photos, maps, and information. The Hillside Trust contributed $5000 to the effort so a smaller brochure could be printed for wider distribution.

KGS, UC, and the Hillside Trust will be continuing to work together while bringing other interested parties from Ohio and Indiana into the process. These groups are also in the planning stages for a symposium on landslides that would take place in the fall of 2013.

More information about the brochure will be published as this collaborative effort continues.



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Local public works and utility officials have worked with NKAPC staff over the last four years to cooperate fully in scheduling pavement and roadway maintenance activities.  The increased communication and coordination has been facilitated by the LINK-GIS online tool called Envista.

This past construction season, the online tool was used by all entities in Kenton and Campbell Counties that want to use it. The result cut down frustrations felt by the commuting public, decreased the need for pavement cuts, and provided savings to locals.

Representatives from Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, 22 cities in the two counties, the water and sanitation districts, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Duke Energy, and Cincinnati Bell are now fully enabled to use the LINK-GIS tool.

“We started a user group for the officials to learn how each agency is using the system and to keep them up to date on software changes,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s director for GIS administration. All participating entities can see current and upcoming projects through the central communication tool and can identify conflicts and opportunities to work together.

Brush cautioned, “The system is only as good as the data that are put into it. So, in order to make the tool function effectively, NKAPC staff is reminding and aiding local governments and utilities to update and check their projects for any information that would be useful to others looking at the same street segment.

“The online tool has helped to save money and promote working together through coordination. The tool has also helped the participating entities to use their road construction and maintenance dollars shrewdly, which in turn has allowed significant cost savings for local citizens.”



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After a nearly two and a half year process, the final proposed new zoning district recommended by a small area study was adopted by the Independence City Council recently. This final district allows for types of development that were not previously anticipated by the city’s zoning code. It was heard at a public hearing before the Kenton County Planning Commission on October 4th and subsequently sent to the city council for action.

This city action is the culmination of work by a steering committee of citizens appointed in late 2009. The charge presented to the group by Independence City Council was to implement recommendations of the Independence Community Small Area Study, adopted by the city and the Kenton County Planning Commission in 2007.

The appointed steering committee met monthly to review current zoning requirements, small area study recommendations, and zoning alternatives. The members’ geographic focus was for areas around downtown Independence, McCullum Pike, and the intersection of McCullum Pike with new KY 17.

The newly-adopted district is designated the Gateway Mixed Use Zone (GMU), which permits mixed-use developments with an emphasis on aesthetics and connectivity. This district illustrates trends in current development markets that are relatively new in this part of the country.

The GMU Zone focuses on the city’s desire to create a new gateway into Independence, one that will not compete with the southern gateway commercial area and the historic downtown.

Some citizens voiced apprehension about the new zoning districts before the final vote. In the end, however, city officials responded to public sentiment heard during the small area study process.

Before any recommendations were made, months were spent focused on educating the committee and making sure everyone was on the same page.

While not all committee members were in agreement on every provision of the new district, consensus was achieved on all major issues. The committee also made several alterations based on input received from the public. One of these was the decision to increase the size of the minimum development area and to extend the boundary to the west to include more land.




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CommonwealthStation will develop over time within an area across Commonwealth Avenue from the Erlanger City Building according to a strategy being developed with the assistance of city residents. Under a contract between the city and NKAPC, meetings with residents were held recently to help with a community vision for this area—a vision that will be captured in a new form-based zoning code for the area.

A form-based code is a place-specific tool. Unlike conventional zoning, it cannot be applied to different, individual areas around the city.

“A form-based code would help give the area and the people and the property there a little boost,” said Erlanger Mayor Tom Rouse. “It’s an attempt to take a look at the area and give it a shot in the arm.”

The city decided to create this community vision through a process called a “charrette”. A charrette is an intensive multi-day planning and design session where citizens, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the designers. More importantly, it allows everyone who participates to be a co-author of the vision.

The City of Erlanger held the charrette on November 16 and 17. A design team of professors and students from Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning were hired to assist in this activity. Outreach for the event included the distribution of more than 150 flyers to businesses and residents, signs posted throughout the area, notice posted online and on the electronic message board in front of the city building.

Over the two-day period, residents, business owners, and people who work in the area had the opportunity to offer their feedback and hear more formal presentations given at the end of each day. The design team worked both days to incorporate comments from the public, the steering committee, and the city into multiple development alternatives for the site. The design teams will produce refined final versions of each of the alternatives in December, which will then be presented to the public for additional feedback.



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In November, the third and final round of public meetings regarding the draft statement of goals and objectives yielded over 180 comments from the general public, local officials and organizations. Approximately 40 residents stopped by during the course of two public meetings and discussed their thoughts and concerns regarding the draft.

This statement of goals and objectives is intended as a guide to develop policies and implementation measures in the comprehensive plan. Those currently in place were adopted in 1972 during the preparation of the first Kenton County Comprehensive Plan.

The proposed statement is based on three guiding principles; public participation, economy, and relationship between goals. These are applicable to all the goals and objectives and are expected to be used in moving forward. The proposed goals focus on seven different topics including; healthy communities, economy, health, mobility, natural systems, community identity and governance. Each of these categories includes several objectives that will be used in preparing the remaining elements of the comprehensive plan.

Immediately following the last round of public meetings in November, the Direction 2030 Task Force met to discuss the submitted comments. The task force will address all public comments and post its responses on the project’s website. The draft will then be presented to each of the required legislative bodies as an additional review opportunity prior to submitting an official application for adoption.

In accordance with state statutes, an application will be submitted to the Kenton County Planning Commission (KCPC) for review. The KCPC will offer recommendations to the legislative bodies, which will have 90 days to review the proposed statement of goals and objectives and take action.

“Our process has been open and transparent to date. We have held meetings in multiple locations throughout the county to make it easy for people to attend. We have met with anyone or any organization that has had concerns. We hope that our cities have been following this process closely and offer their support,” said Sharmili Reddy, AICP, planning manager.



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The National Weather Service (NWS) office, located in Wilmington, OH, invited NKAPC staff members to make a presentation to NWS staff on its response to the tornado that struck southern Kenton County on March 2, 2012.

On December 4th, staff members from several departments, including Building Codes Administration, GIS, and Planning & Zoning described their response to the devastation. Their short- and long-term efforts for easing the burden on affected residents included: inspections and coordination with local emergency response officials; production of maps and reports used to identify damage sites; and, waiving permit fees and some regulations as the rebuilding process began.

In addition, principal GIS specialist Joe Busemeyer made a presentation on “SnowTracker”, a GIS application created to track the snow treatment and plowing status of roads for Kenton County Public Works.

After the presentation, GIS staff presented a banner map of the path of the tornado for display at the NWS office. In a follow-up message to NKAPC staff, Julia Dian-Reed, a Service Hydrologist stationed in Wilmington wrote:

“We really appreciate your visit today, and the many skills NKAPC offers to Northern Kentucky. Thank you so much for the high-resolution poster of the Piner tornado - we are discussing where to display such a great depiction of a rare EF4 tornado (since our office's existence opening in 1994, there were only 2 other F4's, in Xenia in Sept 2000 and in Blue Ash, Ohio in April 1999). With an EF4 often not survivable above ground - the message of weather safety and awareness plays a large part in our mission. Such a high quality image of the aftermath would go a long way in communicating this message to the numerous tours and visitors we have to our office each year.”

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At the recent annual Kentucky GIS Conference, senior GIS specialist Tom East, GISP was elected to the position of treasurer for the Kentucky Association of Mapping Professionals. East has been in the GIS field for over 35 years. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Mississippi State University and began his GIS career with the US Army Corps of Engineers at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, MS. Since 1990, East has worked at NKAPC and earned his GISP certification in 2009.

KAMP was founded in 2003 and has nearly 250 members from both the public and private sectors throughout Kentucky. Its purpose is to foster the understanding and use of geospatial information in all levels of government, academia, and the private sector in Kentucky. It also serves as a mechanism to promote dialogue and education to professionals involved in the collection, processing, analysis, use, and maintenance of geospatial information.



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Staff took steps in a new direction when it contracted a market analyst for technical assistance with Kenton County’s first totally-new comprehensive plan since 1972. Based on initial responses to the nature and quality of the data, staff is looking into an ongoing program to marry this type of data with LINK-GIS mapping capabilities for use by local communities, businesses, and economic development officials.

“Our initial reason for engaging the market analyst was relevance,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, executive director. “The free market is one of the most important factors determining whether a comprehensive plan is viable and likely to be implemented. The Great Recession and the ‘new normal’ it’s created makes it all the more critical that we have our finger on the pulse of the local market.

“What we got from our analyst met our initial goal. It also gave us an idea that if we could keep the data updated and available, we could assist a number of interests that work in support of Kenton County’s economic future.”

According to the program strategy being developed by staff, data developed recently by Dinn Focused Marketing would be kept up to date regularly and made available to local interests along with mapping that would make the data all the more relevant. The result, according to the draft strategy, would be more jobs and more business for the local economy.

Gordon says the idea for a “data clearinghouse” came to staff following a meeting with local homebuilders. They acknowledged that the nature and quality of the data are what they typically use when determining where to locate their next residential projects and the price range on which they should focus.

“Our development community takes huge amounts of risk on their own behalf. That means they need data to make the most accurate prediction of what the market is telling them,” said Brian Miller, executive vice president of the Homebuilders Association of Northern Kentucky. “If this data is maintained and regularly updated, we foresee the ability to heat map any demographic and economic changes in areas within the County in order to facilitate a dialogue for a number of reasons.”

Miller continued, “Zone changes, comprehensive plans, and subdivision regulations are relevant by supportive data and adaptation to changes in the local market. Flexibility is key in a more responsive planning process and it is difficult to be flexible without data that bears your assumption out.”

A recent meeting with a Covington task force looking into redeveloping neighborhoods within that city’s urban core validated the idea further, according to Gordon. “Seeing economic indicators on a neighbor-by-neighborhood basis showed these folks where they needed to focus their efforts.”

When asked when such a program might be up and running, Gordon responded that the strategy would be put on the table during upcoming discussions about NKAPC’s budget for fiscal year 2014 (that begins in July 2013). He said that while the funding necessary to make the strategy work would be minimal, he hoped to be able to raise funds outside the agency budget to help with its costs.

“These data could help private sector businesses and, as such, would make public-private partnerships totally appropriate as a funding source to keep the program going,” he concluded.



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With this month’s edition we continue a new feature initiated in September… for whatever it’s worth. NKAPC staffers keep themselves up to date on an ongoing basis regarding what’s happening in other communities of the tri-state, the commonwealth, and the US. Their goal is to keep abreast of events and offerings that can improve the efficiencies of their efforts.

In this quest, they find reports periodically that deserve a local audience because of relevance to a topic being discussed here, because of applicability to an issue here, or to inform local readers of something new and possibly relevant to Kenton County.

This month we provide a blog posting from the website Better! Cities & Towns. The website is dedicated to providing the best news, analysis, and intelligence on compact, mixed-use growth and development available in any medium. This blog posting entitled ‘Walk Appeal: the series’ considers the question of how far today’s typical citizens are willing to walk as developers nationwide propose more and more mixed-use “walkable communities.”

You can access the article here… for whatever it’s worth.



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The OKI Regional Council of Governments is updating its strategic policy plan for southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeast Indiana, and hoping to hear your opinions. OKI’s original policy plan was undertaken to improve quality of life and service to the public in the Cincinnati metropolitan region.

Much has changed since the policy plan was adopted in 2005, and OKI is re-visiting some strategic issues and considering others for the first time. In the process, OKI is inviting public feedback through a brief questionnaire that takes about five minutes to complete. The questionnaire can be found at the initiative’s website which will be available until the end of the year.

The 2005 Strategic Regional Policy Plan contains a 20-year vision for regional vitality, sustainability, and competitiveness, focusing on the land use–transportation connection. The strategic planning process addressed four questions: Where are we as a region? Where are we going given current trends? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

Six strategic subject areas were selected to focus planning to achieve the overall regional vision: transportation, public facilities and services, natural systems or resources, housing, economic development and land use. Experts and stakeholders in all of these areas were involved in the original planning effort along with OKI’s board, peer reviewers, and the public. The resulting plan called for public-private sector partnerships and recommended actions by OKI, local governments, and by both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

“As we talk with officials around the tri-state area about economic competitiveness issues, we constantly hear about the ongoing need to address certain issues at a regional level,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, NKAPC’s executive director. “We have a strong partnership with OKI and appreciate the regional perspective its staff brings to our efforts in Kenton County.”

While much has been accomplished since the plan’s adoption in 2005, much remains to be done to reach its goals and new issues have arisen with some urgency. For example, the plan is currently being revisited to consider the impacts of subsequent events like the Great Recession, the housing foreclosure crisis, and significant changes in regional demographics and expectations as baby boomers retire and more millennials affect the regional work force.

The current How Do We Grow From Here? campaign and public questionnaire are designed to provide OKI with direction while revisiting the plan’s strategic regional issues. Future opportunities for gathering additional public input will be scheduled and announced at www.HowDoWeGrow.org.




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Brian Sims, Jeff Bechtold, and John Lauber have each been building inspectors for over 15 years.  Those years of experience and their willingness to serve garnered election victories recently for each of the three NKAPC staffers in the Code Administrators Association of Kentucky (CAAK) and the Northern Kentucky Building Inspectors Association (NKBIA).

Brian Sims, CBO, NKAPC’s chief building official, was elected to a seat on the CAAK board of directors while completing his current term on the NKBIA board.

Senior building official Jeff Bechtold was elected NKBIA's president for 2013; Bechtold is also a CAAK board member.

John Lauber, senior building official, was re-elected as NKBIA's treasurer.

Since 1989, NKBIA members have worked together to improve code enforcement and uniformity in the Northern Kentucky region. Over the years, NKBIA has worked with CAAK, International Code Council, Northern Kentucky Home Builders Association, and the Office of Housing Building and Construction on code changes, statewide code adoptions, and code training.

For more than 35 years, CAAK has worked to ensure consistent and professional building code enforcement in all areas across the commonwealth. Its membership includes more than 650 building inspectors, fire officials, contractors, engineers, architects and others in related fields. CAAK works directly with the Office of Housing Building and Construction on code development, code adoptions and training.




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The Dixie Fix plan was a cooperative study conducted by the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) and NKAPC. The plan—approved in 2006—covers an eight-mile stretch of Dixie Highway through Covington, Park Hills, Fort Wright, Fort Mitchell, Lakeside Park, Crestview Hills, Edgewood, Elsmere, Erlanger, and Florence. These cities, as well as NKAPC, the Boone County Planning Commission, and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, examined access management and land use throughout the corridor. Each city also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to help better coordinate efforts to increase safety and reduce travel times.

The study focused on two major goals: a prioritized list of projects ranging from short- to long-term site specific access management recommendations and critical guidelines for implementation standards such as transit stop improvements, increased streetscape improvements, and future right-of-way widths. Another key recommendation of the study was to form an oversight team to encourage and coordinate implementation efforts suggested in the plan. This team was envisioned to meet on a recurring basis to help share information and ideas, as well as track progress of changes throughout the corridor.

Quarterly meetings began soon after the plan’s approval in 2006 and continued regularly until March 2011. The oversight team went on a temporary hiatus in mid-2011 due to the lack of improvements along the corridor due to economic recession and a slow-down in available redevelopment investments from state and federal funding.

Recently, there has been increased interest in the plan and in reconvening the oversight team. “We wanted to get the team back together because new funding opportunities had come to light on the federal and state level. Also, changes in the local elected leadership of cities along the route offered new energy and a renewed level of excitement in the overall study,” said Larry Klein, Covington city manager and vice-chair of the oversight team.

The team met in September, which provided members an opportunity to recap the study since 2006. The meeting also allowed the team to discuss new developments along the route, learn about new funding sources available for the prioritized list of projects, and talk to representatives from the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky about potential corridor transit enhancements.

Robyn Bancroft, OKI strategic projects manager and project manager of The Dixie Fix, said, “I think everyone in attendance at the September meeting found the discussion very beneficial and a great investment of their limited time. Much was discussed that can support travel improvements in every Dixie Highway community.”

To date The Dixie Fix has helped coordinate efforts such as new sidewalks in Edgewood and Crestview Hills near the Town Center, the installation of new streetscape improvements at the I-275 interchange, preliminary work on realigning Garvey and McAlpin Avenues in Erlanger, elimination of redundant bus stops, and efforts to make access safer and more efficient throughout the route.




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Planning has always played an important role in coordinating efforts of various agencies, governments, private organizations, non-profits, and residents. In Kenton County, NKAPC staff works diligently to be involved with groups throughout the community and region whose missions focus on improving the quality of life for residents.

Staff has worked closely with the Kenton Conservancy board of directors—a non-profit corporation committed to protecting lands of natural, cultural, recreational, and historical significance—since its inception over a decade ago. The Conservancy has preserved over 100 acres of land to date through voluntary donations from property owners and developers.

“Often times developers call us regarding land they own as part of a development that is intended to remain in its natural state,” said Sharmili Reddy, AICP, NKAPC’s planning manager. “This land in most cases includes hillsides and areas along streams that have very high ecological value. We work to connect these developers with appropriate agencies that have the resources to focus on land preservation. This provides a win-win outcome for both parties.”

Several current zoning districts throughout Kenton County allow for greater flexibility in the type of housing product they permit and allow for a mixture of uses. This traditionally involves an open space requirement which usually becomes the responsibility of a home owners association. With the work of the Kenton Conservancy, however, early coordination during the planning phase of the development provides a developer the opportunity to donate this land in return for federal and state tax benefits.

“We know there are a lot of groups out there working on various efforts that we may not necessarily know about or have worked with in the past,” said Jim Berling of Berling Engineering Company. “NKAPC has been a crucial point of contact for us with those groups. If we can convey remnant land to a group that is working on land conservation, it benefits the community as a whole.”

Mackey McNeil, chair of the Kenton Conservancy said, “NKAPC’s involvement provides citizens and developers a regular point of contact when dealing with our board and allows volunteers to focus on outreach, maintenance, and spreading our message to the community. We don’t believe we’d be able to continue to serve the citizens of this county without the support and guidance we receive from NKAPC.”



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State Auditor Adam Edelen’s recent push for greater accountability from the Commonwealth’s 1200+ special districts places NKAPC among those agencies in the top tier. The resulting ‘Compliance’ designation earned through this process signifies the organization meets state requirements for financial decision making and accountability.

A recent news release from the Auditor’s office said that the current system of financial oversight of these special districts treat those that comply with state laws the same way as those operating outside of it. It says “the status quo is a muddled morass of statutes, bizarre classifications, uncertain responsibilities, confusing mandates and the absence of meaningful tools to compel compliance.”

The news release announced the establishment of an online public database and accompanying report to shine new light on these districts. This category of Kentucky local governmental entities includes libraries, sanitation and water districts, public health departments, fire and ambulance districts, transit authorities, and river port authorities to name a few.

“We certainly support what the auditor’s trying to accomplish,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, executive director. “NKAPC has always pursued annual audits of its books. Our budgets have always been approved by elected officials accountable to the taxpayers, and our books have always been open and transparent for anybody with a question.”

The Citizen Auditor Initiative database and “Ghost Government: A Report on Special Districts in Kentucky” are the end results of a six-month long effort to survey known special districts and local elected officials and examine more than 1000 statutes that govern the most prevalent form of government in the commonwealth.

“To be sure, there is a difference between the districts themselves and the scandalous lack of system-wide oversight of them,” Edelen said in the news release. “Their work is critical to the communities they serve, many board members put in considerable hours on a voluntary basis and the vast majority are honest stewards of the tax dollars they spend.”

“This is the first time that information on the state's taxing districts has been made available in an online, sortable format,” said Logan Morford, vice president of transparency of the Bluegrass Institute. “As a result, citizens will be able to easily find critical information about how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent.”

The report includes legislative recommendations aimed at cleaning up the statutes that govern special districts, adding teeth to compel compliance with reporting requirements, creating an online centralized registry for special districts to report their financials and establishing education and ethics for special district board members and staff.

“This is really a significant service to the public interest,” said Richard Beliles, executive director of Common Cause of Kentucky. “This is a major, major improvement in government for the people.”

The auditor’s office worked with the Department for Local Government, members of a legislative task force studying special districts, and more than a dozen organizations that offered their support of this effort.

The full report and database can be found on the auditor’s website.



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Following a recent vote by the Covington City Commission, Northern Kentucky’s largest city returned to NKAPC’s collaborative One Stop Shop codes administration program on October 24. Building and electric permits and inspections in Covington are now part of the program that serves 14 jurisdictions in Kenton County.

“We’re very pleased to be part of a countywide approach to permitting and inspections,” said Larry Klein, Covington city manager.  “The combination of the One Stop Shop program and the convenience for our residents and businesses of being able to continue applying for their permits at Covington City Hall made this a real win-win for us”.

The One Stop Shop program unites the codes administration programs of most Kenton County local governments: building—both local and state-level jurisdiction; zoning; property maintenance; and code enforcement in a structural framework that benefits those jurisdictions and the people they serve. It also provides staff support for the jurisdictions’ boards of adjustment and code enforcement boards where they exist.

The program is built on NKAPC’s “critical mass” of professionals, providing economies of scale that are impossible for local jurisdictions to match and levels of service the local jurisdictions can’t afford.

One Stop Shop locates the primary responsibility for these programs under one roof. As this relates to construction, all applications, all fee payments, all permits, and all requests for inspections are handled from one location, one phone number, and one website. Differing fee schedules from city to city, charges at both city hall and NKAPC for the same project, and multiple interpretations of the same building code requirement were eliminated when the program began in 2005.

“We’re happy to have Covington back in the program,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, NKAPC’s executive director.  “Governments at all levels are looking for ways to be more efficient with the funds they have available to them.  The One Stop Shop program continues to prove that collaboration on efforts like this makes sense and saves tax dollars.”

More information about the One Stop Shop program is available on the NKAPC and One Stop Shop program websites.



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Direction 2030: Your Voice. Your Choice.  – a comprehensive planning effort for Kenton County is moving into a third round of public meetings to discuss  the statement of  goals and objectives..

The preparation of goals and objectives is an important step in the planning process as it represents a collective vision for Kenton County.  Upon the completion of these statements, Kenton County’s 20 legislative bodies and the Kenton County Planning Commission will consider them for adoption.

The first of the two meetings will be held at the Blessed Sacrament Church, 2407 Dixie Highway on Wednesday, November 7, 2012 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.  This Goals and Objectives Workshop will provide the opportunity for the public, various interest groups and organizations to comment on the draft goals and objectives and make suggestions to strengthen these guiding principles for our community.  This will be the last scheduled meeting for acquiring input prior to the draft being finalized.

In addition to the workshop, legislative bodies or organizations that wish to have a more focused group discussion on the draft may arrange to do so before or during the session.  Please contact Sharmili Reddy at sreddy@nkapc.org for further information on scheduling a focused group discussion.

The second of the two meetings will be a Capstone Meeting held on Monday, November 12, 2012 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at the Community Christian School, 11875 Taylor Mill Road, Independence.  This open house format meeting will present the final statement of goals and objectives to the public before it is considered each of Kenton County’s legislative bodies and the Kenton County Planning Commission.

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Tom East, Senior GIS Specialist with NKAPC, was elected as the new treasurer for the Kentucky Association of Mapping Professionals (KAMP) at the 2012 Kentucky GIS Conference held in Louisville from September 26-28, 2012.

KAMP is an organization composed of individuals from government, academia, and the private sector. Its mission is to foster an understanding of geospatial information throughout the commonwealth, and to improve management of geospatial data wherever it may be used. KAMP also seeks to provide a mechanism for dialogue regarding geospatial information issues of concern and interest to all Kentucky professionals involved in the collection, processing, analysis, use and maintenance of geospatial information.

East is a certified GIS Professional (GISP) and has been employed by NKAPC for 22 years. He has a total of 35 years of experience in the field of GIS, working at the federal, state and local levels.

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NKAPC offices will be closed on the following days in 2013: 01 January (New Year’s Day), 21 January (Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday), 18 February (Presidents’ Day), 27 May (Memorial Day), 04 July (Independence Day), 02 September (Labor Day), 21-22 November (Thanksgiving Holiday), 24-25 December (Christmas Holiday), 31 December (New Year’s Eve).

The NKAPC website is available 24/7/365, providing answers to virtually all of our most often-asked questions.

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Since 2003 the LINK-GIS website has been utilized by a myriad of surveyors, appraisers, engineers, realtors, local officials and mapping enthusiasts. And in that time its users have seen many changes and upgrades. Our goal for the website is to provide excellent service from the convenience of a home or office.

With much regret and mystery the LINK-GIS website was down from September 5th through the 13th. As the GIS team currently works to bring the site back up to the full functionality that everyone enjoys and expects, this outage was used as a chance to step forward with upgrades to the server, as well as create redundancy in the system. LINK-GIS also upgraded several software versions, which included the mapping, programming and spatial data engine (SDE) software.

What does this mean to our customers? This means faster maps, increased data reporting, less down time, upgraded services, ease of use, more data, and certainly fewer outages.

LINK-GIS is dedicated to service and appreciates your patience and support during this problematic time. If there is anything you need or service you would like to request please do not hesitate to contact us at 859-331-8980.

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LINK-GIS would like to welcome the City of Covington as a new contributing partner.
By becoming a contributor to the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) the city will receive the following benefits:

• LINK-GIS data updates on a quarterly basis;
• Eighty total hours of access to the NKAPC GIS department;
• Customization of daily GIS functions;
• Group discount on ESRI software and training;
• Forty hours dedicated to Internet Map and GPS customization; and
• Designated NKAPC staff contact person.

The City of Covington realizes the critical role that geography plays when growing and planning a city and its services. For that reason Covington has chosen to leverage GIS to make better more informed decisions. The cost of a GIS contributor is $5,000.

If your city is interested in becoming a contributor today, please call Trisha Brush at 331-8980.

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In August 2012, the City of Erlanger appointed a steering committee comprised of stakeholders to implement new form-based zoning regulations along Commonwealth Avenue on the east side of I-71/75. The city recognizes the potential for redevelopment in the project area and it is the desire of the city council to establish a vision for future development by examining and utilizing input from property owners, stakeholders, and general public in an effort to better market the area for development proposals which will better utilize the land to its highest and best use. The project has been given the name “Commonwealth Station”.

Form-based zoning regulations differ from conventional zoning in a number of ways. Form-based codes foster predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. They are regulations, not mere guidelines, adopted into city or county law. Form-based codes offer a powerful alternative to conventional zoning.

Form-based zoning	Conventional zoning
Create mixed-use districts Allow a variety of permitted uses Make it possible to walk to parks, shops, schools Reduces land consumption Streets designed for pedestrians Increases efficiency of transit Variety of housing options Increase and regulate density Defaults to walkable urbanism	Dispersed uses with a few distinct centers Spatial separation of key daily activities Excessive car travel between uses Excessive land consumption Streets designed for cars rather than people No convenient, cost effective transit Limited choice in housing supply Fear of density Default to suburban, auto-dependent development

Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks. The regulations and standards in form-based codes are presented in both words and clearly drawn diagrams and other visuals. They are keyed to a regulating plan that designates the appropriate form and scale (and therefore, character) of development, rather than only distinctions in land-use types.

This approach contrasts with conventional zoning's focus on the micromanagement and segregation of land uses, and the control of development intensity through abstract and uncoordinated parameters (e.g., floor area ratio, dwellings per acre, setbacks, parking ratios, traffic level of service), to the neglect of an integrated built form. Not to be confused with design guidelines or general statements of policy, form-based codes are regulatory, not advisory. They are drafted to implement a community plan. The goal is to try to achieve a community vision based on time-tested forms of urbanism. Ultimately, a form-based code is a tool; the quality of development outcomes depends on the quality and objectives of the community plan that a code implements.

The vision will be determined by a design charrette, a very intense two-day design process that is open to the public. As ideas are generated, drawings, sketches, and computer graphics are generated to visually display potential scenarios. As the charrette continues, the vision becomes more and more refined until a final vision is realized. It will then be up to a steering committee that has been appointed by the City of Erlanger to work with this vision and to craft regulations that will best implement the vision.

The City of Erlanger signed a contract with NKAPC for staff to facilitate the process of developing form-based zoning regulations. Under the contract, the city will be responsible for funding the project, which includes NKAPC staff and resources. This contract represents one of the last contracts where a 75 percent discount for all NKAPC costs is offered.

For more information or to provide comments, please email Andy Videkovich at avidekovich(at)nkapc.org.

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The OKI Regional Council of Governments is updating a strategic policy plan in southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeast Indiana, and they want to hear from you about your opinons. OKI’s original policy plan aimed to improve quality of life and service to the public in the region. Much has changed since the plan was adopted in 2005. With this update, OKI is re-visiting some strategic issues and considering others for the first time, and is inviting public feedback through a brief questionnaire that takes about 5 minutes to complete. The questionnaire can be found at howdowegrow.org and will be available until the end of the year.



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Meetings with the public, small groups, elected officials, task forces and cities have been the focus of planners working on the Direction 2030 project for the past year. Approximately 65 input sessions have been held to date - an unprecedented amount of public engagement for comprehensive planning efforts in Kenton County. The collected input is currently being analyzed and used in the preparation of the statement of goals and objectives (G&Os) which serves as the guide for policies and implementation measures in the comprehensive plan.

The first statement of goals and objectives for Kenton County were prepared during the adoption of the first comprehensive plan in 1972. The G&Os while reviewed every five years has essentially remained the same for the last 40 years. The economic and demographic changes of the last decade have necessitated the review and rework of these goals and objectives. As part of the Direction 2030: Your Voice Your Choice project, a joint task force of about 30 members has reviewed and discussed broad goal concepts based on their varied expertise and more importantly public input. These broad goal concepts are currently being transformed into countywide goals and objectives.

Public engagement has been the focus of the Direction 2030 effort and will continue to be through the G&Os phase. A public work session will be held on Wednesday, November 7, from 6-8 p.m. at the Blessed Sacrament Church, 2407 Dixie Highway in Fort Mitchell. A draft of the G&Os will be presented to the attendees for their comments. Additional focused small group meetings with interested organizations is also being planned prior to and as part of the work session. Input received at this work session will be used to revise the G&Os and will be presented the following week at a capstone meeting on Monday, November 12 from 6-8 p.m. at the Community Christian School located at 11875 Taylor Mill Road in Independence.

 “This is a critical step in the planning process. This is the phase when we strive to achieve a common set of goals and objectives that Kenton County residents and elected officials can embrace as one vision for the county,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, NKAPC’s executive director.

Following the public review of the G&Os they will be submitted to the Kenton County Planning Commission (KCPC). The KCPC will send the draft G&Os to each of the 19 Kenton County legislative bodies. State law gives each of the legislative bodies 90 days to review the G&Os and decide on actions. The KCPC will then hold a public hearing prior to considering adoption of the G&Os into the Direction 2030 plan. This process, including the 90-day review period, is expected to take five months beginning in January 2013.

Additional information on these meetings will be available on the project website, direction2030.org.






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NKAPC publishes a monthly online newsletter that focuses on local planning and development-related subjects. Becoming a subscriber is free, and an email version of the newsletter will be sent to you automatically. All past and current issues of this publication are available to everyone visiting nkapc.org.

Join our mailing list today!

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NKAPC’s budget for Fiscal Year 2012-2013 is built on a number of growing trends related to both revenues and expenditures for the organization. Those trends were highlighted for city and county elected officials last month during the discussion that led to them approving it.

The work accomplished by three NKAPC GIS staff will be featured at the 2012 ESRI International User Conference this July.  Billed as ‘The Biggest GIS Event on Earth,’ this 27th annual conference will bring together over 16,000 GIS users and company executives from over 140 countries.

The conference will provide those in attendance an opportunity to connect with other GIS users and attend technical training sessions, including those classes to be taught by NKAPC staff.

Christy Powell, GISP, one of NKAPC’s GIS programmers, will represent NKAPC and the LINK-GIS partnership in presenting a session entitled ‘Citizen Engagement in Public Works.’ Powell’s presentation will include staff’s experience working with Kenton County's public works department to develop a website that will provide information about the status of county-maintained roads during winter weather events.

“We thought it would be a good topic because of the budgetary effects of snow removal and its impact on local budgets,” Powell said. “I’ll show the benefits to citizens and public works officials to be able to view roads that are treated and ready for daily traffic loads.”

Ryan Kent, GISP, one of NKAPC’s GIS specialists, will represent NKAPC and the LINK-GIS partnership in presenting a conference session entitled ‘Geo referencing (defining a location on a paper map within a map projection) Historic Maps for Today’s Issues’. Kent’s presentation will include staff working with Kenton County's public works department to deliver historical topography information dating back to 1920 or 1930 on a potential brownfield (abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use) site.

“This shows how data from the past can be joined with present day information to make better decisions.” Kent said. “Not only did public works officials get the information they wanted, but they also received it within a day of requesting it.”

The third presenter is Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s director of GIS administration.  She will present a session entitled ‘I See Dead People: Mapping Underground Assets of Cemeteries.’  Brush’s presentation includes the trials and tribulations of taking local cemetery data from old cemetery record books and converting them to digital records.

LINK-GIS is a collaborative electronic mapping partnership managed by the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission on behalf of Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, the Kenton and Campbell County PVAs, the Northern Kentucky Water District, and Sanitation District 1 of Northern Kentucky.



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On August 1st Keith Logsdon, AICP, NKAPC’s long-range planning director, begins to implement retirement plans he and his wife made over the course of his 37-year career. That’s a lot of time spent working with citizens and elected and appointed officials to plan their communities’ futures and helping to implement visions from those plans.

“I’m really happy that Keith is able to take this step in his life,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, NKAPC’s executive director. “He’ll really be missed and leave some large shoes to fill.”

Logsdon started with NKAPC in August 1990. His responsibilities during those early days included working on comprehensive plan updates for Campbell County cities, reports for the Kenton County Planning Commission, zoning administration, managing co-op students from UC, and assisting with efforts to establish tree boards and the Northern Kentucky Urban and Community Forestry Council. Prior to relocating to Northern Kentucky, Logsdon was employed as a planner by a consulting firm in Lexington, the Hopkins County Joint Planning Commission, and the City of Winchester/Clark County. Immediately before coming to NKAPC he served as planning director for the City of Frankfort from 1984 to 1990.

Logsdon left NKAPC in 2001 to pursue work in the private sector with Wilbur Smith Associates in Cincinnati. His appreciation for the challenges of the public sector and the creation of a long-range planning function brought him back to NKAPC in 2003 when he assumed the role of long-range planning director. His nine-year stint in that position was highlighted by a comprehensive plan update in 2006 and the crafting of seven small area studies for specific areas of Kenton County where change is either anticipated or desired. He was also responsible for the beginning of Direction 2030, the first all-new comprehensive plan for Kenton County since 1972.

“We accomplished a lot,” said Logsdon and added quickly, “and those accomplishments leave a lot yet to be done. Crafting and guiding the community’s future takes a lot of effort.”

“Part of Keith’s legacy here as long-range planning director will be the absolute need for citizens and stakeholders to play a major role in the creation of long-range plans,” said Gordon. “As planners, we’re taught the value of citizen involvement. One benefit of small area studies is their capacity to involve citizens in planning for the future of their neighborhoods. For Keith this was something more than just a lesson learned. He truly walked the walk.”

Logsdon is quick to respond when asked if he plans to exit the public arena as he looks forward to more personal challenges. “No… I plan to stay in touch with what’s going on and to remain active in community issues and conversations. My wife, Catherine and I look forward to spending more time together but we know the importance of community. After all, this is still home,” he said.

When asked to reflect on challenging times and lessons learned, Logsdon thought a minute and turned to the petition effort that dogged NKAPC through a good part of last year. “I think our detractors strengthened us as an organization—the Area Planning Council, the Area Planning Commission, the Kenton County Planning Commission, and the professional staff. We’re all better and stronger for having been through the fires of public controversy.”

NKAPC’s long-range planning director position will not be filled when Logsdon retires. Instead, the agency’s long-range planning functions are being incorporated into a new Department of Planning and Zoning Administration. Martin Scribner, AICP, will head the combined department and Sharmili Reddy, AICP, will assist as planning manager.

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On June 7th before the Kenton County Planning Commission, two of three proposed zoning districts received positive recommendations from Commission members. Those proposed districts have now been sent back to Independence City Council for final action, bringing the nearly two-year process close to completion.

A steering committee of citizens was appointed in late 2009 by Independence City Council to implement recommendations of the Independence Community Small Area Study. These recommendations were adopted by the city council and the Kenton County Planning Commission in 2007. The planning commission’s action incorporated the study’s contents into the Kenton County comprehensive plan.

The appointed steering committee met close to monthly for a year and a half to review current zoning requirements, small area study recommendations, and zoning alternatives. The members’ geographic focus was for areas around downtown Independence, McCullum Pike, and the intersection of McCullum Pike with new KY 17.

The steering committee presented its recommendations to the Independence City Council over the first few months of 2012, one district at a time. Those recommendations included the following three new zoning districts:
•    DI/Downtown Independence Zone
•    CD-SF/Conservation Development Single-Family Overlay Zone
•    GMU/Gateway Mixed Use Zone

The public hearing, which included the presentation of both maps and text for the Downtown Independence Zone and the Conservation Development Single-Family Overlay Zone, was well attended by Independence residents and business owners. Much of the testimony, however, was in opposition to the proposed zoning updates.

Many of the residents claimed that the regulations should remain as they currently are; some even stating, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Many also said they did not feel like they had had adequate input during the process.

The Gateway Mixed Use Zone is expected to be discussed in further detail by the Independence City Council before sending it to the KCPC in the near future.

“Our committee worked diligently to reach consensus on these recommendations. Our process was open and included two public forum opportunities for community input. The public input definitely influenced our final recommendations and I think helped create a better end product,” said Rodney Crice, a citizen member of the steering committee. A detailed report of changes made by the committee based on public input can be found at the NKAPC website.

Crice concludes that he is pleased with the final recommendations. “If council approves the new zoning codes, we will have achieved a primary goal for implementing and realizing the small area study recommendations.”



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The Commonwealth of Kentucky adopted the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code  in late 2010 with a mandatory enforcement date of June 6, 2011 for commercial applications. The process for residential applications wasn’t so easy.

The Board of Housing required numerous studies to be performed. A small committee made up of home builders, mechanical contractors, energy specialists, and code officials was assigned the task of putting a value on the differences between the 2006 and 2009 codes. After the information was gathered and provided, the Board of Housing approved the 2009 edition, which becomes mandatory on October 1, 2012.

Adoption of the new code includes new inspection requirements. “We’re starting now to perform energy inspections for residential homes. This means there will be an additional insulation inspection after the framing inspection. We’ll also need to bring back the requirement for single-family slab inspections,” said Brian Sims, CBO, NKAPC’s chief building official.

Secondly, there is the need for training and education. The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction (DHBC) and the Code Administers Association of Kentucky (CAAK) collaborated to provide six CEUs to builders, designers, and code officials who completed the training. Instead of using outside instructors, DHBC and CAAK selected a few employees to be co-facilitators for these classes. The goal was to produce a comfortable interactive session for all of the participants.

Trainer education started in December. Jeff Bechtold, Senior Building Official with NKAPC, was one of the CAAK members to participate in this training. “It was quite a surprise and honor to be selected from such an educated membership,” Bechtold stated.

The three-person teams taught at least three of the scheduled ten one-day classes, located in eight cities across the state to facilitate participation and reduce the overall travel for attendees.

The Home Builders Association of Northern Kentucky also asked Bechtold to provide its members with training on June 19th.



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The majority of respondents to a recent public meeting keypad survey chose employment as the element that needs the most improvement locally. Based on that consensus, economic competitiveness will be the focus of the next public meeting scheduled for July 25th from 6-8 p.m. at Simon Kenton High School in Independence.

Fifty-five percent of respondents selected jobs as the most important local issue when compared to shops and amenities, outdoor recreation, housing options, and education. The desire for better employment was also articulated in small group discussions. At almost every meeting citizens have expressed strong concerns about good jobs for youth as an incentive to stay in the area.

A portion of the meeting will include a discussion amongst panelists after which the public will have a chance to ask questions or make comments—a similar format to the June 14th public forum on healthy communities. A summary of that session is posted on the project's website.

In addition, a forum specifically for elected officials from Kenton County’s 20 jurisdictions will be held on July 19th at the Edgewood Senior Center.  That session will discuss specific county-wide and city issues.

Both meetings will further the conversation on policies that can be addressed in the Kenton County Comprehensive Plan: housing; land use; transportation; environment; and, community facilities. Preparation of the plan's goals and objectives is anticipated to begin in September after the conclusion of this second round of public meetings.



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In 2005, NKAPC hired their first electrical inspector as a way of streamlining their One Stop Shop program. Soon afterward, two more inspectors were hired to meet the needs of the customers. This continued until the economic crash hit in 2008-09, and like many other companies and government entities NKAPC was forced to look at cutbacks, including personnel.

In early 2010, NKAPC sought to privatize their electrical inspections as a way of saving money and still fulfilling their obligations set forth from the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction in Frankfort.

After an RFQ process, Inspections Bureau Inc. (IBI) was awarded a two-year contract on July 5, 2010. NKAPC issued the permits, while IBI performed the inspections within NKAPC jurisdictions and collected fees for their work.

To ensure NKAPC’s customers kept receiving the best service possible, another RFQ sent out near the end of the contract with IBI. The process included the same style of qualifications as before but with one big change; the requirements for online applications, inspection scheduling and status updates on inspections.

NKAPC received three responses to the RFQ by the May 18, 2012 deadline; Inspections Bureau Inc, Electric Inspections, and NEC Inspections and Education.

On June 25, 2012, the NKAPCommission will approve and sign the contracts of the approved recipients who have demonstrated they meet the criterion set before them. Electrical contractors/homeowners will be able to choose between any of the awarded inspection firms for their electrical inspection needs.

Permits will still be issued from the NKAPC’s office on a walk-in/walk-out basis. Once the permit has been issued and work has started, the customer will have the option to choose from any approved, contracted firm to conduct the inspections.

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Since its start, the Direction 2030 project has continuously emphasized the importance of public input and interaction with the key persons who deal with issues addressed in the Comprehensive Plan.

Opportunities for such dialogues include public meetings held in different areas of the county, small group meetings with groups traditionally not represented in the public meetings, meetings with a Technical Task Force, and a Planning Task Force. The Kenton County Planning Commission which includes one representative appointed by each legislative body has the final authority to adopt the Comprehensive Plan.

While over 200 people attended the first round of four public meetings, the small group sessions allow a more in-depth conversation with different groups in the community. One such meeting was held after an initial public meeting at Piner Elementary School.

“These small group meetings have allowed us to hear the specific issues that residents of southern Kenton County have mentioned. The needs of the residents are somewhat different from the rest of the county and we are working in collaboration with theDirection 2030 effort to bring those issues to the forefront,” said Kenton County Commissioner Beth Sewell.

A small group meeting was also held in Elsmere with the African American community, who represent 4.6 percent of Kenton County’s population according to the 2010 U.S Census.
 
“We appreciate the opportunity to bring our thoughts and ideas to the table as part of theDirection 2030 effort,” said Jerome Bowles, President of the Northern Kentucky branch of the NAACP and Technical Task Force member.

A continued effort will be made to keep all the groups involved in the planning process as the plan moves into the second round of public input meetings. The input received at these meetings will be presented to the Planning Task Force for their consideration, and then the preparation of goals and objectives will begin.

“The Comprehensive Plan is the foundation for planning efforts, including zoning and subdivision regulations, in Kenton County. We strongly encourage residents of Kenton County to get involved in the planning process so you can have a say in the adopted policies,” said Paul Darpel, Chairman of the Kenton County Planning Commission.




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Cutting the tax revenue that has subsidized them, One Stop Shop Program fees for new permits, new phases of existing projects, and reinspections will increase an average of ten percent effective Monday, July 2, according to NKAPC executive director Dennis Gordon, FAICP.

“Although Kentucky statutes authorize charging what it costs to provide fee-based services, we’ve held off increasing these fees for a while in deference to local builders whose businesses have been decimated by this recession,” he said. “Unfortunately, this response has had a very negative impact on the tax revenue we receive.”

Gordon says local elected officials want to see a reversal to the trend of public funds subsidizing fee-driven services. “They don’t believe that’s an appropriate use of tax dollars.”

Open permits for which fees have been paid and on which reinspections are not required will not be assessed any additional costs, according to Gordon.

One Stop Shop Program components include: building, electric, HVAC, and zoning permits; building, electric, and HVAC inspections; hearings before local boards of adjustment; and, local code enforcement board fines.

NKAPC has handled these responsibilities for numerous Northern Kentucky local governments since 2005. The new fee schedule is available online at the One Stop Shop program website.


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The LINK-GIS partnership signed contracts recently with Pictometry International Corp. to update aerial images of Campbell and Kenton Counties. When uploaded into its system, these new digital images will provide jurisdictions in both counties with two ways to view their territories—the traditional bird’s-eye view and now a 3-D view.

Pictometry captures high-resolution images obliquely—or from an angle—allowing users such as emergency services personnel, property assessors, and zoning officials to see land features and structures clearly and in their entirety.

“Pictometry gives me five ways to view a parcel, compared to the traditional one top-down shot. These new images will be really helpful for firefighters and police responding to calls,” said Ben Campbell, Campbell County Property Valuation Administration’s, Chief Deputy in charge of mapping. “Pictometry is a new angle on an old product.”

Pictometry’s interactive measuring tool will also be helpful for zoning and property valuation staff. They can measure buildings from the ground up, see how many stories a house has, and measure the perimeter around a structure, for example. Traditional bird’s-eye view images don’t provide this ability.

This 3-D ability to see properties from their desk will help assessors save time and money by cutting field costs. It will also allow them to see restricted properties, verify records, and resolve claim disputes. This technology will not be available on the website due to licensing costs that are expensive to maintain.

An added benefit that was realized this March was that Pictometry International Corp. will re-fly the two counties without charge in the event of a natural disaster and provide the resulting photos quickly. Due to the tornado that hit the Piner area in Kenton County and the National Weather Service declaring it an F4, we receive updated aerials of the affected area in as little as two weeks after the event. This aided in faster cleanup efforts and insurance claim processing.

“The ability to give the citizens of Kenton County immediate assistance after the tornado was a huge benefit that we gained from the photos provided by Pictometry,” stated Mark Vogt, Kenton County Property Valuation Administrator.

The 3-D aerial images were shot in March and delivered to the LINK-GIS partnership in May for immediate review and utility. By joining the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s efforts to fly imagery for the entire state, the partnership was able to save $21,000 on oblique imagery and an additional 15 percent by flying the two counties together.

The LINK-GIS partnership is a multi-jurisdictional relationship made up of the Fiscal Courts of Kenton and Campbell Counties, the PVAs of Kenton and Campbell Counties, the Northern Kentucky Water District, SD1, and the Area Planning Commission. NKAPC is the managing partner and provides centralized support services to the others as well as assistance to the public.

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At its busiest, the number of public hearings on any given Kenton County Planning Commission agenda might have been in double digits. But over the last several years, those numbers have waned, even to the point of cancelling a handful of meetings due to lack of any agenda items at all.

However, the KCPC is seeing a new resurgence of business as more hearings are scheduled.

“In all of 2011 there were approximately 35 items heard by the Kenton County Planning Commission,” said Andy Videkovich, Senior Planner for NKAPC. “It’s hard at this point to determine if this is part of a larger trend or just an anomaly.”

June’s KCPC agenda was lengthy due to the intricate nature of the requests, and what July’s agenda lacks in intricacy, is gained in sheer volume. The majority of these requests are zoning code text amendments and a few zoning map amendments.

With the downturn in the economy and lack of development activity, came a major decrease in the number of zoning amendments.

“Because only one of these requests came from a property owner, it is likely that the cities of Kenton County are doing one of two things; either using the lull in activity to prepare their ordinances for future development that some experts have said is imminent or making compromises that might help make those predictions a reality,” said Martin Scribner, Deputy Director for Planning and Zoning Administration.

Paul Darpel, Kenton County Planning Commission Chair, said, “I’m hopeful that this is indicative of a trend that the cities are getting ready for a much needed upturn in development.”

Other major items are also on the horizon for the KCPC, such as the adoption of the updated Kenton County Subdivision Regulations and the adoption of the Kenton County Comprehensive Plan, known as Direction 2030.


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After three inches of rain fell recently over a few days in Bellevue, there was a hillside behind a row of condominiums that slid into the homes. This is just one of a growing number of landslide sites Matt Crawford from Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) has visited in Northern Kentucky.

“I got involved in this slowly at first by compiling a landslide inventory of sites all around Kentucky with data from a variety of sources,” Crawford says. “I started visiting the sites to check the information I was putting into the database.”

Northern Kentucky has become a frequent destination for his visits, because of the high number of landslides in the region. “Our job is to communicate what we know about geology, steep slopes, soils, and about activities that destabilize slopes,” stated Crawford.

Field studies also help to verify landslide locations using light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data provided to KGS by the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission on behalf of the LINK-GIS partnership. Crawford explains LiDAR data is taken from an aircraft and uses pulses of light or lasers to collect very accurate terrain information. “It allows the creation of high-resolution digital elevation models,” he says, “and there are features in this data that can indicate landslide activity not easily noted by simply looking at the terrain.”

The data helped identify susceptible areas that may not have been a problem—yet. “It may have been a creeping slope that after a large rain will be more susceptible to material sliding off.”

LiDAR may not detect some landslide-related features because of development and other changes to a landscape. But field visits have confirmed landslides at many of the 234 locations indicated by LiDAR data to be a possible risk in Northern Kentucky.

Due to the geology of the Northern Kentucky area and the LiDAR data available this made the study by KGS a perfect match. Though local government and regional planning agencies have been considering whether to enact regulations relating to landslide susceptibility, Crawford says he limits his scope to geologic work.


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After the storms of March 2, efforts to facilitate the rebuilding of homes in that area of Kenton County began immediately. NKAPC staff began a comprehensive review of the area and of the Kenton County Zoning Ordinance to ensure that property owners would be able to rebuild their homes and barns with a minimum of red tape.

It was quickly discovered that many properties in this area had homes or barns that fall under a category known in the zoning code as a “nonconforming” structure. This means that these structures were most likely built prior to the adoption of the current zoning code and, as a result, do not meet one or more of the zoning regulations for that zone. It also means that these structures would have to go through an extra step in the process of rebuilding, with the possibility that they may not be allowed to be rebuilt as they were.

NKAPC staff quickly brought this situation to the attention of the Kenton County Fiscal Court and advised that there were options that might make this process less cumbersome for the property owners and could ultimately permit some reconstruction that would not have otherwise been allowed. The fiscal court instructed staff to work pre-emptively with the Kenton County Board of Adjustment to resolve the situation with the least amount of hassle to the affected property owners. The fiscal court also passed resolutions to support this effort and to instruct staff to halt all code enforcement activities in this area to allow property owners to get debris cleaned up without the risk of incurring code violations.

Planning staff used information gathered by NKAPC building inspectors to inventory damaged “nonconforming” buildings. Most of these were either too close to a property line or had more structures on the property than were allowed. This inventory was then presented to the Kenton County Board of Adjustment, who had the option of either discontinuing those nonconforming uses or allowing them to be rebuilt.

The Board of Adjustment voted unanimously to allow all structures on the inventory list to be rebuilt the way they were prior to the storms, provided that they would attain the appropriate permits and did not expand the nonconformity of the structure. The board also provided an 18 month window for attaining building permits. If a property owner seeks a building permit to rebuild a nonconforming structure after that 18 month period, then that request must be resubmitted to the Kenton County Board of Adjustment for further review.

It should be noted that any property owner who chooses to rebuild a structure but changes the specifications to meet the current zoning code will not be subject to the above review.

To date, 42 storm-related building permits have been issued by NKAPC in this area, 27 of which were nonconforming structures that were allowed to be rebuilt because of this process, initiated by NKAPC staff. All permit fees were also waived for these permits to help minimize the headaches involved in getting residents back to their lives.

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Since January of this year, the Kenton County Planning Commission has been hosting all of the major stakeholders in the community that will be affected by the proposed changes to the Kenton County Subdivision Regulations. These face-to-face meetings have taken place so commissioners can hear each group’s comments and concerns. A total of six groups have made presentations to the planning commission, the last of which occurred at the end of April.

It appears that most of the expressed concerns can be addressed. However, there is one main issue that remains unresolved; the issue of how streets should be designed.

“It seems most everyone agrees that some streets are failing before their expected design life,” said Scott Hiles, Deputy Director for Infrastructure Engineering. “But little consensus between the groups has been reached as to the cause of this premature failure, or what should be done about it.”

Staff heard from the majority of local officials that they were spending taxpayer dollars to repair streets long before they should. The early consensus from staff was that water infiltrating under the streets from behind the curb line was one likely culprit. “Most front yards are graded to drain toward the street,” said Hiles. “During much of the year water from sump pumps, gutters, overwatering of irrigation systems and just rainfall can flow to the street, get behind the curb and ultimately under the street causing some of these failures that local officials are seeing.”

Staff addressed this issue by proposing an underdrain under the entirety of the curb line for all streets. From that point forward, the Northern Kentucky Homebuilder’s Association Land Development Council (LDC), Northern Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers (NKYSPE) and the Kenton County Mayors’ Group have all weighed in with different proposals.

The LDC’s position has been that the current standards for street design seem to be sufficient, but that individual situations may warrant a design upgrade. The LDC is in support of keeping the street standards as they are, but letting a geotechnical investigation determine if and where an upgrade to the standards should be provided.

“The Northern Kentucky Homebuilder’s Association Land Development Council recognizes that the current pavement regulations are performing well in other municipalities in Northern Kentucky, and that the key to reaching the design life of any pavement is proper well timed care and maintenance during the pavement’s lifecycle,” said Joe Kramer, an engineer representing the LDC. “The proposal to install underdrains and granular drainage blankets under all pavements will not add a significant benefit to the performance and lifecycle costs of the pavement.”

NKSPE did recommend requiring an underdrain under the curb, but only in street sag locations and fronting lots where 95% of the lot drained toward the street. NKSPE also recommended a change to the aggregate used in the concrete for concrete streets.

“Through our research the NKSPE Pavement review committee found that the majority of current pavement failures are the result of inconsistent materials, and therefore most of our recommendations focused on the need for better specifications and monitoring of the materials used,” said Michelle Bollman, President of the NKSPE. “We also identified the need for some subsurface drainage improvements and a better maintenance plan in our recommendations.”

The Mayors’ Group took staff’s proposal one step further. They are recommending that in addition to the underdrain under the curb, a drainage blanket under the pavement also be required to capture any additional water that may be either present in the subgrade soils or infiltrate through the pavement itself. “As local officials, our goal was to propose a street design that will stand the test of time so that city and county taxpayers aren’t required to pay to fix streets that fail prematurely,” said Crestview Hills Mayor Paul Meier, Chairman of the Kenton County Mayors’ Group. “We’re confident that our proposal accomplishes this goal.”

The planning commission recently requested that each group provide cost information for the proposals and are expecting to receive that information soon. “Cost will ultimately be one of the primary factors the planning commission has to consider when they choose which proposal to adopt,” said Paul Darpel, Chairman of the Kenton County Planning Commission.

But rather than just basing their decision on what the cost increase would be for an upgraded street standard, they’ll have the difficult job of weighing the increased cost against the benefit the overall community would receive. That decision will be made by the planning commission later this year at a special public hearing which has yet to be scheduled.


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Direction 2030 is quickly moving into the second phase of public input as planners prepare for two roundtable meetings. The first meeting will be held on June 14th at Ludlow High School and the second will be held in mid-July, details of which will be announced soon. Based on guidance from the Direction 2030 Planning Task Force, the focus of these two roundtables will be to seek expert feedback on issues expressed by residents from the first round of meetings.

As planners work toward recommending policies, input from many diverse communities within Kenton County is critical in appropriately shaping the vision for the entire county. The input gathered from the four public meetings, five targeted meetings with groups not represented at the public meetings, as well as from Direction2030’s Technical Task Force and Planning Task Force is important to articulate the main policy issues.

The Planning Task Force includes members of the Kenton County Planning Commission, Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission and the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Council. The Technical Task Force is comprised of representatives from key public agencies and those with expertise in areas that the comprehensive plan is required to address.

The two roundtable discussions will include a presentation by Dinn Force Marketing, describing market metrics that need to be considered and how those metrics align with input gathered during the first round of meetings.

“These upcoming meetings are important for elected officials, planning commission members and the general public to attend. These meetings are a good opportunity for us as a community to educate ourselves on opportunities and constraints in implementing policy issues raised by people in Kenton County. Most importantly, these meetings will provide the critical information to begin preparing countywide goals and objectives and provide direction for policy,” said Kenton County Planning Commission chair Paul Darpel.

Following the second round of sessions, a capstone meeting will be held to gather feedback from the community on the draft Goals and Objectives element for the comprehensive plan. Public input is important to ensure that the county is prepared to overcome current obstacles, particularly as it relates to market conditions, and is positioned to successfully provide a healthy community for current and future residents.

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Citizens in Kenton and Campbell Counties will reap the benefits of lower costs for aerial photography and mapping, thanks to NKAPC / LINK-GIS participation with a new state program. The commonwealth of Kentucky has a new effort to collect aerial imagery for the entire state over a three year period. LINK-GIS coordinated with the state plan and saved approximately $90,000 in local funds. Additionally, by flying the two counties together, the partnership was able to save an estimated 15 percent. It is important to note that each county pays only for data collected for their individual counties.

The data that the partnership will acquire include: oblique photography which is taken from an airplane with the camera directed horizontally or diagonally downward, orthophotography, updated planimetric mapping, infrared,  and LiDAR which uses pulses of light or lasers to create accurate terrain information. The infrared is a new product that we have not received in the past. It is particularly useful in agricultural and vegetation classifications. The oblique products which are helpful to local law enforcement are provided by Pictometry, Inc., and will be available to the public by mid-summer. All other data products will be provided from Photoscience, Inc.

The LINK-GIS partnership: Kenton County Fiscal Court, Campbell County Fiscal Court, SD1, Northern Kentucky Water District, Kenton County PVA, Campbell County PVA and NKAPC, have come together to make the new imagery acquisition a reality. LINK-GIS already has the first delivery of the obliques from Pictometry; and due to the more involved quality control and quality assurance process, the remainder of the products will be received by the end of the year.

The last time the LINK-GIS partnership acquired these same imagery products was in 2007; five years ago. Pictometry is a two year contract and was last flown in 2010.

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Ludlow City Council and the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission entered into an agreement effective March 15th that puts NKAPC in charge of the city’s building, electric, property maintenance, and zoning codes administration. Ludlow is the 14th Northern Kentucky jurisdiction to enter into NKAPC’s One Stop Shop program.

The program also provides staff support for Ludlow’s board of adjustment and code enforcement board. The program is built on NKAPC’s “critical mass” of professionals, providing economies of scale that are impossible for local jurisdictions to match and levels of service the local jurisdictions can’t afford.

“We’re pleased to welcome Ludlow to this program,” said Dennis Gordon, NKAPC’s executive director. “Mayor Wynn and City Administrator Brian Richmond have given us marching orders regarding the city’s priorities; we understand code enforcement is Job 1.”

Filing code enforcement complaints, seeking information about building or electric inspections, and searching for a property’s zoning classification is now one phone call away. NKAPC can be reached at 331-8980 between 8 and 5 Monday through Friday. Considerable information in this regard is also available at www.nkapc.org.

“The One Stop Shop program has helped a number of cities to increase service levels for their citizens and to reduce costs. We’re looking forward to providing those benefits to Ludlow and its citizens,” concluded Gordon.


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NKAPC is nearing the end of a three-month project to inventory Elsmere’s signs, sidewalks, and streetlight assets. The sign inventory alone will assist the city in preparing for an upcoming Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) mandate.
 
This federal mandate requires all municipalities to have an asset management system in place by 2012, which will track  the retro reflectivity of their regulatory and warning signs. The first step in that process is to conduct an inventory to determine exactly what signs a city has, and precisely where they are located.

As part of this initial inventory, NKAPC is collecting condition data for each sign as well as whether the sign has reflective qualities at all. This will save the city time when they begin the second phase which requires retro reflectivity to be measured. “Elsmere won’t need to measure the reflectivity of the signs we have identified as being in poor condition or never being reflective to begin with,” said Scott Hiles, NKAPC’s deputy director for infrastructure engineering. “They can just slate them for replacement.”

In addition to signs, NKAPC inventoried all streetlight locations and all locations of sidewalks containing damage. The sidewalk inventory included an assessment of the repair area to determine the type and severity of each failure.

NKAPC used GPS technology to collect locations of these assets by walking 55 miles of city streets and to provide Elsmere all the information in a digital GIS map format.

“The end result of this effort will allow Elsmere to pull up a digital interactive map and see exactly where and what signs, sidewalk damage, and street lights are located within the city. They can then click on the digital asset to identify background information we collected about the asset while on-site” said Hiles.

Having that detailed information will allow Elsmere to determine budgetary needs and options available to them immediately and in the years to come.

NKAPC began this project in December 2011 and will finish later this month. “We’re on target to collect over 2,600 inventory points in total,” Hiles said. “We have the equipment and experience now that we’ve completed projects for Kenton County, the City of Covington, and the City of Elsmere” Hiles said. “We’re open to other projects that any other cities might want us to complete for them.”


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The second round of public meetings for Direction 2030: Your Voice, Your Choice, the new comprehensive plan for Kenton County, has been scheduled. Mark your calendars for June 14 from 6-8PM at Ludlow High School.

The first meeting will provide attendees with an overview of market forces. Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Amanda Van Benschoten will moderate a panel discussion, and the program will conclude with a work session where the public can discuss issues in greater detail. The second meeting will center on policy level issues that will be used to prepare countywide goals and objectives.

“Over 200 citizens attended and participated in the first round of meetings held between last October and December.  They provided their thoughts on Kenton County today and what they would like to see in the future,” said Sharmili Reddy, AICP, senior planner for long-range planning.

Employment was an area of interest to a majority of the respondents that attended the meeting. Concerns regarding good jobs for youth were expressed. The desire for a more comprehensive transit system and alternate modes of transportation were also discussed. The topic of accessibility was brought up in multiple meetings as it relates to the aging population in Kenton County and the need for this demographic to be close to amenities.

In two of the four meetings attendees thought the urban core needs to be strong in order to attract the younger generation. Several comments were made about the lack of amenities (night life, mass transit, and housing choices) to retain younger residents within the area.

“A big focus of Direction 2030 is to align policy with market reality. We have to be evermore mindful of the market during these tough economic times, especially when providing policy guidance for the future. We are excited about the information we received from the public and now we need to focus on how we can make that happen by having a good understanding of the market forces,” said Reddy.

To assist with providing that marketing expertise, the services of Michael Dinn with Dinn Focused Marketing have been sought. He and other local experts will provide their perspectives to the issues during the meeting on June 14.

A third round of meetings will focus on acquiring more input from the public on the plan’s goals and objectives. The feedback will be reviewed by all Kenton County legislative bodies and NKAPC, and their recommendations will be considered for adoption by the Kenton County Planning Commission.

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On February 18 representatives from three citizen groups—Independence Strategic Action Committee (ISAC), Linden Gateway Oversight Committee, and the Latonia Strategic Action Committee—presented progress reports to the Kenton County Mayors’ Group.

These citizen groups were formed after the completion of small area studies in an effort to demonstrate that the implementation of these studies does not have to fall back on cities. Actively engaging citizens during the preparation of the study can enable the community to take ownership of the study and move it forward.

The NKAPC’s extensive public engagement efforts drew a large number of people to the focused nature of the studies. “Given the level of public interest in these studies it was important for us to leave these communities with a strong but easy strategy for implementation. This led to the recommendation of forming citizen groups to focus on implementation,” said Sharmili Reddy, AICP, senior planner in the long range planning department.

Butch Callery, former mayor of the City of Covington and chair of the Latonia Strategic Action Committee reported that the committee is currently focused on resolving traffic issues around Church Street in collaboration with Holy Cross High School.  They are doing this by applying for two place matters neighborhood mini-grants and conducting a survey to obtain more detailed input from residents.

Rodney Crice spoke on behalf of the ISAC and noted that the committee is working on zoning updates recommended by the small area studies’ preservation efforts around the historic downtown and farmers’ market initiatives.

Pete Nerone, representing the Linden Gateway Oversight Committee, talked about the completion of zoning code updates along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the implementation of traffic recommendations from the study. He also noted other ongoing efforts such as completing the survey for a National Register District nomination, planning improvements to Linden Grove Cemetery which serves as prime green space for the neighborhood, and landscaping the median along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Rachel Hastings, Director of Neighborhood and Housing Initiatives at the Center for Great Neighborhoods of Covington, outlined their efforts as part of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program that rehabs abandoned and foreclosed homes. "The attention that the small area studies brought to the housing issues in the Linden Gateway neighborhood was a key factor in enabling us to focus rehabilitation grants in this area."

“It was very encouraging to hear that our citizens are so actively involved in the implementation of these small area studies. It just goes to show that if public engagement is done right, our community will step up to make sure these studies are not forgotten. Having citizens take on implementation is a huge help for cities since resources are limited,” said Paul Meier, chair of the Kenton County Mayors’ Group.

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As storm sirens blared Friday, March 2, Kenton County families lost their homes, barns, livestock and loved ones. A devastating F4 tornado hit Piner and leveled everything in its path. Within an hour of the storm, Jeff Bechtold, a senior building official at NKAPC arrived at Kenton County Emergency Management’s headquarters to offer assistance.

By 5:30AM the next morning, NKAPC had seven inspectors on the ground doing preliminary inspections on the storm-ravaged dwellings. “It was clear from the start that we were going to need assistance from our GIS department with maps containing the building layers so we could see where each building was located and which ones were in the storm’s path,” stated Brian Sims, Deputy Director for Building Code Administration.

Trisha Brush, Deputy Director for GIS Administration and her team created maps of the affected area with parcel lines, addresses, and building footprints. They worked all day Saturday to assemble seven sets of 54 maps for each inspection team, and deliver them to out-of-town EMS support teams in Piner.

Fire Chief Jason Schleue with Piner-Fiskburg Fire District stated, “The NKAPC was a great asset during this event. Due to the already-provided and on-hand maps that we had here at the firehouse we were able to start operations. Then when more maps were needed, NKAPC staff were here immediately to see what we needed and made sure we got it right away. The Piner-Fiskburg Fire District and community appreciate all the help from NKAPC.”

NKAPC’s building department had four inspectors and commandeered two inspectors from Boone County and one from Independence to conduct preliminary inspections on March 3. They assessed a few hundred structures in the area and classified 88 as uninhabitable with an additional 279 as being affected. Steve Hensley, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management in Kenton County stated, “The knowledge and expertise of these individuals was very valuable, as we conducted structural inspections and damage assessments”.

Inspectors returned to Piner later that week and tagged each structure according to one of three categories: habitable, limited entry, or uninhabitable. During immediate post-recovery efforts, NKAPC also assigned one of its administrative assistants to address questions from storm victims. The building department is now pursuing more in-depth inspections on an as-needed basis.

“Again I want to commend the NKAPC for the assistance they have and continue to provide to the residents of Kenton County. In my eyes, this agency and its staff members have performed over and beyond the call of duty throughout this event,” Hensley stated.

NKAPC waived all building and HVAC permit and inspection fees, as well as all electrical permits until June 4, 2012. Electrical inspections will still need to be paid to IBI.


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NKAPC, the City of Covington, and the Kenton County Joint Code Enforcement Board all contributed to a joint effort recently to provide an important educational opportunity to local code enforcement board officials.

On March 24 continuing education geared towards new and long-term code enforcement board members was held at the NKAPC office. Twenty-four people from ten jurisdictions attended the training. Presenters included; Stacy Tapke, Edmondson Law; Alex Mattingly, City of Covington; and Martin Scribner, AICP, NKAPC deputy director for current planning.

Since enabling legislation was passed in 1996, most municipalities in Kenton County have formed code enforcement boards to help strengthen their city codes and keep zoning enforcement issues out of the courts. Unlike their counterparts on other planning-related boards, members of code enforcement boards are not required by Kentucky Revised Statutes to get a prescribed amount of continuing education, sometimes making it difficult to offer any training at all. This leaves them at a definite legal disadvantage, and could also cause procedural issues. The training was designed to address both of these issues and make sure members know what they can and cannot do as board members.

Topics covered the history and purpose of code enforcement, the creation and organization of code enforcement boards, due process and hearing procedures, and how citations are issued. Legal issues, such as burden of proof, taking evidence, deliberation, decisions of the board and findings of fact, were also discussed.

A mock hearing was held using training attendees as board members and NKAPC staff as property owners and evidence presenters. This exercise demonstrated how an actual hearing should be run and gave a feel for how other boards conduct their hearings. Staff and presenters provided feedback to let the board members know what they were doing correctly and what might be done differently.

A video recording of this training is available to Kenton County and Cold Spring board of adjustment jurisdictions. New board members or members who were unable to attend the training are invited to check out a copy from the NKAPC office.

Feedback from attendees was positive and staff already has several requests to borrow the video or to provide another training opportunity in the near future. Attendee Frank Henn said, “It was interesting to see how other cities structure their hearings, and that the end result appears to be the same. I learned some things I didn’t know and overall found the class helpful and interesting. Job well done.”


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NKAPC is involving area high school students in the development of Direction 2030: Your Voice. Your Choice. This is an innovative, forward-looking approach in the field of area planning, and NKAPC believes it is critical to the success of the plan. Dr. Brennan Sapp, Principal of Scott High School agrees. “These students will soon be fully functioning members of our community. They are going to be our leaders of tomorrow, so why not involve them now?”

As an important group of stakeholders in the community, the students participating in this project are creatively contributing to the development of the plan, partaking in interviews, group forums and collaborative learning in the classroom with their teachers and planning professionals. The aim of the forum is to find out more about how the students are living their lives today, learn more about their plans for the near future, and to be sure their input is included in the plan.

The program started last month with students from Scott High School. Their teacher, Jeff Jackson, is the faculty leader for Hanner’s Heroes, a student leadership and community engagement group for those students who want to make a difference in their community.

“This experience allows our students to interact as adults while still receiving high quality guidance from a master teacher like Mr. Jackson,” Sapp explained. “They will be much more knowledgeable and confident in similar situations in the future because of this program.”

During the first meeting at the high school, planning officials gave an educational program on planning and zoning issues, how the plan works in the real world, transportation logistics and a review of changes in our community from 1989 through today. Students were then asked to give their feedback using a web-based real-time polling tool.

James Fausz, AICP, and Ed Dietrich, AICP, planning professionals with NKAPC, facilitated the session and worked with students. “It was a great meeting,” explained Fausz. “The students are very open. They told us they want more intimate, walkable communities to live in that have a more fast-paced urban style of living. They really want to see smaller, locally-owned retail stores to shop at, unique, attractive architecture, convenient public transportation, and lots of things to do nearby.” When asked about the things they don’t like about their present-day community structure, they mostly agreed on one thing: there is nothing to do but live there. If someone wants to go out to eat, go to a park, or join friends for a cup of coffee, they have to get in their car and drive miles to do it.

The students learned a lot during the 90-minute sessions. “No one in the room knew what planning was when we first got started,” commented Dietrich. “But by the end of the session we were having a very engaging conversation about urban sprawl, quality of life, community engagement, and the things that need to be done to attract and keep young people here in our community.”

Sapp is very enthusiastic about these kinds of opportunities for his students. “This experience is an actual real-life experience that is not hypothetical or artificial. Students respond differently to real situations. They take things more seriously as they function as young adults, not as students.”

Jackson said, “Once the students realized that their thoughts and ideas were being taken serious, they began to flourish in this experience. Students are hardly ever given an opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns in a venue that has an avenue for their thoughts and concerns to make an impact on future decisions made by lawmakers, that is why this opportunity is so special.”

Dennis Gordon, FAICP, NKAPC’s executive director, says public forums are critical because they provide great opportunities for citizens to give their input to the plan. “Kenton County is going to change over the next 20 years; it’s one of those few guarantees of life,” he said. “What we as citizens need to do is help shape the change so it benefits the community’s overall quality of life. That’s what Direction 2030 is all about… reaching out and engaging citizens on how to shape the inevitable change that’s coming.”

Sapp said, “It takes many different groups working together to make good decisions for the future of our area. NKAPC is an essential member of Northern Kentucky. We need more experiences like the one they have provided for our students and our citizens. For too long, education has not been about real life. Direction 2030 is about real life.”


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The Kenton County Planning Commission is entering the home stretch as its members begin deliberation on draft subdivision regulations. This marks the near culmination of a several-year effort led by the NKAPC staff to create an updated set of regulations that are more efficient, provide more options for creative design, and strengthen standards to protect the taxpayer from unnecessary expenses.

Since the draft was published for public review in the fall of 2010, planning commission members have been busy on several fronts. Their first effort was to establish a committee and begin a series of informational meetings with staff to learn about the differences between the existing and proposed regulations. “Staff handles most of the administration of the existing regulations,” said Scott Hiles, Deputy Director for Infrastructure Engineering. “It was important to educate the committee on the reason we have subdivision regulations and what they were required by law to contain.” The committee met throughout the early spring and summer to accomplish this goal.

The committee then decided to invite all of the major stakeholders in the community that would be affected by the proposed regulations to address them during face-to-face meetings. “It was very important to me to see that everyone that would be affected by the regulations would be heard by this committee,” said Paul Darpel, Chairman of the Kenton County Planning Commission. “We may not always agree to include all the ideas that we hear, but I wanted these groups to know that they were heard, their ideas were carefully considered and based on their input we were able to make an informed decision.”

Several groups have taken advantage of this opportunity. Because of their shared interest in storm water runoff and water quality issues, the Kenton County Conservation District teamed up with the Banklick Watershed Council and the Sanitation District to present their ideas to the committee in January. They were followed by the Home Builders Association in early February and the Kenton County Mayors’ Group later that same month. One group remains to meet with the committee, the Northern Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers which is scheduled to present to the committee on April 24.

In the interim, the committee has instructed staff to begin the process of revising the document to include those issues where consensus has been reached between all groups. In May, the committee will begin the final deliberation to decide what changes need to be made to the draft.

The one issue that has received the most debate thus far is whether or not the new standards for subdivision streets should be strengthened, and if so, to what degree. “It seems most everyone agrees that streets are failing before their expected design life,” said Hiles. “But little consensus between the groups has been reached as to the cause of this premature failure, or what should be done about it.”

That will ultimately be a decision the planning commission must make. After staff revises the draft for the final time it will be published again for public review. KCPC members will then take action on the issue at a public hearing which has yet to be scheduled.


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In January 2012 the Independence Zoning Update Steering Committee began a series of presentations to the Independence City Council with the purpose of introducing recommended updates to the city’s zoning code based on the Independence Community Small Area Study.

So far, the first three components of the steering committee’s recommendations have been presented: the Downtown Independence Zone, the Conservation Development – Single-Family Zone, and Design Review Board Regulations. Still to be presented is the Gateway Mixed Use Zone.

This process has prompted some hurdles. Thus far, the main concerns have been about individual property rights and opposition from neighbors to the proposed optional Conservation Development Single-Family Overlay Zone.

While the steering committee has been taking the initiative to present its recommendations to the city council, NKAPC staff has been assisting by presenting the more technical aspects of each zone, and helping city council members gain a better understanding of each proposed zone.

After the presentations, city council will have the opportunity to send each zone to the Kenton County Planning Commission for a public hearing on the issue, which it will then offer recommendations back to the city council.

The Independence City Council will make the final decisions on the applications based on all of the planning commission’s recommendations.


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The storms communities experienced on March 2nd left behind a great deal of destruction and tragedy. NKAPC offers services and assistance to Kenton County residents to help repair and rebuild damaged homes.
Details regarding waived fees and permit applications can be found here.

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The Kenton County Mayors’ Group recently endorsed the new, draft Kenton County Subdivision Regulations crafted by NKAPC staff. The group’s unanimous endorsement includes 13 modifications that its members want to see adopted by the Kenton County Planning Commission. Among them are tougher street standards that provide underdrains beneath all curbs and a full drainage mat beneath the street pavement.

Underdrain systems and drainage mats have been used in other jurisdictions for years to relieve subsurface water problems. Kenton County’s mayors believe that subsurface water is a major cause of streets that fail long before their expected design life.

“Most lots that are created today are graded to drain toward the street,” said Scott Hiles, NKAPC’s deputy director for infrastructure engineering. “Over-watering lawns, discharging sump pumps, and rainfall drain to the street and destroy the integrity of the street’s foundation. Underdrain systems can relieve this problem by giving the water a way to drain into a storm sewer and away from the street.”

New subdivision streets are designed and built with the expectation that they will last at least 20 years before needing major repairs. Many cities in Kenton County have reported that a significant number of new streets aren’t lasting half that time before requiring thousands of dollars of repairs. Because cities own these failing streets, repairs must be funded with tax dollars.

Kenton County’s Mayors’ Group believes that developers should pay to construct these streets to a higher standard in the first place rather than the entire community paying to rebuild them later with limited tax dollars. The group says that constructing to a higher standard will produce streets that last which will ultimately save taxpayer dollars for more critical needs.

The November 19th vote by the Mayors’ Group represented a culmination of work that began late last winter. Since July, a committee of Mayors’ Group representatives worked with representatives of the Home Builders Association to reach consensus on the 13 recommended additions to the draft document. Other recommended modifications included increasing flexibility with respect to curbs and multi-use paths and eliminating old design practices that have proved problematic for street maintenance and snow removal. With the exception of the street underdrain issue, the Mayors’ Group reached consensus with local builders on all of the other recommended modifications.

The Mayors’ Group recommendation is now in the hands of the Kenton County Planning Commission, the group that is ultimately responsible for adopting the new regulations. The Planning Commission is well into a several-month process of its own to review the staff’s document and recommendations from a number of groups including homebuilders and mayors.

A public hearing and final action on the draft document is slated for the spring of 2012. Copies of staff’s draft regulations are available on nkapc.org.

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Ever wonder what your property looked like before it was developed? Ever need an historical aerial photo but weren’t sure where to find it? LINK-GIS is now your online go-to place for help.

NKAPC staff added a tool recently to the LINK-GIS website mapping service. The site’s GIS Viewer now includes a tool to view historical aerials from 1999, 2004, and 2007 in addition to those from 2010. Aerials from 1962, 1973, and 1989 will be uploaded and available soon.

Historical aerials provide windows into the past. Clues on how land was managed and how growth occurred in a community are often used by planners to predict how future land use should take form. Having a glimpse of the past helps unlock evidence to understand cultures and landscape challenges that have prompted changes in neighborhoods.

“Our goal is to serve up as many resources—both historical and current—on our website as possible,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration. “Helping the public to understand the past through historical aerials and maps can empower decision makers and community leaders of the future. It’s important to know where we came from in order to know where we’re growing.”  

The historical aerials may be accessed by visiting linkgis.org. To access the tutorial and video on how to use the historic image slider, click the ‘How to Find’ tab and choose LINK-GIS Map Viewer. An additional menu will appear to the side with more options; choose ‘Historic Image Slider.’ This will lead to step-by-step instructions on how to access and use the new Historic Image Slider.

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Staff in NKAPC’s current planning and building codes departments have increased substantially the number of zoning and building permits available on a walk in/walk out basis. This achieves a long-held goal of the organization’s annual work program.

“What this means is that a permit that used to take a couple days to process, can be completed now while you wait… if there are no extenuating circumstances,” said Martin Scribner, AICP, NKAPC’s deputy director for current planning. His team manages zoning permits.

Brian Sims, CBO, NKAPC’s deputy director for building codes administration, says, “If a licensed contractor comes in for an HVAC replacement or new installation permit, we review the application for minimum code requirements and issue the permit if everything meets code.”

Sims says electrical permits are also available on a walk-in/walk-out basis as long as all necessary information is submitted at the time of application. This includes workers compensation and occupational license information.

The primary catalyst for this increased efficiency is greater staff coordination and a staffing change that moved Mike Carpenter from the building codes department to current planning. Carpenter is both a certified zoning and building inspector, which means he can review a variety of applications.

“Now, if you’re building something that doesn’t require a building permit—like building a fence under six feet, or making some electrical upgrades, or putting in an above-ground pool or patio, or making a change of use (ownership)—we can process that on a walk-in, walk-out basis,” said Scribner. “Mike’s two hats and our greater coordination between departments have really helped us speed up the process.”

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A steering committee of citizens appointed in late 2009 by Independence City Council has completed its work and sent its findings and recommendations back to council for consideration and action. The results from that review by the city’s elected officials will be sent to the Kenton County Planning Commission for consideration before being amended into the city’s zoning ordinance.

The catalyst for this citizen effort was the 2007 adoption of the Independence Community Small Area Study by City Council and the Kenton County Planning Commission. The planning commission’s action incorporated the study’s contents into the Kenton County comprehensive plan.

“The Independence Community Small Area Study included land use recommendations that did not conform to our existing zoning code,” said Rodney Crice, citizen member of the steering committee. “Those who were charged with implementing the study recommended that city council conduct a zoning update process to create zoning more compatible with the recommendations of the study.”

The appointed steering committee met almost monthly for a year and a half to review current zoning requirements, small area study recommendations, and zoning alternatives. The members’ geographic focus was for areas around downtown Independence, McCullum Pike, and the intersection of McCullum Pike with new KY 17.

The steering committee wrapped up its work last month and is now in the process of presenting its recommendations to the Independence City Council. Those recommendations include the following three new zoning districts and the formation of a design review board.

*  DI/Downtown Independence zone
*  CD-SF/Conservation Development Single-Family overlay zone
*  GMU/Gateway Mixed Use zone

Crice states, “Our committee worked diligently to reach consensus on these recommendations. Our process was open and included two public forum opportunities for community input. The public input definitely influenced our final recommendations and I think helped create a better end product.”

Crice concludes that he is pleased with the final recommendations. “If council approves the new zoning codes, we will have achieved a primary goal for implementing and realizing the small area study recommendations.”

More information on this project including the draft regulations, additional information, and public comments are available on nkapc.org.

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Direction 2030: Your Voice, Your Choice, the Kenton County Planning Commission’s effort to create a new countywide comprehensive plan is gaining momentum following completion of four first-round public meetings. Analysis of the public input and comparisons with national trends are now underway by staff with the assistance of a market place analyst.

“We’re committed to recommending policy in this plan that’s rooted in market reality,” said Keith Logsdon, AICP, NKAPC’s deputy director for long-range planning. “In order to do that and take the public’s desires into consideration, we’ve contracted with Michael Dinn, CRE, of Dinn Focused Marketing Inc. in Wilder.”

Dinn has over two decades of experience in residential and community development and has worked extensively with developers in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. He has also been a part of development projects all over the country, according to Logsdon.

Dinn has established himself as an expert in housing and community development with an emphasis on market performance, product positioning, and alignment. He was recognized in 2003 with an invitation and certification into the prestigious Counselors of Real Estate®. CRE is the widely-recognized organization of the finest real property advisors with only 1,100 members worldwide.

According to NKAPC’s executive director Dennis Gordon, FAICP, the Great Recession has made it more important than ever to analyze market conditions while crafting long-range comprehensive plans. Housing statistics such as foreclosures and vacancies, data on commercial real estate, and generational preferences are key factors in attracting growth and development. Gordon says that Dinn will assist in evaluating and understanding the dynamics of the local market and ensuring that the new comprehensive plan makes Kenton County economically competitive, affordable, and attractive.

National trends on generational preferences indicate that different generations desire different job types and housing. Those trends show that baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), for example, are trending toward smaller lots, smaller homes, and less maintenance. This generation represents approximately 25 percent of Kenton County’s current population. This begs the obvious question of whether Kenton County’s housing market can provide the product that this generation desires.

Dinn’s market place assessment will provide planners an opportunity to understand the current housing market—including the products available—and to include in the comprehensive plan an indication of what products and amenities may be needed to retain and attract different generations to Kenton County.

“The last full housing cycle took 20 years, with the last ten seeing a wave of housing change, said Dinn. “The next 20 years will see a different, shifting marketplace. It’s critical now to measure our local market depth and chart its changing direction.”

“We’ll employ the best local datasets and collaborative professionals to trend our marketplace, striving to face forward and bring genuine forecasting to the Direction 2030 plan,” he said. “We believe our changing marketplace will demand a greater choice in neighborhoods and a better connection to their lifestyle and experiences. Without choice, many motivated householders will choose with their feet by relocating out of Northern Kentucky.”

Second-round public meetings for Direction 2030 will begin in March. Stay up to date on the progress of the comprehensive planning effort on NKAPC’s website, the Direction 2030 website, or Facebook.

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Though the weather outside is frightful, LINK-GIS users in Kenton County will soon have a tool that is so delightful! With the click of the mouse, they will be able to find the work status of snow and ice removal crews for roads they travel during a snow event.

Chris Warneford, Kenton County’s public works director, approached NKAPC staff last year about developing a website that would provide near-real-time status of snow crews on county-maintained roads. Warneford requested a website that would be easy to use while providing citizens with valuable information about street conditions.

“Kenton County citizens’ safety is our number one priority. Whether going to work, the grocery, or taking their children to school, they need to be able to plan their road trips safely,” Warneford says.

The County’s public works team will be able to update the status of roads as plow and truck operators complete sections that have been treated. The street status will be classified as plowed, treated, plowed and treated, and no activity. “It was important to the public works team that we could update the road status from anywhere in the field without having to go into the office.” said Warneford.

NKAPC staff created a data entry form that public works personnel can access from any computer with internet access. It not only records the status, but has a time stamp feature so citizens viewing the map know when the road was last treated. This feature is important especially during a snow event that may span several days. When fully operational, the website will be available to commuters on area roads through a mobile data client.

The website is currently being tested by Fiscal Court personnel and will be rolled out soon to the public. In addition to county-maintained roads, city streets that are maintained by the County under contract will be added to the website. The City of Crestview Hills has already been added to the snow tracker website. Other Kenton County cities will be added in the future.

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The City of Independence is asking its citizens to examine proposed zoning changes for part of the city at a meeting scheduled for November 14 from 7 to 9 PM at the Simon Kenton High School cafeteria.

“The steering committee and the city council want feedback on these proposed new requirements," said Martin Scribner, AICP, deputy director for current planning. "This meeting will be an open house format, so people can come for 15 minutes or stay for the whole two hours,” Committee members and NKAPC staff will be on hand to answer questions.

A committee of Independence business operators and residents developed the requirements as a response to a small area study that was adopted by the city in 2007. Independence resident John Richardson chaired the Zoning Update Steering Committee. Independence City Administrator Dan Groth said the 2007 small area study led to recommended changes to zoning regulations in 2009.

“An important part of this process is to solicit input from residents and property owners prior to changes being made in the city’s zoning code,” Groth and Richards wrote in a letter to property owners within the study area.

The affected area includes both sides of Madison Pike from Independence Station Road south to Locust Lane, and along both sides of McCullum Pike from Madison Pike to KY 17. Maps will be available the evening of the public meeting.

To review the draft regulations, visit the NKAPC website.

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NKAPC GIS staff worked hard to assist government entities in Kenton County in obtaining $1.7 million in grants and return on investments (ROI) during fiscal year 2011 (July 2010 through June 2011). This amounts to an almost three-fold return on investment when considering what it costs to fund NKAPC’s GIS department.

“Over the past few months, staff has answered numerous questions from elected officials about the cost and value of GIS,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, deputy director for GIS administration. “We were able to show how GIS data used by agencies throughout the region returned $2.9 million in grants, awards, and cost savings to local communities. Well over half of that amount was awarded to Kenton County jurisdictions.”

These monetary and non-monetary benefits include data quality projects, emergency communications money, a landslide project due to heavy spring rains that resulted in a FEMA grant for Kenton County, savings from a pavement coordination program, and a brownfields grant.

The Kentucky Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) Emergency Telecommunications Board distributes funds collected from mobile phone usage to member agencies, said Ms. Brush, and county emergency dispatch units must submit a survey and GIS data, including centerlines from the LINK-GIS master street address guide, zip codes included in dispatch areas, and cell tower locations when submitting grant applications. Covington obtained $164,750 from CMRS; Kenton County $177,998 in CMRS funds; and Erlanger, $247,672 for those same services. GIS data is a required submittal in order for the local Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) to receive CMRS funding. These data submittals are an annual occurrence for all three dispatch centers.

GIS data was leveraged as an in-kind support which aided in the Covington City Center Action Plan proposal. The city was awarded $359,300 in grant monies to examine how the Covington city center will evolve over the next 20 years, Ms. Brush said. Covington’s center is generally described as the area south of the Ohio River to 12th Street, east to the Licking River and west to I-75.

Another $18,000 was attributed to Envista program savings for the city of Covington; Envista’s GIS-based pavement coordination software facilitated the savings for the city and Northern Kentucky Water District, Ms. Brush said.

The availability and existing Kenton County brownfield GIS database assisted the Northern Kentucky Area Development District to obtain a $100,000 for brownfield redevelopment. The funds are to be used in Kenton County focusing on the Licking River Greenway and will lead to more detailed identification of areas once used for industrial purposes that can be reused for a variety of purposes once cleaned up, Ms. Brush said.

So far this fiscal year, GIS maps were and data were required in gaining a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Roads/Clean-Up Grant: $251,042 to Kenton County; $93,633 to Covington; $10,548 to Crescent Springs; and $1,000 to Bromley.

“We have every reason to believe that this fiscal year will produce an equal return on investment to Kenton County,” concluded Brush.

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NKAPC staff earned two awards at the 2011 annual conference of the Kentucky Association of Mapping Professionals (KAMP). One award was for website design and one was for service to the mapping community.

Christy Powell, GISP, senior GIS specialist, won the annual award for best GIS website application.

“Christy exhibited the special search capabilities for individual properties that she programmed into the My Community section of the LINK-GIS website,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, deputy director for GIS administration.

“The search method shows city, political and planning and zoning information,” said Brush. “The website work Christy did will aid all Kenton County residents.

The service award went to NKAPC and LINK-GIS for service to GIS and the mapping community. It honors the organization’s long and distinguished service to Kenton County, to northern Kentucky, and to GIS issues throughout the commonwealth.

Powell, Brush, and others from LINK-GIS participated in the conference held in Frankfort in September.

LINK-GIS is a collaborative electronic mapping partnership managed by NKAPC for Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, the Kenton and Campbell County PVAs, the Northern Kentucky Water District, and Sanitation District 1.

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Kenton County’s comprehensive plan is being rewritten completely for the first time since 1972. The project, expected to take up to two years to complete, is designed to provide guidance for the county’s growth over the next 20 years.

"Direction 2030: Your Voice, Your Choice" is a community planning initiative centered on public input – citizen ideas and citizen opinions. It will help create the new Kenton County comprehensive plan reflecting existing and anticipated trends in population, transportation, business, and education.

Kenton County citizens are urged to attend the ongoing series of public forums that will facilitate these discussions. Citizens are also encouraged to stay abreast of ongoing Direction 2030 progress by checking the project website: Direction2030.org.

“Since the county’s first comprehensive plan was completed in 1972, only updates have been made,” said Keith Logsdon, AICP, deputy director for long-range planning. “Over the past twenty years or so, new trends have developed in how people want to live and travel, how they want to spend their leisure time and make economic choices, and those trends make it important to take a new look at our community.”

Members of the Kenton County Planning Commission and NKAPC staff held the first of these public forums on October 26 at Dixie Heights High School. Approximately 60 citizens from across Kenton County attended and discussed how or if they believe these trends are having an impact on their lives.

The second of these initial meetings is set for November 17 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the Kenton County Agricultural Extension Office. The third meeting will take place on November 29 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at Calvary Baptist Church in Latonia; and, the fourth is set for December 6 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at Piner Elementary School. The topic for these forums will be the same as for the first, giving citizens from across Kenton County an opportunity to express themselves.

The second round of four meetings will be held in January through March, 2012. The third round is projected from April through June; and, the fourth and final round in July and August. Each round will look at opinions and ideas expressed during earlier sessions and distill them to the point where public goals and objectives emerge.

“Strong public engagement will make the plan well-founded and prepare our community for the challenges of the next 20 years,” Logsdon said.

For a full description of each of the four rounds of meetings, check out the Direction 2030 website.

As for what the outcome of this process will be, Logsdon says, “I don’t know if that question can be answered yet because we are just beginning the public engagement process. Our current challenge is to encourage and attain sufficient public input.”

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On November 14, from 7-9 PM, the City of Independence is holding an open house to gather public input regarding changes to the Independence Zoning Ordinance.

In 2007, the Independence Community Small Area Study was approved by the city and adopted by the Kenton County Planning Commission as part of the Area-Wide Comprehensive Plan. Updating the zoning ordinance and map will support the city's effort to achieve the study's overall vision.

This meeting will be held in the Simon Kenton High School cafeteria, located at 11132 Madison Pike. Parking and school entrance is located near the gymnasium. Click here to review the draft regulations.

For more information about this event, contact Mr. Andy Videkovich at 859.331.8980 or IndependenceZoning@nkapc.org. View the printable flier.

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Kenton County’s draft subdivision regulations that staff completed late last year is nearing its first test as the document is scheduled to appear on this month’s agenda of the Kenton County Mayors’ Group. A committee of that group has worked with staff and members of the Homebuilders Association since February.

Action by the Mayors’ Group will take the form of a recommendation to the Kenton County Planning Commission. The planning commission has spent the last several months reviewing the document and the changes it includes from regulations that have been in place since the late 1970s.

The new draft regulations, which are a complete rewrite of the current document, were prepared by staff to accomplish four specific goals.

•    Greater User Friendliness: (1) create regulations in a digital format, one that is easy to use via hotlinks that allow for better continuity and cross-referencing; (2) illustrate the regulations liberally.

•    Greater Design Flexibility for Developers: provide for greater design flexibility so developers can create subdivisions with character, not just cookie cutter images of their most recent design efforts.

“In addition to more design flexibility, we also provided for different green infrastructure techniques,” said Scott Hiles, NKAPC’s deputy director for infrastructure engineering, who oversaw the staff effort. “Our 1978 regulations didn’t anticipate the need for green solutions and didn’t authorize them.”

•    Greater Intergovernmental Coordination: assure that the new regulations mesh and compliment those of other agencies that play a role with new development.

•    Greater Taxpayer Protection: guarantee that all requirements provide for developments that stand the test of time so that city and county taxpayers aren’t required to pay to fix infrastructure problems prematurely.

To meet the taxpayer protection goal, staff’s draft regulations call for an increase in pavement thickness and the addition of under-drains for all new subdivision streets. Prematurely-failing streets was one of the main issues that prompted the Mayors’ Group to get involved in this rewriting process.

Based on discussions to date, staff expects the Mayors’ Group’s recommendation to the Kenton County Planning Commission to take the form of an endorsement with a number of proposals for added taxpayer protection. Hiles says planning commission members “are at a point now to hear the Mayor’s Group’s recommendation.”

It will be the Kenton County Planning Commission’s responsibility to sort through the myriad recommendations from different groups and to adopt a set of replacement regulations to serve the community in the future. That action is expected to take place in early 2012.

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The online road construction coordination tool provided by the LINK-GIS partnerships is nearing the end of its second season in operation. The extent of its use by Kenton and Campbell County local governments has grown exponentially, as has the opportunities for rate- and tax-payer savings.

Over 30 public and private agencies are using the tool currently, including Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, a number of cities in each county, the water and sanitation districts, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Duke Energy, and Cincinnati Bell. Each uploads its street construction/maintenance projects to the GIS-based database called Envista.

“There are over 2,300 individual projects in Envista right now,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, deputy director for GIS administration. “It’s taken awhile for everyone to incorporate this step into their workflow, but it’s working very well now and we’re getting a lot of good feedback.”

A recently-formed user’s group of entities benefitting from the program is providing feedback to staff and each other. Members discuss their success stories, hurdles to using the software, and one-on-one training opportunities. “We’re reminding agencies if they don’t have their projects in there, they can’t coordinate and therefore, they won’t see any cost savings,” Brush said.

To date, cities have documented savings of at least $26,000 by coordinating in Envista. The City of Covington recently saved $18,000 by collaborating with the water district on several streets the city planned to repave and the water district planned to replace water mains.

“Envista had an immediate impact on our productivity and efficiency,” said Mike Yeager, PE, MPA, assistant Covington city engineer. “The city and the various utility companies are now able to coordinate and prioritize projects into the future based upon each other’s needs and budgets.”

The City of Covington will share its success story at the October 26 user’s group meeting. Brush, who recently attended an Envista conference to learn the software’s newest features and give feedback on behalf of the area’s users, will also share the software’s feature enhancements.

“This is just one more example of how GIS and NKAPC’s staff collaboration help to save local rate- and tax-payer dollars,” Brush concluded.

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The public is invited to participate in “Direction 2030: Your Voice, Your  Choice,” the planning process that will craft a new comprehensive land-use plan for Kenton County.

This countywide 20-year plan begins with Phase 1 of the Concept Plan. This first phase develops the goals and objectives, which reflect the path the entire community wants to take regarding land use, housing, transportation. Because of the great amount of public input as its foundation, citizens will hold an important level of ownership in this plan.

To increase Phase 1 will involve two rounds of 4 meetings each. The first round of discussions is scheduled for October 26th, 5:30P - 7:30P, at Dixie Heights High School in Crestview Hills.

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Public hearings are held on the first Thursday of every month, beginning at 6:15 PM in the Commission Chambers of the NKAPC Building located in Fort Mitchell. View the legal notice. Calendar

Current agenda

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An informative video has been developed and uploaded to our YouTube channel. Watch it to learn more about the history, values and services of NKAPC. Click here to view the script.

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