A couple of land owners are worried a proposed amendment to a subdivision regulation will hurt the property value of dozens of farmers and they plan to make their concerns heard at the next Jessamine County/Wilmore Joint Planning Commission meeting.
The proposed amendment will be read and voted on in a forum open to the public in the courthouse first-floor chambers 7 p.m. on Nov. 13.
If approved, the amendment would change the existing language for lot dimensions, and shrink the depth of a tract of land from 7.12 times the width to 5.51 times the width.
County planning administrator Chris Woodall could not say off hand just on how many tracts of land may be effected by the change.
“All they are voting on is cleaning up the language in order to conform to the overall goal of the county’s comprehensive plan,” Woodall said. “It will help eliminate the possibility of creating ‘piano key lots’ which are just long thin plots with a lot of depth and little width.”
Land owner Allin Harris, however, worries the change is being specifically create to accommodate only one land owner’s development plan.
“My concerns (are) that the proposed amendment would allow the formation of a lot which had been formed prior and did not meet the sub regulations,” Harris said. “(This allows) Martin Lowry to form a non-conforming lot in the Paddock Subdivision which does not meet the current sub regulation. I believe the purpose of the amendment to Sub Regulation 4.302 may be to allow Mr. Lowry to conform his existing lost.”
Harris said he has no issue with Lowry developing his land, he just wishes the commission would approve his own plan.
For another land owner, Dennis King, he said the change would severely limit the possibilities of developing his own property, and may also limit as many as a hundred other property owners in the county.
King’s property is 53 acres with only 600 feet touching Sulphur Well Road. By his calculations, changing the language would prevent him from subdividing his property.
Planning commissioner Dave Carlstedt said that is not true and that King is not faced with any new issues when it comes to subdividing his land.
King said he has math and is ready to challenge the language at the next meeting and he hopes other farmers and his fiscal court magistrate representative Burch Hager stand behind him.
The new language was drafted by Dal Harper of Bluegrass ADD, a planning consultant for the commission, and Carlstedt is on the Ordinance Review Committee who voted to bring the revised language before the joint planning commission.
“The new language won’t create any new problems because (King) wouldn’t have been able to do it under the old regulations anyway, but we’ll hear his concerns,” Carlstedt said. “We’ll explain to him, and to anyone else at meeting, about the ordinance before we vote.”
