Last week, the county commissioners delayed until Feb. 26 a vote on changes, including those for conditional-use permits allowing everything from wedding centers to septic-tank cleaning businesses in otherwise residential neighborhoods in unincorporated areas of the county.
At the meeting, residents on Robinson-Vail Road in Franklin Twp. urged the county commissioners not to approve changes establishing a classification for wedding centers permitted with conditions in residential zones.
Larry and Pam Pockras said approval could create hazardous road conditions when people involved in weddings and receptions drive to and from the events on narrow, two-lane Robinson-Vail Road.
“Somebody is going to get hurt,” Pam Pockras said.
The Pockrases live next to the 11,000-square-foot Stone Valley Meadows wedding center, under construction on 13 acres on Robinson-Vail, a few-minute drive from the Interstate 75 interchange at Ohio 123.
The proposed county code changes involve the board of zoning appeals, site-plan reviews, planned-unit developments, mixed-use zones regulations, residential uses, community and essential service uses, commercial business and service uses, professional and personal service uses, industrial manufacturing, research and supply services, and access management.
Wedding centers are for the first time defined, along with event centers.
RELATED: Warren County residents fighting wedding center development
The county’s conditional use rules are being challenged in another case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has been asked to intervene in a running dispute between residents in Franklin and Clearcreek twps. and the county over a conditional use permit enabling neighbors to operate the Septek septic-tank cleaning business where they all live on Beal Road.
The Beal Road residents claim the county conditional-use regulations undermines “the transparency and legitimacy of units of government throughout Ohio.”
Since 2012, they claim 25 of 26 applications have been approved through the process.
The Pockrases head a group of two dozen Robinson-Vail residents suing the county over a conditional use permit issued for the Stone Meadows wedding center. The case is pending in Warren County Common Pleas Court.
“It could be months and months,” Assistant County Prosecutor Bruce McGary told the commissioners.
In response to the the Pockrases’ road concerns, McGary also pointed out the wedding center was approved by the county engineer’s office without the need for a traffic study or access-management concerns.
Mike Yetter, the county’s zoning supervisor, also supported the changes, approved by the regional planning and rural zoning commissions. He said the businesses are permitted with conditions, such as mounding, landscaping and a fence to block the Pockrases view of the wedding center’s 109-car parking lot.
In response to the Robinson-Vail appeals, Yetter said the changes related to conditional uses were interwoven into the amendments, preventing them from being lifted out to satisfy the Robinson-Vail residents.
Yetter also said the county was currently reviewing other wedding center proposals.
During a discussion with the residents’ lawyer, John Phillips, Commissioner Tom Grossmann, an assistant prosecutor in Hamilton County, said Warren County was currently “shoe-horning in” wedding centers through another section of the code.
Grossmann and Commissioner Shannon Jones voted to delay a vote for two weeks so Commissioner Dave Young, who was absent, could participate in the decision.
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