Last week, the county’s rural zoning commission voted 2-1 to recommend approval by the Warren county Board of Commissioners, despite the planning committee’s contrary recommendation and opposition by officials in Turtlecreek Twp., where it would be located.
Restoration Ranch Executive Director Tony Rose said the church wanted to help more of the 300 kids in foster care in Warren County.
“We want to provide a place where the kids can stay in this county,” Rose said during the virtual Aug. 27 regional planning commission session. “The kids we’re dealing with have been thrown away.”
In July, church representatives withdrew a similar plan rather than risk rejection because the existing plan for the land use, approved in 2002, only permitted senior-living facilities, including a 30-person building and 36 single-family homes.
The 30,000-square-foot group foster home would be built on nearly 15 acres off Union Road in Turtlecreek Twp., where the church campus is dominated by the tall statue. It would expand on a 12-boy home already set up in the church and make way for a similar program for 12 girls.
On Aug. 27, County Planner Ryan Cook told the planning committee he recommended approval of the development now, with conditions designed to limit flooding. The proposed use was less “intense” than the assisted-living center or single-family homes already approved there, he said, although it was within an area that could be subject to flooding problems.
The church said the plan, buoyed by a Woolpert study explaining how construction would offset any flooding problems, had been approved by the county’s chief building official.
Still several committee members expressed concern about developing in the “floodway.”
In a letter, Turtlecreek Twp. trustees urged the committee to reject the plan because it conflicted with plans for the land to be used for commercial development and “would have a substantial negative impact of the planned uses for business and residential property in this area.”
The rural zoning commission vote to recommend the county commissioners approve the plan and rezoning requested happened last Tuesday after presentations by church officials and Michelle Tegtmeier, the county’s chief zoning official.
Church representatives said the foster home would be located between the church and the pastor’s home, reducing any likelihood it would undergo commercial development.
Mike Shaffer, who abstained as Turtlecreek Twp.’s representative on the committee vote, cast the only ’no’ on Tuesday as a member of the rural zoning board. He said the development didn’t match township plans for commercial development in that area, including prison land, east on Ohio 63, that was eyed for development.
Zoning board members Jim Gibbs and Joseph Cesta questioned church officials about operations, security and other facets of the project. Church officials said therapies used to help the boys would include equine therapy, fitting the interests of Pastor Lawrence Bishop, a horseman.
“They have this land. It’s their land,” Cesta said.
It was unclear when the county commissioners would take up and make a final decision on the proposed plan and rezoning request.
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