By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
At the Independence city council meeting this week city Attorney Jack Gatlin read an ordinance for the first time containing a map amendment changing the zoning on a 19.93 acre site located at the junction of Harris Pike and Ky State Route 17, which is the new four lane highway.
The change is from Neighborhood Commercial and Residential Rural State to Commercial, so that the entire parcel will be the same zone.
Notably absent in the discussion of the project which needs the zone change is the name of the grocery store.
“I don’t believe the city has ever officially been told it’s a Publix, but various media reporting would indicate that this is one of the Publix that are coming to Northern Kentucky,” said Mayor Christopher Reinersman. “I believe the others are Cold Spring, Richwood and Union.”
The development will include a freestanding grocery store, measuring 48,387 square feet, and an attached 3,200 square foot liquor store. There will also be a 12,600 square foot retail building meant to house several tenants, although no tenants have been named.
An out-lot will most likely house a restaurant.
Chris Taft, Vice President of Crosland Southeast, said at the meeting that it would be a restaurant, and that the property had been purchased from White Castle, but it would not be a White Castle.
A public hearing was held on September 7, and it was approved by Kenton County Planning Commission with conditions, after they conducted a study.
Councilmember Chris Vogelpohl asked the architect, Jay Bayer, of Bayer Becker, if they were going to change the drawings to reflect the KCPC’s condition of a 15-foot buffer instead of the 10-foot buffer on the drawings. Bayer affirmed that the buffer would definitely be 15 feet, and they would not ask for a waiver.
Attorney Gatlin specified that the second reading of the ordinance would not be a public hearing, and council would have to base their vote on the information that was presented at the public hearing on September 7.
Mayor Reinersman said he hasn’t heard anything that would indicate that council is against it, but he wants to wait until after the November 13 meeting where they will have the second reading, just to be sure.
“From the administration’s point of view, I am in favor of the development for a couple of reasons,” Reinersman explained. “Most importantly, there was no question that site at the corner of two major state roads was going to be developed and the commercial zoning was already in place for about half of the site. This means they wouldn’t need our permission to develop it. The most recent proposal we had there was an apartment complex. I think retail development is a better use of that particular site and more beneficial to the community, as opposed to apartments or a variety of other possible uses that were already permitted in the zone. Secondly, this will provide additional services to our residents. Lastly, competition that encourages all of our grocers to ‘step up their game’ is never a bad thing for the
residents.”