By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
FLORENCE
In a short caucus meeting, Florence city council viewed a presentation from Todd Morgan from the Boone County Planning and Zoning on a new hotel called Livsmart by Hilton destined to be built on Merchant Street in Florence.
This will be a 62,000 square foot hotel, 56 feet tall, with 99 guest rooms and an indoor pool.
The request is to change the zoning from Commercial 2 (C-2) Planned Development Houston Donaldson Study to Office 2 (O-2) Planned Development Houston Donaldson Study. With the C-2 zoning, the biggest building they can build is 15,000 square feet and 50 feet high. With the O-2 zoning, that building can be 30,000 square and up to 70 feet high.
Council member Angie Cable asked if there was anything else that could be done to screen the hotel from surrounding neighbors, at least until the trees that are scheduled to be planted can grow to a height adequate to the screening duties they are being planted for. Morgan said the residents who live in back of the proposed hotel have been notified and they do understand the hotel will be four stories high.
Council should vote on the zoning next week.
BOONE COUNTY
Boone County Fiscal Court is taking on any future threats to the agricultural aura in Boone County. Commissioners passed the second reading of an ordinance regulating and defining solar energy systems and battery storage facilities, and determining and identifying the zones where they can exist.
“We asked the Planning Commission to come up with a text amendment to allow us to regulate ground mounted solar farm large acreage type industry,” said Judge Executive Gary Moore. “It is happening in other counties and around the country, and it has the potential to occupy millions of square feet. There is a small solar farm in Kenton County just south of the weigh station on I-75, but in one county there are 8,000 acres of farmland under contract to create a massive solar farm. You can imagine the river bottoms out in western Boone County where it is very flat, or other parts of the county. We wanted to be out in front of it. This doesn’t eliminate the potential for roof mounted solar, which we believe there is a lot of potential for that, but we do think roof mounted in certain places, where it is permitted would be okay. This is about the ground mounted solar farms which would eat up mass acreage.”
One resident asked if they were not going to allow ground mounted at all.
“We wanted to have the same type of playbook,” said County Administrator Matthew Webster. “The Court says it would be prohibited if it were large enough to be in the solar farm acreage, like 500 acres or so.”
Another resident said it looks like it is ground mounted versus building mounted, but Webster said it is not a preference for ground mounted or building mounted, but it is the size of the ground mounted.
“The court is concerned with eating up a lot of acreage with large ground mounted units,” he said.
Commissioner Cathy Flaig also commented.
“The ones that are on the ground, they take up a lot of good green space, where you would plant your crops,” she said. “We’re a green county and we want to stay that way.”
“The goal is not to prevent private residential property owners from using these type of systems,” said Commissioner Chet Hand, adding that there has been a lot of discussion on this topic. “We are looking at tier 1 and tier 2 systems, the large square footage.”
Judge Moore clarified further that utilities can do what they want, like Duke or Owen, because the court does not have the authority to regulate the utilities. He added that if they see large solar farms in the future, and they think that Boone County disallowed those farms, they should be aware that these are probably products of the utility companies.
NEWPORT
Newport city commissioners voted on the first reading of a minor shakeup of government. Three positions will be added to the police organization under the heading of Interdepartmental Enforcement team.
The first will be animal control, which was previously housed under Code Department, but there will be no change of personnel or new hire for this position. Robert Steffen will take over as parking and sign specialist, and although he has worked in this position before, it was never codified. The third position is a community affairs specialist, to form relationships with the community, and Barry Shields will take that position. The position will also include ABC administration and enforcement.
The commissioners listened to praise of the Tesla vehicles already purchased by the city, and the proposal to buy another for the building department was approved. The goal is to replace the entire police fleet with Teslas, but as Mayor Thomas Guidugli stated, they want to go slowly and prove the car’s effectiveness.
Commissioners approved applying for a federal housing grant for the city.
They also approved a homeland security grant that will replace the computer equipment inside the cruisers.
TAYLOR MILL
The city of Taylor Mill held a special meeting Friday morning to take care of two issues.
The first is the replacement of a front loader vehicle which is used to spread salt in winter weather. Director of Public Works Jerry Jump found a used one for $32,000, and Commissioners voted to spend the money to replace the broken one, which is 25 years old, because they are aware that clearing the roads is very important.
The other issue was not so easy.
The new firehouse has a concrete footer installed, but they need to have concrete poured for a foundation. Unfortunately the ground is saturated and frozen, and that ground would have to be dug out and gravel added so the concrete can be poured. The other option is to wait until the ground dries out, which could be a lengthy amount of time, if past winters into spring are any indication.
Commissioners Rose Merritt and Mark Kreimborg voted to wait for the ground to dry out.
Commissioners Dan Murray, Commissioner Caroline Braden, and Mayor Dan Bell voted to spend the $40,000 needed to keep the project on schedule.
Work could begin as soon as Monday.