The Dayton Daily rag had an
article yesterday about the
Little Miami State & National Scenic River, one of Ohio's natural treasures. In Warren County (just south of Dayton & Montgomery County), a developer has proposed a "planned community" of 2400 homes and a state official has cried foul, as the developer's plans encroach upon the federally-protected river itself.
Up until next Thursday, there is still time to contact the Warren County Commission and express an opinion on preserving one of Ohio's few remaining wild places.
More on the flip.
Scenic river not protected from development, state officials say
LEBANON | State officials sounded an alarm on Tuesday about a 2,400-home subdivision proposed along the Little Miami River in Warren County.
"We wanted to raise some issues of concern," said Robert Gable Jr., manager of the Ohio Scenic River program.
County commissioners will soon consider approval of rezoning sought by the developers of San Mar Gale, a planned community to be built over the next 30 years on 3,239 acres east of Lebanon owned by the family of the late industrialist and farmer Ralph J. Stolle.
On Tuesday, Gable and the state program's regional manager alerted commissioners that Hines-Griffin Land Development Co.'s plans apparently fail to adequately protect the Little Miami and its tributaries.
Gable's program has approval authority on public projects, but no legal power on private projects, within 1,000 feet of the state's scenic rivers. Warren County's Little Miami corridor plan, approved in 1979, recommends protections like those sought by the state. Only a few Ohio counties and communities have included river protections in local zoning codes.
The state wants Hines-Griffin to set aside a 120-foot buffer along the riverfront portion of the project and ravines feeding the river, which flows south from Clark County to the Ohio River. Preliminary drawings reviewed at Tuesday's meeting show no continuous buffer zones on the river or tributaries.
The commissioners will resume a hearing, begun in December, at 6 p.m. Jan. 26 on rezoning sought by Hines-Griffin. The county could push for the Little Miami protections as conditions included in the planned unit development or during later site review hearings.
The state has the right to restrict this sort of thing all the way out to 1000 feet, which would be acceptable, but all it's going for is a lousy 120 feet. Know how far that is? In football terms, that's only from the goal line to the 40!
So instead of seeing this kind of scenery at the river's edge:
It will become a part of the front yards of this (and there is no shortage of this):
Little Miami River preservation
National Wild & Scenic Rivers Act
If you contact the Warren County Commission to voice your opinion (before 6 p.m. Jan. 26), remember to be polite and reasonable. This wasn't their idea.
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(Modifed crosspost from my website)