By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Armed with blue, green and red markers, citizens circled areas of Wood County ripe for development, deserving of preservation, and worthy of reinvestment. They came with different purposes – farmers, developers, elected officials – but with one goal to help chart the direction for land use in the county.
“I’m just interested to see what their plan is, and how that’s going to affect me,” said Paul Braucksiek, who lives in rural Webster Township, northeast of Bowling Green. He estimated his township is 99.9 percent agricultural. “And it probably needs to stay that way.”
The planning open house Wednesday evening was part of the public input portion of the county’s effort to update the land use plan adopted in 2007. The new plan will consider where zoning changes would be appropriate, where utilities should be expanded, where roadways should be built. The process will also identify areas that should not be developed, but preserved.
As people milled about looking at county maps at the planning open house, Braucksiek chatted with Denny Henline, of Pemberville.
“I came tonight because I watched Levis Commons and I watched the Golden Triangle,” both areas of retail development in the Perrysburg area, Henline said. While he isn’t opposed to growth, Henline would like to see it directed to areas that are not prime farmland.
“For my grandkids, my goal is to have a good vision,” he said. “It just breaks my heart when they come out and gobble up prime farmland. It’s like a runaway horse. You can’t stop a runaway horse.”
Henline, however, would like to see more development occur in the Pemberville Road corridor that would encompass Luckey, Pemberville, Bradner and Wayne. But to encourage growth in specific areas, utilities like water and sewer have to head that way.
From the southern end of the county came Henry Township Trustee John Stewart, who knows something about planning for development.
“We got our planned business district,” by the CSX intermodal hub, Stewart explained. “It’s something other townships should look at.”
Alice Brown, who grew up on a farm in Perrysburg Township and now lives in Bowling Green, came to keep an eye on the county’s roadmap for the future.
“My concern is the future of Wood County,” she said. “Are they controlling development and then in three years it will be obsolete?”
Rick Metz, a developer from Bowling Green, shared similar concerns.
“We need to look ahead, not backwards,” he said.
Metz talked about the demise of shopping malls in the region, and the decay of small towns.
“Should we be running utilities out there to preserve the inevitable,” he said, referring to rural towns with dwindling populations. “We need to think ahead.”
The county is contracting with McBride Dale, Cincinnati, for $63,000 for the land use plan. The planning process is expected to take 12 to 18 months to complete.
For more information, contact the Wood County Planning Commission’s Dave Steiner or Katie Baltz at (419) 354-9128 or the website: http://planning.co.wood.oh.us/land-use-plan/
