Council OKs bid for vets' memorial walkway, mayor's idea for joint meetings with other governing bodies

The Midway City Council will spend $14,005 to build a 10-foot-wide walkway along the back side of the veterans memorial in the Midway Cemetery, a long-discussed improvement.

Acceptance of the bid from Turn to Stone was recommended by the council's Cemetery and City Property Committee and accepted by the council at its regular meeting Monday evening.

The council also heard and saw a presentation from Billy Van Pelt of Woodford Forward about the group's recent survey of Woodford County citizens' attitudes and opinions about development, farmland preservation and other issues. For a story about the survey, click here.

Van Pelt said those who responded to the survey, representing about 13 percent of the county's households, have "a sense of stagnation in growth and development" but still want to protect prime farmland.

"They're thirsty for business to come in," said Martha DeReamer of The Matrix Group, who supervised the self-selected survey. She said there was no way to know how the opinions of non-respondents might differ from those of respondents, but the diversity of the results suggest "no red flags" in the methodology.

Mayor Grayson Vandegrift complimented the work. "I've seen a lot of surveys like this over the years and this is one of the best I've ever seen," he said. "It's a great resource for us." The survey broke out opinions of Midway residents, Versailles residents and the rural parts of the county.

Van Pelt said Woodford Forward would make the same presentation to the Versailles City Council on Tuesday night, and hold an open house at Woodford Reserve at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday for interested people to meet members of the group and discuss the issues.

Vandegrift said the survey gave him an idea: that the city councils and the Woodford County Fiscal Court should have a joint meeting twice a year to discuss broad issues facing the county and "talk about how to move forward together, not look backward." Noting survey results, he said, "Clearly the people of Woodford County want to see the three governing bodies work better together."

The mayor asked for the council's blessing to approach Versailles Mayor Brian Traugott and County Judge-Executive John Coyle about the idea. The council agreed. Council Member Dan Roller said the communities that win awards are those where the county and cities are not competing with each other.

Among other business, Vandegrift reported that the new turnout gear for the fire department has been delivered, Council Member Libby Warfield complimented Vandegrift for recent paving repairs near Midway Grocery, and Roller complimented the police department for its response to the Friday burglary of Railroad Drug, in which the burglar was apprehended after a silent alarm alerted owner Ken Glass.

The council again briefly discussed the need for repairs to the city's welcome sign near Interstate 64. Vandegrift said they had talked about using some material other than wood, and he lnoew two people in town who might be able to do the work, but "I'd like to see some ideas."

Planners recommend rezoning for Midway Station

The Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Planning Commission voted 6-0 last night to recommend that the Midway City Council rezone Midway Station, a failed industrial park that has saddled the city with largely unproductive debt, to allow sale of the property for a residential and commercial development.

The motion passed by the commission included a limit on the pace of the development, no more than 50 residential housing permits per year. Critics of the recently revised development plan, which has more than 600 residential units, have said it would create a glut of houses in the area and depress housing values. The city council could remove the limit if it rezones the property.

The zoning change is requested by the Woodford County Economic Development Authority, which owns the property and produced this promotional map, and Anderson Communities Inc., which has agreed to buy it if the zoning change is approved.

Commissioner Jim Boggs said that without the limit, Lexington-based Anderson could get all or almost all the housing permits allowed under the county's comprehensive plan for the next three years, shutting out local builders. The limit "takes care of that, if this is legal," he said. The commission's attorney, Tim Butler, said he thought the limit would meet legal muster because Anderson "committed to that" 12-year schedule during a public hearing on the change.

Anderson told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he was “ambivalent” about the limit. “It's going to affect the development plan,” he told reporter Greg Kocher. “We want to work with it. We'll put up every effort to try to make it work.” Kocher's 350-word story also quoted Hank Graddy, the attorney for the Woodford Coalition, which monitors growth in the county, as saying “This is a very bad planning decision” that should require another public hearing, this time before the city council, because the motion approved by the commission contained “factual errors,” such as a finding that Midway Station has adequate fire protection. Errors of fact are often the basis for lawsuits challenging rezonings.

Midway has a volunteer fire department and Midway Station is north of Interstate 64, in an appendage of the city limits. It was annexed around 1991, when the property was rezoned from agricultural to industrial. Critics of the plan have said it would create a "New Midway" separated by the highway from "Old Midway." For The Woodford Sun's story on the commission's May hearing on the issue, click here.

Mayor Tom Bozarth declined to say when the city council, which is next scheduled to meet on July 21, might consider the recommendation. Some council members spoke favorably of the proposal early this year, but opposition among their constituents appears to have grown, much as it did when the EDA wanted to sell the property to Bluegrass Stockyards Co., which wanted to relocate from Lexington but dropped the plan in the face of public opposition and the likelihood of legal action.

"The main concern of Midway citizens" about the latest plan, Hume said, "was that it was going to flood the city with residential units." He said the limit would regulate the pace of the entire development because some of the residential units would be in buildings with commercial units. "This is the most reasonable way to have some growth in a reasonable manner," he said.

Commissioner J.D. Wolf, noting that Midway Station has cost the city and county $1.5 million in interest with little to show for it, asked why Anderson shouldn't be able to "do what he wants." He said Anderson “might just say 'I don't want to fool with it.'” Hume replied, "I'm trying to take into consideration Midway and its citizens. . . . It's our responsibility." Now that responsibility falls to the city council.