County is asking for the public's help in planning for future growth
CARROLL − Fairfield County officials are planning for future development and are asking the public for help.
"Whether you're pro growth or against growth, growth is inventible," county commissioner Jeff Fix said.
The county hosted a public meeting Monday night at the Fairfield County Workforce Center for about about 200 or so members of the public.
The meeting was interactive, as attendees were split up into groups with a large map of Fairfield County at their tables. The county wants to update its 2018 comprehensive development plan and will take the public input it received into consideration when making a new plan.
The county is working with a company called Planning NEXT on the new plan. County officials want to host another public meeting in June and complete the plan in July.
Attendees partook in a 30-minute exercise in which they put different colored dots on the maps signifying where they would like to see growth in housing, commercial businesses and employment. There was also a green dot representing greenspace to be protected. A representative from each of 13 tables then briefly described how they configured their map.
Scott Barr was sitting with several people from Amanda at his table.
"We put a lot of the green dots in Amanda Township," he said. "We admitted that we really don't know all the areas of the county that well. Basically, our trend was that we decided to put more residential housing around Lancaster, especially the way the schools are now."
Barr's group designated the northern part of the county for commercial development.
"We also kind of like the idea, though, of having commercial, residential and manufacturing around each of the little communities instead of concentrating everything in one place," Barr said.
Josh Berry was at another table and talked about what his group's ideas was for future growth.
"We put a lot of focus on green dots, as well," he said. "We've got a farming background here at the table. We kind of focused on Walnut Township, Amanda Township and seen a lot of development for residential and commercial through the (U.S.) 33 area. Through (Ohio) 256 in Baltimore, that's becoming commercialized already, so that's where we prioritized it. And some of the best farmland we feel is in Walnut and Amanda."
County economic development director Rick Szabrak said he wasn't surprised by the large crowd, based on past interest in economic development in the county.
"The fact of the matter is we're going to grow," he said. "Central Ohio is going to grow. We need homes. We need homes for teachers. We need homes for law enforcement. We need homes for people that are working in our community so they can have a place to live. We are short on housing in central Ohio and we do have a lot of land that can be developed here in Fairfield County."
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter: @JeffDBarron
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: County is asking for the public's help in planning for future growth
