Would an enormous RV park outside Midway help Woodford County’s tiny town or ruin it?

How many RVs are too many RVs?

That’s the question being asked in Midway right now as residents and city council members grapple with a proposal to build an enormous recreational vehicle park just outside the tiny town.

“The Kentucky Bluegrass Experience Resort,” spread across Woodford and Scott County just off I-64, would feature 818 RV sites, 155 cottages, 37 tent sites, a restaurant to serve 400, a pool with a lazy river, hike and bike trails and access to two miles of Elkhorn Creek on what was known as the Mitchell Farm. It was for sale for a decade before former UK football player Andrew Hopewell and his partners bought the property.

Midway residents, who crowded into a big meeting on June 14 to discuss the project, say it’s not that they’re opposed to the RV park per se, it’s just too big.

“I think that this is too much for Midway,” said Dale Benson, a former Midway city council member. Midway currently has about 2,000 residents, but the park could have room for more than 3,000. “I think the scope is really the issue, it will be one of the biggest RV parks in the country.”

A group of concerned citizens, which includes former Kentucky First Lady Libby Jones, have hired Lexington attorney Joe Childers to represent them, although they are hoping for compromise rather than a lawsuit. The park made it through the Woodford County Board of Adjustment with a conditional use permit called Tourism Destination Expanded, which was created a decade ago so The Castle could have 12 overnight accommodations instead of 10. The number of sites was not made clear, said Sara Day Evans, one of the opponents.

“We like what they’re trying to do with outdoor amenities, hiking and biking and access to the creek,” she said. “But 800+ RV sites, one of the largest RV parks in the country, along the Elkhorn Creek would impact the land, water and my intentionally small hometown in ways that we cannot reverse.”

Compromise does not seem immediately on the table. Joey Svec, a partner of Building the Bluegrass, is the spokesman for the park. He said the RVs would be much less concentrated than other parks around the nation, but the economies of scale are already set.

“We looked at the land to see where there are environmental sensitive areas to preserve the land as much as possible,” he said. “Fifty percent of the project is green space — we’re excited about the density we’ve got because we’re not overpopulating the property.”

Svec said he and Hopewell both grew up in Central Kentucky. “We think there’s a lot to be shown to the region and the nation about our area,” he said. “We want them to come to the resort and come and experience the Bluegrass on the property.”

In case anyone was worried about the total Bluegrass experience, visitors will also be able to do bourbon tastings at the nearby Elkwood Mansion, where The Bluegrass Distillers of Lexington are expanding.

Svec did not respond to questions about financing the project, such as whether the developers will apply for state tourism tax credits. A tax increment financing proposal is off the table, said Midway Mayor Grayson Vandegrift. “We will not participate. TIFS are nothing but corporate welfare.”

Vandegrift is being diplomatic about the project, helped by his plans to run for the state House of Representatives next year, but admits there are complications and questions.

“We’re not going to see a philanthropist farmer buy that land for $3 million, so we have to think about land use and the future,” he said.

Staying small town

Midway might be as close to Mayberry as it gets, tiny, picturesque but full of Victorian cottages and great restaurants, a belt of horse farms between it and the metropolises of Versailles, Georgetown, Frankfort and Lexington. Like everywhere, it needs more affordable housing, but many there appear to be flummoxed by the RV park on top of a proposal to build 68 town houses next to the Corner Grocery close to downtown.

They’re also flabbergasted by their local Don Quixote and native son Hank Graddy, the well-known environmental lawyer, showing up to represent the developers. (He opposes the town-house development.)

Graddy said that he represented the Mitchell family for many years, and it was clear that once the farm became surrounded by Midway’s industrial park, it would never be sold as a horse farm.

“The options were very limited,” he said. As a long-time advocate for waterways like Elkhorn Creek, he thought the recreational use would be a good one. In addition, the conditional use permit means that the park would be reviewed every year by the Board of Adjustment so that complaints could be addressed.

Graddy said his clients are open to more discussion, but “the more sites we have, the more amenities we can provide for guests and for the residents of Midway, including $10-$20 day passes for residents.

“This is tourism working to protect a remarkable resource, the Elkhorn Creek,” he said. “The reality is that change comes and the issue is whether you find the right kind of change, the best possible change and put that in place.”

Numerous questions remain. What about traffic on Midway’s tiny roads? Route 341, Georgetown Road, is a skinny, two-lane road where it’s hard to imagine a caravan of RVs not causing traffic issues. The various permits and permissions in Midway also have to be approved in Scott County; that process won’t start until Woodford is settled. The public comment period in Midway will run through July 8.

The project needs Midway’s sewer and water lines, so the property will have to be annexed by Midway City Council. That means the proposal’s success depends on that council vote, so members should be expecting a lot of calls and emails this summer.

In the end, Midway residents will have to decide how much change, if any, they want. But it’s an instructive example of how we deal with future land use. As farming remains an ever perilous endeavor, will we see more farmland turned into projects like this? Is an RV better or worse than a sprawling subdivision would be on the same land?

“It’s just these land use issues are so critical,” said Mayor Vandegrift. “They are so long lasting. I just hope a compromise can be found.”