Jersey Township's new plan predicts population could grow to 16,000 following Intel
Jersey Township has approved a comprehensive plan that will guide the area through changes that will follow Intel's $20 billion investment in Licking County — and which predicts that the township's population could grow fivefold in the next 12 years.
The plan was approved 2-0 during the May 1 Jersey Township trustees meeting with Trustee Ben Pieper abstaining.
The plan aims to balance the area's rural and agricultural history while also welcoming in the development that is headed to Licking County.
Holly Mattei, president of Crossroads Community Planning who led the planning process, said the township needs to bend to allow some development so that it doesn't lose any more land to annexation. By bending, she said, the township can control how the land develops.
"We're going to embrace it to the point that we can, but we're going to do it in our way," she said. "We're going to set the stage for how we want our community to look."
Mattei predicts in the plan that Jersey Township's population could skyrocket from roughly 2,500 people now to more than 16,000 people by 2035, based on the land uses within the comprehensive plan.
She said Jersey Township is in a similar position now to the Chandler, Arizona, area before Intel's computer chip manufacturing facility was built in the 1980s. Within 10 years of Intel's arrival, Mattei said, the Arizona area was fully developed. And that will likely be the case for Jersey Township as well once water and sewer lines are completed in the next few years, Mattei said.
The comprehensive plan was developed over the past year through input from two committees. The township also held community forums and sent a survey to gather resident feedback. The plan outlines four key planning themes with goals tied to each one:
Community character and land use: Goals include preserving rural character and the neighborly atmosphere of the community and fostering the environmental sustainability of the township.
Economic development and township preservation: Goals include ensuring a strong tax base to support new development and preserving the integrity of the township by partnering with neighboring communities to accommodate growth and share revenue, expenses and services while preventing annexation.
Services, infrastructure and transportation: Goals include promoting mobility and access by providing a high-quality road network and collaborating with the local school systems to plan for growth and financial stability.
Communications and community relations: Goals include ensuring transparency and open dialogue with residents on township operations and decisions, and continually assessing the level of service and desires of the community.
Beyond the goals, the plan includes 42 recommended actions for the township to take within in the next few years in order to meet all the goals outlined.
One of the recommendations related to community character and land use is to create a mixed-use overlay district along the east side of Mink Street north of Ohio 161 to directly serve future Intel workers, Mattei said.
"One of the things we learned when we went out to Arizona was that they have residential absolutely everywhere surrounding Intel," she said. "When we interviewed the planners and the real estate agents out there, everybody was giving us the same feedback that if they were to do anything differently, they would have provided some service-based commercial and office uses nearby so that the workers didn't need to go 15-20 minutes to the grocery store, get gas and those sorts of things."
The plan also calls for maintaining large residential lots, with a 2-acre minimum for much of the land between Mink Street to the west and Hazelton-Etna Road to the east, and a 3-acre minimum for the northeast corner of the township.
Comprehensive plans are usually written to last for 10 to 15 years, but Mattei said township would need to evaluate the entire plan more frequently because of the evolving conditions in western Licking County.
"We have to keep an eye on this on a yearly basis," she said. "We have to understand what those changing demands are, and so we will need to look at these future land uses, and everything else in the plan, on a yearly basis to see if there's something that needs to be changed in this."
mdevito@gannett.com
740-607-2175
Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Jersey Township plan predicts population could grow to 16,000
