Home Latest Stories Education With public outpouring, has tide turned on Grailville?

[VIDEO] With public outpouring, has tide turned on Grailville?

Mar 22, 2022

Almost universal opposition expressed to tsunami wave of overwhelming/unbridled/un-planned growth

by David Miller

Loveland, Ohio – The prophecy that homeowners Jeff and Nicole Mullins expressed in these pages on March 2, that the “Grailville decision will be a litmus test for council members” looks to be close to reality. (An open letter to City Hall by the Mullins: Grailville decision will be a litmus test for council members)

During a 2-1/2 hour public hearing last week and speeches by 24 citizens about their traffic concerns, school crowding, poor infrastructure capacity, and density, there was universal alarm expressed to the wave of the overwhelming tsunami of unbridled and unplanned growth in Loveland.

There was a standing-room crowd at the public hearing on the zoning map and text written by Drees Homes for Grailville

While foreseeing the tsunami, Jeff and Nicole Mullins said in their open letter to City Council, “Communities that choose quantity over quality become cheapened versions of themselves and lose the charm that made them desirable in the first place. Once this green space is gone, it is gone forever. There is no getting it back. To make a bad decision worse by increasing density allowances after that fact, would be downright unforgivable.” They also said “Council has already blown it” by annexing the property for low-density residential with houses on one-acre plots and so shortly after, the P&Z is now considering a Special Planning District.

Grailville, was an environmental, education, and retreat center of The Grail, an international women’s movement. Located on 300 acres, with organic gardens, hiking trails, woods, pastures, ponds, creeks, modest guest housing, and solitude.

Last Tuesday evening the City Hall Council Chamber was filled to standing room capacity for a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to hear the Northern Kentucky homebuilder, Drees Homes, present their case for building 209 homes on 111 acres of the property known as Grailville. The site is just on the eastern edge of the city limits on O’Bannon Road and was recently annexed into Loveland.

After hearing from City Manager Dave Kennedy, Drees and their traffic engineer, and 24 local residents, the Commission discussed the zoning map change that Drees wrote. At the conclusion of the public hearing, instead of sending the proposal along to Council with a recommendation, the meeting was adjourned and will resume on May 4.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We do realize the sound quality of these videos is not good, especially when the Commission members were speaking. The volume of the room sound system is quite low in the first place and the members do not pull their mics close to them when speaking. The news media is forced to record from the rear of the room. It’s quite difficult to overcome the noise of the overhead HVAC systems and room ambient noise.