Appealing Approval of Rose Island Glen

The safety of local residents traveling Rose Island Road was the almost unanimous concern of 301 local residents who signed opposition petitions. 

• KY State Police reports 79 crashes with 20 injuries on the 4 miles of Rose Island Road in the last 5 years. During the week of May 23 alone, three more crashes involving injuries and a rollover occurred.

• In the last month vehicle collisions have taken out two different utility poles necessitating protracted closures of Rose Island Road for repairs.

• The proposed development will add nearly 1,000 more trips daily from the residents alone without considering additional construction, service and delivery vehicles.

• Most people have had harrowing and near miss incidents on this legacy country hilly road that is in poor condition with 5 hazardous curves, 10+ blind spots, no shoulders, wildlife sightings, pooled water in places and more. 

• The posted speed limit is 35 mph, but casual observation reveals that the actual speed for many drivers is frequently 5-10 mph higher.

•  After considering only one metric (project intersection wait time) and only intersections within Oldham County, a traffic impact study commissioned by the developer concluded “minimal impact to the existing highway network”. The report was silent as to safety, road conditions, and bicyclists. The report did acknowledge that “Rose Island Road has not been constructed to modern standards. … the road way needs to be modernized” and listed four needed improvements.

•  The developer’s team casually attributed crashes on Rose Island Road to “driver behavior” which” cannot be regulated”. 

• Opponents assert that the known substantial safety hazards and history of excessive crashes (79 in 4 miles of roadway over a 5 year period) on Rose Island Road, compels Oldham County and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to exercise their duty and obligation to protect the health and safety of current road users (estimated to be 4900 trips daily) by remediating these safety hazards before approving any development which would increase daily traffic substantially.  

  Another common concern was health and safety threats to many existing residents due to the use of 94 new septic systems in an active flood plain.

• The Oldham County Planning Commission has approved the use of septic systems for this development; however,  County Subdivision Regulations Section 7.4,  cite intent for use of public sanitary sewer systems when existing public waste water treatment plants are reasonably accessible : defined as with ½ mile of the development. The Ohio River Waste Water Treatment and existing lines to it in the Rivers Landing and Yacht Club Estates are inside this ½ mile radius. Accordingly, the proposed development could use public sewer utilities instead of septic.  But, the cost of linking to public sewer systems (thus profit) has been identified as a "limiting" factor by the developer.

• By the developer’s plat, it appears that 27 of the lots are partially in the 100-year flood plain where septic systems could be subject to recurring seasonal flood damage and malfunction. This plan violates  Oldham County Flood Protection Ordinance Chapter 151 which cites intent to preclude utilities and septic systems from being underwater for significant periods of time from annual, seasonal flooding and shall be designed to eliminate infiltration into the systems and discharges and from the systems into floodwaters. 

• There are several existing community residences using private wells for drinking water, some of which are located in an active Clean Water Wellhead Protection Zone. 

• The 4 public agencies that regulate various aspects of water and sewer issues or development activities in the flood plain via a permitting process were not all represented at the Technical Review Committee Meeting on April 21, 2021. Consequently, the public has not been afforded the benefit of their regulatory oversight reviews of the proposed development. 

 Threats to existing residences from storm water runoff due to a questionable storm water management system design are an important shared concern.

• The proposed storm water management system uses two detention basins to collect and release storm water runoff from the subdivision. This plan is mis-engineered for the topology of the site, considering recurrent seasonal Ohio River flooding. 

• Storm water runoff to be collected will not discharge directly into the Ohio River; but rather out to two low-lying open detention basins for eventual collection by the low-capacity Little Huckleberry Creek, a designated blue-line stream. 

• Seasonal flooding of the Ohio River begins with backup of Little Huckleberry Creek and progresses northward, frequently until all roadway access to Riverside Drive and lower Oldham Acres Road is cut off. Such flooding will likely cause the detention basins located in low-lying areas of the flood plain to become silted and clogged with debris causing their malfunction. It is important to note that even in current conditions with the open field available to absorb storm water, these areas have been inundated by high flood water in 3 of the past 5 years. 

• The developer has asserted that he will be responsible to maintain the storm water management system (detention basins) until the new homeowner’s association (HOA) is in place and will then transfer responsibility over to this HOA via deed restrictions or covenants. However, the new development residents and their HOA WILL NOT experience the consequences of probable storm water management system failure; they will be less inclined to give remediation a high HOA priority, leaving the current residents of Harmony Village and Oldham Acres to bear the consequences of a system malfunction.