Tim Stevenson and several neighbors planned to show up in matching red shirts Tuesday night, ready to tell Campbell County planners exactly why they oppose a proposed subdivision near their homes outside Alexandria. The Campbell County Planning and Zoning Commission held its meeting at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the project, and opponents attended. At the meeting, a 7-0 motion passed on the zoning change. At the center of the fight: a development proposal for 86 homes covering about 22 acres in rural southern Campbell County, Kentucky.
Stevenson and his wife, Sarah, moved to the area outside Alexandria in 2019 looking for, as he put it, “peace and quiet.” According to WKRC, Plum Creek Partners is seeking a zoning change for the property next door, working with Fischer Homes on a subdivision that Stevenson says would contain 86 homes on 20 acres. He is not opposed to development on the land outright, but he objects to the density and the traffic it would bring.
Stevenson's list of worries is long: increased traffic, loss of privacy, and a retention pond planned near his property line that he fears could cause flooding on his own land. The development site includes a tributary that feeds into Pond Creek, and the creek is already listed as impaired for aquatic life because of high sediment, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Stevenson worries that runoff from the new homes could carry fertilizer, pet waste, soaps and detergents straight into that waterway.
Traffic Bottleneck Already a Daily Headache
The proposed subdivision would funnel all its traffic through a single entrance onto Alexandria Pike, a road Stevenson says already suffers from bad rush-hour congestion. He points to schoolchildren commuting and buses lining up as part of the daily crunch. “So, it all comes down to one point, one traffic light, to get out. The congestion's gonna be crazy,” a nearby resident said, per the same account.
This isn't the only fight over dense housing in the area. A separate local12.com report describes a Maronda Homes proposal for 98 houses on a 46-acre plot south of Alexandria between Alexandria Pike and Licking Pike — a project where dozens of residents packed a Campbell County Fiscal Court meeting to protest. That report notes that under current zoning rules, the proposed lot sizes would be deemed too small, though zoning commissioners voted in April to allow that project to move forward. It remains unclear whether these figures describe the same development at different stages or a separate proposal entirely.
Comprehensive Plan Update Still Taking Shape
Campbell County has finished but not finalized a draft of a new 20-year comprehensive plan, one intended to limit or prohibit cluster housing developments like the one worrying Stevenson's neighborhood. The county's existing comprehensive plan sets a minimum lot size of one acre in the agriculture zone, according to LINK nky. During an earlier visioning session for that update, residents raised cluster housing, traffic and roads, and warehouses as top concerns for preserving quality of life in southern Campbell County, and they said they did not want the plan to promote dense residential cluster subdivisions south of the urban service boundary.
Campbell County Planning and Zoning Director Cindy Minter told LINK nky in 2024 that the comprehensive-plan update was still in its early data-gathering stages. Minter, who holds that same title today, declined to comment on the pending subdivision project when asked. Both Plum Creek Partners and Fischer Homes received requests for comment from WKRC but had not responded before publication.
Fiscal Court Has Final Say on Zoning Change
Under Kentucky law, any subdivision of land must receive commission approval before it can proceed, per the Kentucky Revised Statutes. That approval is distinct from the zoning change: the commission's motion on the proposed change was sent to the Campbell County Fiscal Court, which has the final say on it. The same chapter of state law lays out the rules for subdivision plats and development plans, including the local ordinances that govern how projects like the one near Stevenson's home move through the approval process.
Similar fights have cropped up elsewhere in Northern Kentucky recently, including a packed meeting over a proposed 340-unit apartment plan involving the city of Florence annexing land between Florence and Union, and a long-debated east-west road corridor project also headed for the Campbell County zoning board. For Stevenson and his neighbors, though, Tuesday night's meeting was about one project, one creek and one road — and whether the county's planners would side with density or with the rural character residents say they moved there to protect.
