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Regional Growth Planners Begin Work

MORPC meeting

From the Columbus Dispatch 2/20/2004 click link below for full coverage.

More than 300 people participated yesterday in a discussion of regional growth strategies at a Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission workshop, and more than 100 turned out for a Columbus City Council session on potential changes to the city’s annexation policies.

Columbus Councilwoman Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, who led the council hearing, said the city has to continue to grow while finding ways to maintain services.

"If you shut this off, you start to shrink and die," she said.

"On the other hand, we don’t want to extend ourselves" beyond our capabilities.

BIA predicets immediate pain to workers

That worried many in the building trades. Dozens of workers attended the council hearing, fearing they would suffer if the city tried to slow growth.

"The only sure guarantee when you slow down or stop economic growth is the immediate pain to workers and the increased costs to government for social services," said Jim Hilz, executive director of the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

O’Shaughnessy called their fears an overreaction.

Townships at the Table

Lawyer Don Brosius, who has represented townships, said at the council hearing that Columbus and the townships also have to plan together.

"Building houses is easy. The hard part is building neighborhoods," Brosius said.

The MORPC effort is expected to culminate in September with recommendations on how to coordinate growth plans among the seven counties of central Ohio. The Columbus task force is to complete its work in a year.