Thursday, January 28, 1999
Time to get involved for a 'vision' for 12th Street
BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Critics call it “the moat”: a fat, grassy boulevard that would slice downtown Covington in half. To the north would be the riverfront in all its concrete, car-congested glory. To the south, the crumbling neighborhoods of the have-nots.
This is one view of plans to widen 12th Street.
The other goes something like this: While good men talk but do nothing, the state spends money on roads.
And who can deny that 12th Street needs help? Scattered among industrial-looking businesses and sturdy brick homes are derelict boarding houses and pubs that should have been improved or torn down long ago.
The renovated Bavarian brewery on the west end of 12th and the Cathedral Basilica to the east are like fresh bread on a sandwich that is slowly rotting inside.
Of course, there are reasons for the decay as well as exceptions to it.
The plans to widen 12th — a project that would wipe out 52 homes, stores and other buildings — have been around forever. People don't want to throw money at property they expect to lose.
The exceptions include Flannery Painting at the corner of Main and 12th, the grand old Children's Law Cen ter at Madison and a stretch of rehabilitated homes between Scott and Greenup.
Flannery would be gone under the proposal. But according to current plans, the law center would stay, as would all the buildings east of Scott. Improvements would extend from Interstate 75 to Scott and consist of a grassy median with trees, relocation of ugly utility lines and a widening of existing lanes.
Without the buildings on the south side, backyards would be exposed. Highway officials expect to build some sort of grassy berm and fence between the yards and 12th Street.
Remember, these are road engineers, not garden-club presidents. Concrete is their speciality.
What's sad is that the aesthetics of 12th Street have been left to the Kentucky highway department by default.
What's good is that the $11 million cost would be covered by the state.
Highway official George Hoffman acknowledges that this improvement has more to do with looks than traffic. The widening adds turn lanes but not space for more cars. That's because, even with a new convention center along the river, average daily traffic on 12th between I-75 and Main will increase from 12,000 cars to 13,600 by the year 2020, state documents show.
It's easy to be against change. Some property owners don't want to lose their businesses. Other citizens are generally opposed to tearing things down.
What really matters, though, is action. And with regard to Covington's central business district, this has been in short supply.
The city has not effectively fought blight on 12th or developed a strategy to fill empty storefronts. Its planner quit several years ago and was never replaced. Now the economic development guru has left and the zoning administrator is on extended leave. City government is in limbo while the staff awaits a management analysis to be completed sometime this spring.
Twelfth Street “looks terrible,” says Don Hellmann, who owns a lumber mill on the road. With the cathedral drawing so many visitors, “Covington ought to be ashamed of it,” he says.
“All they think about is the riverfront. It seems to me that nobody cares about the inner city,” Mr. Hellmann says. “These houses, they get
burned out ... and then they just sit there.”
Some do, anyway. Others have been rehabilitated to form the core of a neighborhood.
Jody Robinson chose to rent on 12th between Scott and Greenup because she loves the convenience and diversity of the city. At 8:30 a.m., children come out to play at the Biggs Education center, and their laughter mingles pleasantly with the sound of birds and the rumble of trucks outside her door.
Ms. Robinson likes walking the five blocks to the post office. Behind her house is a community garden that residents along 12th and Trevor streets pick from all summer.
Her apartment is half of a rehabbed home that wouldn't be demolished under the state's plans. Still, she's concerned that a boulevard of fast-moving cars and high walls would marginalize the people living around it.
Years ago, a few people with important titles attended some tedious meetings on subjects like the Comprehensive Plan of the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission.
It was these folks — many of them elected by us — who put 12th Street on the state's radar screen. That was the real moment to get involved, back when the “planning” was still truly that.
A public meeting about 12th street is scheduled 4 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 3 at John G. Carlisle Elementary.
Compelling opposition could stop the project, Mr. Hoffman says. But this would have to go beyond complaints from property owners who don't want to be displaced.
Here's a challenge to concerned citizens: Go to the public meeting and look at the street plans with an eye toward making the most of them. City leaders will be there. Tell them you want to see a vision for 12th Street, not just sketches of a street widening. How will pedestrians get around? What will be done with backyards facing the street? What about blight on the north side of 12th?
Many streets in downtown Covington need a plan. This one doesn't have to be a loser.
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or by e-mail at: ksamples@enquirer.com
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email
her at ksamples@enquirer.com
SAMPLES ARCHIVE
