BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LIBERTY TOWNSHIP -- Wentzel Ervin is feeling a little sandwiched in these days.
Just down the street from where he drives his riding lawnmower, stores abound on every corner at Liberty Towne Center. When the 65-year-old man moved into his new bride's house five years ago, the closest business was half a mile away.
Now United Dairy Farmers, Dairy Mart and Thriftway dot the corners of Cincinnati-Dayton and Hamilton-Mason roads.
"They are squeezing us in here," he said.
It's only going to get busier.
Liberty Township is to begin plans for developing a business district in this southeast corner of the township near the proposed Butler Regional Highway and future extension of Cox Road.
The district will include the rezoning of property from agricultural to commercial, creating a source of cash to pay for Butler County sewer extensions there, said Trustee Board President Bob Shelley. The rezoning also will make it all but impossible for homes to be built in that area, he said.p
Unlike families, incoming businesses can add to the tax base without introducing more children into an overburdened Lakota Local School District.
Without the change, the township is not able to legally stop such subdivisions as the upscale Four Bridges community from moving into that area. Four Bridges, north of Hamilton-Mason Road and west of Butler-Warren County Line Road, was chosen this spring as the site of Homearama 1999.
The area is roughly bordered by Cincinnati-Dayton Road to the west, Hamilton-Mason Road to the south, the Butler-Warren County Line Road to the east and Princeton Road to the north.
However, the heart of the business district is intended to sit along the proposed Butler Regional Highway currently under construction and the future extension of Cox Road into Liberty Township, Mr. Shelley added.
Trustees recently approved paying up to $3,000 to consultants Kleingers & Associates of West Chester for help drawing up the plans. The zoning change will allow the township to confine its commerce district to one corner and satisfy an earlier agreement.
The land lies within a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district established last August between Union and Liberty townships and Butler County, said Curt Arulf, the county's economic development administrator.
During the 10 years of the TIF, 75 percent of tax money raised from increased property values will go to pay for the new sewer lines in the district.
The school district gets 25 percent of the new funds. But when the 10 years is up, Lakota will get its full share.
The TIF district covers 2,300 acres. Most of that, or 1,800 acres, is in Liberty Township. Property in the district must be commercial. The new business means Mr. Ervin doesn't have to go far to get an ice cream cone or to do his shopping.
"But if I had my choice, I'd like it to be the old way," he said.
