"The Boys Who Lay the Blacktop, You Ought to See Them Belt"
County and City working through process over use of significant fairgrounds parcel
A proposal to construct a 600-by-600 foot asphalt training pad at the Franklin County Fairgrounds is meeting with some resistance, particularly from residents of Bayberry Creek, a condominium community adjacent to the proposed site.
The training pad is about eight acres in size and roughly the size of the Target store on Trueman Boulevard, as City Planner John Talentino described it.
The project has yet to be formally submitted.
It must be reviewed by the city’s planning and zoning commission and board of zoning appeals before Hilliard City Council would consider it for final approval.
Talentino and Brad Foster, chief deputy, engineer of operations, for the Franklin County Engineer’s Office, described the proposed training pad June 26 at Hilliard City Council.
Foster told council members Franklin County employees who drive commercial vehicles would benefit from the training pad by improving maneuverability capabilities, learning accident-avoidance techniques, drive-awareness training and general vehicle capability education.
The training pad would be used by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office for patrol training, Foster said, providing deputies the opportunity to practice the deployment of stop sticks, devices that flatten the tires of vehicles, and pit maneuvers, a deliberate and controlled action police use to cause a driver’s car to spin.
Foster responded to a series of questions about the nature of the patrol bureau training:
Vehicles on the pad would not exceed 50 mph.
Sirens are not to be activated
Use of the training pad is expected to be during first-shift hours, typically 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to Franklin County Maj. Carl Hickey.
It remains undetermined whether lighting would be used at the training pad.
It is possible, Foster said, that at some point in the future, other public agencies could be offered use of the training pad or that it could be used for civilian driving instruction and testing.
If approved, the proposed training pad would require several variances and special considerations related to landscaping and lighting, according to Talentino.
It is likely there is to be no landscaping whatsoever on the 600-by-600 foot training pad, for example.
Storm water runoff, buffering, and noise mitigation are also to be addressed if the proposal is formally advanced, he said.
As government property, the proposal is a permitted conditional use but still requires variances and other considerations as proposed, according to Talentino.
The property is owned by the Franklin County Commissions and is not immune from Hilliard’s zoning requirements so long as the applicant demonstrates “reasonable accommodations” in its effort to comply, according to Hilliard Law Director Phil Hartmann.
Noise, flooding and the creation of a “heat island” by the training pad are several of the concerns that about a dozen residents voiced June 26.
The proposed site of the training pad is the far southeast corner of the Franklin County Fairgrounds, east of the harness-racing track and immediately north of Bayberry Creek.
Carey Schuett, of Berry Leaf Place, said he chose his residence because, apart from one week in July during the Franklin County Fair, it is quiet.
Schuett suggested that be training pad be situated at the north end of the fairgrounds at the entrance from Northwest Parkway.
“There is a better place for it,” he said.
James Murphy, a Bayberry Creek resident, was more direct.
“The peace and quiet will be shattered by a project like this,” Murphy said.
Norwich Township Trustee Chuck Buck lauded the proposal but Hilliard City Councilwoman Cynthia Vermillion voiced some concern.
Vermillion said while she understood the need for a training pad, the “middle of Hilliard isn’t the right spot.”
Buck said the training pad would benefit Hilliard by the presence of Franklin County employees and others users who would frequent the businesses in Old Hilliard.
The first step if the project is advanced is an application to the Hilliard Planning and Zoning Commission.
Pogues...one of the most objectively ugly bamds. But legends the same