The greater Buckhannon-Upshur is positioned for growth. The land adjacent to Wal-Mart and Lowe's is no longer on the market according to UCDA director Steve Foster and expansion along Corridor is the next step. Traffic on Corridor H is over the growth threshold point of 12-14,000 vehicles per day.
During last Thursday's joint city/county meeting, the idea of planning the development of Corridor H in Upshur Countywas discussed at length with emphasis on signage, access roads and master planning.
Some of the discussion suggested that uniform signage is more pleasing than a smorgasbord of sign types and sizes. Eye appeal is important when attracting permanent businesses and tourists to our area. I think it is a good idea to consider what our area could look like with and without a development master plan.
The idea of planning access roads is also important. Easy access is important for development. An example of poor planning is Emily Drive in Bridgeport as access to East Pointe Plaza is either congested or inconvenient. Properly planned access is critical for EMS, fire and police responses.
The 'A' word, annexation, and the 'Z' word, zoning, were briefly discussed as options but the outcome of the discussion was the directive by commission president Tenney to have a separate meeting to discuss these issues. This is planning 101 and can only lead to adding value to our area. If we don't plan, we wind up with a hodge podge of development.
At a minimum, I would guess and hope that representatives from the city, county, state and the development authority would be part of the planning process and discussions of the first meetings. The state DOH has existing signage and access road regulations.
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I have a question about zoning & code enforcement, since eye appeal is so important. Does painting your house or business property so it has good eye appeal not fall under zoning & code enforcement? Because if it does someone should be fired for not doing their job properly. on Main Street alone there are more than 10 buildings that look horrid, & what about that 2 story home on the corner of Main & College? There are at least several hundred if not more buildings in the city that need some paint attention. Eye appeal does go along way.
ReplyDeleteAs a business owner on corridor "H" do you think the business owner or people that own property along it be included in the planing? When we built all I had to do was buy a building permit from the county. A few years ago we had a major fire. No code provisions were provided us when we purchased our building permit. If we had not installed a fire wall our complete building would have burned down. I will give thanks to the Buckhannon Fire Department for saving the building.Scott I think you attended that fire and thanks. If we had built the building any bigger we would have had to install a sprinker system and the water line is not big enough to run a sprinkler system. We have no sewage system so we installed an aeration system. I think a lot of these things have to be worked out before you mention the "A" or "Z" word.
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