US Census reports Mason County’s population DECREASED by 7.6% from 1981 to 2021.
The last Comprehensive Plan for Maysville/Mason County, Kentucky listed “Inadequate sewage disposal in the rural areas of the County leading to pollution problems and possible health concerns” as the number 1 problem.
Even as Mason County’s population declined by 271 between 2016 and 2021, the number of houses on septic fields has increased. The loss of tobacco and dairy income has driven many farmers to sell road frontage for house lots.
The next comprehensive plan should help landowners replace the $64 Million tobacco and dairy income lost annually. That income will provide landowners an alternative to selling housing lots where public sanitary sewers do not yet exist. This increased income will also substantially increase the real estate property tax base available to fund new infrastructure for housing, including sewers.
Sanitary Sewers in Maysville/Mason County
Failure to replace this lost rural income leaves only two choices, both unappealing:
- Increased tax rates to support housing and other local infrastructure
- Increased pollution problems and possible health concerns as more housing has inadequate sewage disposal and other public services
The next comprehensive plan should adopt a different solution. It should adopt policies that will help recruit industries that:
- Add little to no long-term burden on our local community facilities, including services and infrastructure.
- Increase the real estate tax base to support local services.
- Protects our topsoil for future generations.
- Reduces chemical pollution in local watersheds.
- Helps replace the $64 million of lost tobacco and dairy income
- Increase the number of local high-value job opportunities.
- It must balance future generations’ living standards and prosperity with current residents’ preferences by reducing artificial barriers that increase the land needed to produce the same value.
The next comprehensive plan must balance future generations’ living standards and prosperity with current residents’ preferences by reducing artificial barriers that increase the land needed to produce the same value.
Potential Solar Real Estate Tax Revenue
