Louis Ethridge, formerly of the Clermont County Department of Community Planning and Development, recently began work as the director of Goshen Township’s Department of Community and Economic Development. Ethridge said that the task before him was to manage an explosive growth potential that has already began to attract homes to the rural township.
“Goshen is simply growing,” said Ethridge. “Between 2000 and 2005, our population has grown about 16 percent. That’s 15,896 residents, and in Clermont County, only Union Township, Miami Township and Batavia Township had more.”
As one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the county, Ethridge said that the challenge facing the township was to promote and achieve a balanced growth that includes businesses, as well as homes.
“This is residents, population growth, and that’s the primary focus we have is to get some balance in the tax base,” said Ethridge. “There is so much residential growth, which is fine, but we also want to be able to look at some growth in commerce and industry. We want to have services for residents as well as job opportunities.”
Ethridge said that the stress created by unbalanced growth would be felt by every homeowner when the population began to overburden basic services. He said that without businesses to pump extra money into the economy, the cost of maintaining roads and other basic services would increase, and it would fall on homeowners to carry that cost.