Corvette Museum Gets Zoning for Motorsport Park

It’s looking better and better for the National Corvette Museum’s plans to build a motorsports park to be used for high-performance driving and testing.

The City-County Planning Commission voted 8-3 to allow the museum to rezone more than 400 acres of land near Porter Pike and McGinnis Road from Agriculture to Planned Unit Development, the Bowling Green Daily News reports.

Concerns about increased levels of noise and traffic prompted a large crowd from an adjoining neighborhood to protest the rezoning, and in the end, the museum had to make concessions to try and reassure those residents and the planning commission.

“We certainly would have liked to have a unanimous support from the commission, but we’re very thankful and appreciative of the support we did get,” Executive Director Wendell Strode said.

“Of course, we still have the hurdle with (Warren County) Fiscal Court, but this was the major hurdle for us. We feel like there are donors and prospective sponsors that are much more likely to get involved with us now that the rezoning is complete and everyone can feel good that if they do get involved it will happen.”

In its binding elements, the museum said the only unmuffled vehicles that would run on the track might be cars from the Corvette Racing Team or NASCAR teams, but Strode said it’s not definite that either would ever visit the track for testing. The museum also agreed to bring back a Detailed Development Plan to ease noise concerns as commission members want to make sure the berm planned by the museum to keep noise levels at bay would do the job.

Attorney Chris Davenport, who represented Southern Kentucky Land LLC, which owns land to the south of the proposed park, said his clients did not feel the noise concerns were adequately addressed.

“If you’ve ever been to a NASCAR event, you know how loud those cars are,” Davenport said.

Said Commissioner John Atkerson: “I want to get behind this and be for this, but it’s very important that we do it the right way, that’s what my concern is. My naive goal here tonight is to get this approved and for these neighbors to walk away and feel like they’ve been protected through this process.”

If you’d like to make a donation to the National Corvette Museum’s Motorsports Park, visit http://www.motorsportspark.org.

Source:
Bowling Green Daily News

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