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More than 40 speakers aired a long list of concerns, grievances and frustrations with the existing draft of the Oxford Thoroughfare Plan at a special forum meeting of the Oxford Planning Commission Tuesday.

With nearly 100 area citizens in the audience, the speakers vocalized many concerns about housing development and questioned the necessity and legality of proposed "roads to nowhere" cutting through existing properties. The issue of city control over township planning also was a major concern.

Many complaints stemmed from

general frustration about the lack of

public input reflected in the planning process itself and unresponsiveness of TetraTech, the firm that released its final version of the plans this November, which will be considered by both

Planning Commission and City Council.

"The maps in the draft thoroughfare plan are exactly the same as the maps in the final thoroughfare plan. I thought that all public comments were going to be incorporated into the plan," said Jenny Gelber of 5508 Brown Road.

Oxford Twp. Trustee Larry Frimerman spoke about the need for the city and township to plan together and how the plan will affect many township

residents who say they are being treated like "second-class citizens."

Frimerman said he was concerned that many of the proposed new roads "are outside the city's purview and most of the residents speaking today are outside the city's purview. They are feeling disenfranchised."

Commission Chairman Paul Brady stressed that this meeting represented only the beginning of a long process of public input before the commission presents a recommendation about the thoroughfare plan to city council.

A commission thoroughfare plan work session was tentatively scheduled at 7 p.m. for Dec. 13 at a location to be determined. It will be open to the public.

City Council Representative Dave Prows said that a question and answer session also was needed so questions from citizens could be directly addressed. The commission did not directly respond to any public comments at Tuesday's forum.

Many of the speakers were affected because proposed thoroughfares were shown to pass through their property as a series of dots on the map.

"My house is directly underneath a dot (on the map), and I would hate to lose my house to a connection between two neighborhoods that don't need to be connected," said Jim Oris, of 35 Hidden Creek Drive.

Many Oxford Twp. residents on Brown Road north of town and Booth Road south of town spoke up about proposed bypass routes through their neighborhoods, arguing it would ruin the rural character of the areas and lead to new housing developments and suburban sprawl.

Charles Stevens, of 5774 Brown Road, said he opposes the plan because he believes it opens up Oxford to development on the scale of the fast-growing Cincinnati suburbs.

"I'm not willing to live in West Chester here. If I wanted to, I could move there," Stevens said.

"Oxford does have a few traffic problems, but ... it does not seem to fix much; it does open up a lot of farmland to development," Stevens said.

Doug Coffin of 81 Lantern Ridge Road said he didn't believe the new roads would improve traffic in the city.

"Just building more roads leads to more development and more people. It doesn't alleviate traffic at all, it only makes it worse," Coffin said. "People who moved here because it is a small town would like to see it remain a small town."

Another major concern dealt with the fact that the thoroughfare plan is being addressed

one year before the Oxford Comprehensive Plan is to be reconsidered.

Several speakers said the thoroughfare plan should be tabled until the comprehensive plan is completed and called for moratoriums on city annexation and real estate developments until then.

"The thoroughfare plan happens to be timed extremely awkwardly. It's inappropriate to approve it a year in advance of the next comp plan," said Jim Rubenstein of 1 Oak Hill Drive.

Rubenstein said the level

of emotion and criticism shown at the meeting reflect a general frustration with the way the thoroughfare plan has been handled.

"What's happened here tonight shows you that things didn't work quite right in terms of citizen input," Rubenstein said.