Issues to consider contained in Greene County’s adopted land use plan.
Enclosures:
Commentary from Jim Viebrock
Greene County’s Adopted Land Use Plan (pdf)
Position on Greene County’s Land Use Plan
Before I begin dissecting the land use plan adopted by the Greene County Commissioners on the 2nd of November 2009. I want to clarify my position on the “green movement”. The green movement is an interesting promotion of agendas or ideals that, in their basic form are good spirited and appropriate notions for the care and maintenance of our very unique planet. However, some have exploited those concepts into politically driven agendas and skewed the well-meaning efforts of responsible land stewardship practices. Appropriate land stewardship is a must. Thru technology, we must find ways to protect, clean and even improve the world in which we live. The statements contained within this summary should not be construed to conclude that I am anti-environmental, to the contrary, I wish to address the needs of humans in a manner acceptable to the balance of the natural world thru education and implementation of proper land stewardship and practices.
As I express my concerns as outlined in the adopted land use plan, please be mindful that on my own private land are two endangered species, one of which is known only to exist in less than twenty places on the planet, the Blind Cavefish and the Albino Crawfish (1).
After reading the land use plan several times it is clear that the Planning and Zoning Board under the direction of the current Greene County Commissioners will begin to move in a politically driven “environmental” direction. Around 80% of the plan contains general information about the County itself. This gives the Commission triune the cover needed to diffuse the “legislative” (2) nature of the plan and pass it off as a “comprehensive study”. Entwined into the pages, are the real and true intent of the vision. The plan references “Conservation Easements” (3) and the promotion of high-densitydevelopments as the new wave of development (4). The plan uses words like “encourages” and “promote the benefits of” as catch phrases to cover the true intent of the new regulations and more dense development practices referred to as “Cluster Developments” (5). The plan is conflicted in that it wishes to promote “green areas” set aside for “conservation easements”, “common area’s”, *agricultural reserves, development rights leases or “green space” and even implies that these areas will be regulated in the platting process in the future (6). In contrast the new vision discourages the development of larger tracts of land for residential use, i.e. the diminishment or prohibition of 3 to 5 acre developments. Which traditionally are open green spaces. These developments are hampered by increased regulation on wells and septic systems and ultimately the forcing of shared wells and septic systems as “encouraged” practices (7). The plan fails to set out the ownership and maintenance needs of these systems, stating only that the problems arising from disputes will be a civil matter to be settled by the courts (8).
The plan also embraces at least six references to the concept and implementation of land use rights being transferred from private ownership into land trusts (conservation easements or agricultural reserves). Whereby the rights of private land use is “permanently” set aside, and controlled by civic or green activists groups. Under these agreements landowners may still be legally liable for “accidents” and maintenance of the property, but are restricted in how the land is used. Likewise the property taxes are still the responsibility of the landowner. This concept has been applied in other areas of the country such as Colorado. They call them “construction/development easements” or ”agricultural reserves *”.
The plan openly endorses other green movements such as “New Urbanism, Neo-traditional development, and Green Development”. The plan clearly states that these movements will be embraced “by encouraging developments which are responsive to these trends”(9). After researching these trends, the common underlying theme of the “new-wave developments” is to re-develop center city projects in favor of, or in preference of, allowing new developments out in the county or even the edges of metropolitan areas. The re-development of brown fields or blighted areas should be due to market driven forces, not mandates from the governing entity. The embracing and adoption of these new movements, clearly defines the Presiding Commissioners desire to halt new growth outside of the incorporated areas of the County.
The plan recommends that these “New Urbanism” and “green development” movements be promoted to “educate” the public as to the plans perceived benefits (10). It states that the public will “choose to follow” with these movements if they are made aware of them. In fact, within the document, the Resource Management Department is charged with “ensuring” that the public is educated thru “press releases and mass mailings” (11). The County will use taxpayer money to pay for the promotion of the new environmental movement.
Furthermore, it is clear from earlier versions of the plan that Greene County intends to be anti-growth well into the next decade. This anti-growth mentality freezes future income for our schools thru the lack of assessment valuations due to no new development. Concepts ranging from agricultural reserves*, to authorizing the use of taxpayer money to purchase the development rights from landowners have been floated to the legislature by the County. Only after extremely negative reactions from groups like the Missouri Farm Bureau, the Missouri Cattleman’s Association, several school superintendents as well as the general public were those ideas reluctantly removed from the plan. Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod said: “It is regrettable that the agricultural preservation aspects of the original Greene County land-use plan revisions were removed after criticism from the Greene County Farm Bureau during early meetings” (12).
It is clear that additional movements are underway. Using this plan, the Commissioner triune will be able to direct the Planning and Zoning Board to force developers into building untested and lawsuit prone shared waste-water and well systems. They will require smaller building lots to squeeze the landowner into creating unused and likely un-maintained green spaces (13). Prompting the question of health issues and legal liability. Consider this, if the lots are smaller, are the homes also to be smaller? What other requirements will be implemented to force you into this new environmental movement? Will we be taxed in the future for excessive square footage on a homes footprint or “carbon imprint”?
Is the motive behind the plan rooted in the myth that “urban sprawl” is evicting us from our only farmland? Is denying landowners the right to own residential plots larger than a half acre somehow saving green space? One only has to travel around our beautiful County to find the answers. Take the Forest Ridge subdivision on Springfield’s eastern side as an example. Beautiful large homes speckle the landscape on expansive five to ten acre lots. The deer play, and the kids play too. This is a upscale subdivision filled with professional individuals who earned the financial ability to acquire this elbowroom. There are trees and wildlife teaming all around. Under the newly adopted land use plan, developing a new subdivision such as this one would be plagued with requirements of a community sewer and shared wells. Under this new “environmental” plan, this property would be “encouraged” to be less than a quarter acre- high density housing with a “common area” for green space. The positive spin on this so-called “improved plan” will be that all these new properties will be on city sewer and city water and have restrictive convents- no wildlife though.
The adopted land use plan, uses comfort words in the drafting of the document to persuade the reader to glide over the action words. Terms like “encouraged”, “recommended” and “persuaded” are used to imply that these provisions are voluntary in nature. However one line supersedes these comfort terms and provides the mechanism to fully implement the provisions outlined in the document. “Greene County Planning and Zoning must find ways to implement the land use plan.”(14). The word “must” is the dictating action word. It can be interchanged with “shall” or “will”. The use of this word mandates the Planning and Zoning Board to carry out the use of “voluntary” submission in every action they take. This is, in my opinion, some form of eminent domain that must be adhered to if you are to survive the application process of altering the zoning or applying for a land use/ building permit in Greene County from now on.
Their defense of the document will include phrases like “this was the citizens plan” referring to the task force that was created to look at this project. After interviewing most of the people who served on the taskforce it is clear to me that almost all of the recommended changes were either lost or omitted from the various drafts of the plan. The remaining suggestions dropped out of the final version returning this document to the agenda driven, land grabbing legislation it is today, with key elements like “agriculture reserves” renamed to “conservation easements”.
As I stated earlier, many of these concepts are well meaning. In contrast to the new “plan” adopted by the current commissioners, I believe we should embrace the creativity of our developers, consulting with their land planners, builders and realtors who transform our bare land into “market driven” projects that compliment our natural resources while balancing the personal preferences of our growing human population. Thru technology, and common sense land use planning and utilization, we can put Greene County’s inhabitants back to work, preserve our clean water, improve our farm yields, reduce demands on our natural resources and replenish our renewable resources while accommodating our growing human population.
References:
Unless otherwise noted, all references are taken from the adopted land use plan, adopted into law November 2nd 2009
(1)-News-Leader article: Rare species reside on representative's land Tuesday Jun 17, 2008
(2)- Page 13, Line one.
(3)- Page 50, Paragraph two
(4)- Page 12, Bullet points 3,7,9,10
(5)- Page 51, Paragraphs one and two.
(6)- Page 18, Third paragraph, last line.
(7)- Page 54, First paragraph.
(8)-Page 16, Second paragraph.
(9)- Page 42, Second paragraph, line two and third paragraph, line three.
(10)- Page 53, Third paragraph, line three.
(11)- Page 53, Third paragraph, line three and four.
*(12)-City Connect web site-Posting Aug 31st 2009, “Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod said it is regrettable that the agricultural preservation aspects of the original Greene County land-use plan revisions were removed after criticism from the Greene County Farm Bureau during early meetings” (http://www.springfieldmo.gov/cityconnect)
Note: Agricultural reserves are parcels of land set aside for no development to take place ever, regardless of that lands highest and best use. This would be a direct violation of a persons personal property rights, restricting the owner’s ability to utilize the property in a more profitable manner. This property may or may not be suitable crop or livestock production. It is generally just rural land zoned as agricultural.
(13)-Page 51, Second paragraph, line two and three.
(14)-Page 53, First paragraph, line one.
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