County kicks off comprehensive plan update

Karen Craigo

A handful of residents stopped by the Willard listening session to provide input to Greene County planners.

Group advocates for immigrants with county leaders

About half of the participants in a sparsely attended Oct. 2 Greene County comprehensive plan input session were not there to talk about land use and zoning; instead, members of the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance wanted to express their views about immigration enforcement to the county officials who were present.

About a dozen county residents stopped by the meeting over a two-hour period.

The Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance seeks to end Greene County’s contract with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. They also call on the county to cease all future ICE collaboration involving county jail space and law enforcement personnel.

Derek James, public information officer with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed to Springfield Business Journal that the county’s contract with ICE allows it to house up to 300 detainees in its jail, though local arrestees are not turned away and beds are not kept unoccupied specifically for ICE purposes.

James said reimbursement is a modification of the county’s existing contract with the U.S. Marshals Service at a rate of $100 per day per detainee.

James said the ICE hold population has averaged around 240 people daily, though it fluctuates between 200 and 300. On Oct. 6, he reported there were 211 ICE detainees in custody.

James said from January through July, the county had received about $3.9 million in reimbursement from ICE. Figures from August and September are not yet available, he said.

At the Willard meeting, Miles Pearson, a Springfield resident and a leader of the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance, asked county Planning Director Sydney Allen to include protection of immigrants in the comprehensive plan.

“We want Greene County to be a place that’s welcoming to immigrants, and a place where people aren’t abducted and disappeared just because of the color of their skin,” he said.

Pearson said workers are being impacted by ICE actions.

“We’re seeing a lot of people who are living and working in Greene County being abducted,” he said. “A lot of times they are documented, but they don’t have documents on them. That’s a concern we were wanting to bring to everyone in Greene County, because if they’re not seeing the impact of it, they may not know it’s happening.”

He told Allen the group’s vision is for people to be able to live and thrive without fear for their safety.

“I think that would be our goal as well,” Allen told Pearson.

Asked if there is a place where land use intersects with immigration rights, Allen said yes and no.

“We are actually getting ready to bring to the planning board this month a statement that our zoning is nondiscriminatory, and we will not ever adopt any zoning that is discriminatory,” she said. “Zoning is how you can utilize your property and then the parameters within that use – what can do you, how can you build, things like that.”

Pearson said his group’s goal is to start a conversation with county officials about the immigration issue, and the input session offered a chance to do that.

Allen said any time there’s a public forum, everyone is invited to share their concerns.

“We’re happy to hear them, and if it doesn’t directly correlate with this project, hopefully we can connect people with other different parts of the government that can help,” she said.

Greene County officials are gathering input to update the county’s long-range plan, used to guide decision-making on land development issues.

The process, estimated to take 18 months, kicked off with a public input meeting Sept. 25 at the Rogersville Chamber of Commerce. A second one followed Oct. 2 at the Willard Fire Station.

County residents will have a third opportunity to share their opinions in person 4-6 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Greene County Election Center, and input is also being accepted online.

The county first adopted zoning regulations in 1964 and revised them in 1978. It last updated its comprehensive plan in 2009, with a land-use plan to address a growing population and development patterns in the county in 2009, according to planning officials. The land-use portion of the document was again updated in 2018.

Ryan said the completed plan would offer a glimpse of where the county will be 15-20 years in the future.

Greene County Senior Planner Amber Ryan said land use is a component of the comprehensive plan.

“We cover everything from economic development, land use, growth, infrastructure – we’ll talk about housing opportunities and then we’ll talk about any ecological concerns – we’ve got flood plains, sinkholes that we’re always dealing with, so it’s going to cover everything.”

Asked for the guiding principles of the document, Ryan said those are coming.

“We're going to be working with our area chamber of commerce, and also we’re going to be forming a steering committee as well,” she said. “We’re going to kind of rely on citizens to tell us what they're looking for.”

Ryan called regionalism an opportunity for the county, and she said retaining agricultural land and taking advantage of opportunities in the ag sector are also expected to be strong areas of focus.

The presentation by the planning staff outlined eight key themes of the comprehensive plan:

• Growth and land use
• Transportation and infrastructure
• Parks, recreation and open space
• Environmental sustainability and resilience
• Housing and neighborhoods
• Economic development
• Public services and safety
• Historic preservation

Asked about Springfield’s ongoing efforts to annex county land, Sydney Allen, planning director for the county, said each jurisdiction makes its own decisions about whether to annex, leaving the county to respond as best it can.

“We will definitely take into consideration what all of the municipalities in the county do and their outlook on how annexation should occur,” Allen said. “We need to be prepared, too, right around these urban service areas with what is going to occur, because the more we know, the better we can plan for it.”

She added that Greene County has great relationships with municipalities and has frequent conversations about development in the county and in municipalities, particularly in relation to utilities.

Allen added that environment is top of mind in the planning process. She gestured to a map of sinkholes and flood plains.

“It’s really important to the county to make sure we are enforcing regulations to keep everybody safe, but also with the environment at the forefront, too,” she said.

She added that the environment is a draw for Greene County, particularly with agritourism.

“The county in general is very open and excited about agritourism,” she said.

The economic development portion of the plan covers all sectors – not just agriculture, Allen said.

“What we’re looking for, especially through this process, is what citizens want to see,” she said.

After the plan is adopted, that feedback will be used to help the county amend or rewrite its zoning regulations to accommodate new opportunities while protecting property owners and the general public, Allen said.

“This is kind of step one,” she said. “While it’s a large step, in the next three to five years we will adopt this plan and then rewrite the regulations to mirror what this plan says we want to happen.”