Growing Pains: Greene County officials struggle to meet land needs

The proposed changes to the county’s plan, however, have met some opposition from the development community because of potential negative impact on land prices and population growth.

The plan, created in 1981, acts as a guide for proper uses of county land, factoring in citizens’ needs, environmental concerns and potential growth issues.

Now, the county is updating the plan for the first time since it was created.

“There’s been a lot of work done in the last 26 years,” said county Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod. “There’s new (water) well data, a new (geographic information system). Everything is so much more advanced than it was then.”

The plan pinpoints areas in the county best suited for residential and commercial development, with remaining areas being deemed suited for agricultural use.

The original plan made projections and assumptions for a 20-year time frame; the proposed new plan would replace the 1981 plan and is intended to provide guidance for the next 20 years.

Impetus for change

The major reason for the decision to update the plan now is the county’s rapid growth. Coonrod said the population sits at about 277,000, an increase of 90,000 people since 1981 and 30,000 more people just since 2000. By 2010, Coonrod noted that Greene County’s population is expected to hit 300,000.

Greene County planner Kent Morris said the updated plan would call for about a third of the county’s land to be recommended for agricultural use; the determination, he said, was made by figuring out what areas of the county made the most sense for residential and commercial development, with the remaining land earmarked as agricultural.

“(The guidelines) give us a little consistency,” Morris said. “If a case comes to hearing, and all the neighborhoods come together and say they don’t want it, the plan gives us something to go by when determining the right answers to those issues.”

For example, while the land use plan is the overall guide for the Planning & Zoning Commission, the plan also spells out specific requirements for new developments, such as water and sewer services and road infrastructure.

While a third of the county may seem like a considerable amount, it’s significantly less than the 49 percent of county land that’s currently agricultural or vacant property. Forty-three percent of county land is used for single-family, multifamily and mobile homes.

“We said that the areas that were already slated for residential uses, let’s keep them there, keep those areas compact and more efficient for development,” Morris said. “Then the suggestion was made that the rest of the land might be better off preserved for agricultural uses.”

Coonrod said that retaining enough land in the county for farm uses is critical – and will become even more important in coming years due to predicted price pressures in other economic sectors.

“We have a fair suspicion that in the near future, gas will go up to $5 to $7 a gallon; there’s going to be a point in time where trucking or bringing in food from Arizona and California won’t make a lot of sense, and we ought to try to do more agricultural production here locally,” he said. “It makes sense to protect some farmland.”

The plan, however, is not set in stone.

Morris said the county will find answers to questions posed by citizens and business groups in a series of public hearings over the last several months and incorporate that information into a revised version of the plan, which will be presented to the public for further input.

“This process could be over in the first part of 2008,” Morris said, adding that future public hearings have not yet been scheduled. “We’re not in a hurry – we want to make sure we have the answers to the public’s questions and they have the proper input into the process. That’s more important than a finished product right now.”

Issues with the plan

Matt Morrow, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield, said that his group is worried about the county creating difficulty for local builders and developers.

“The best way to prepare is through comprehensive and well-communicated infrastructure plans,” Morrow said. “If you have a comprehensive long-term plan, with benchmarks, about where the county or cities are planning to build roads, bridges, sewers and infrastructure, that’s where the bulk of the development is going to congregate. If their plan for infrastructure is with an eye toward optimal land use, then what they’re able to do is guide where development happens without artificially tampering with land values and prices.”

He said that setting aside specific areas for agricultural use will not only artificially lower the value of that land, negatively impacting the landowners, but also make other land in the county more expensive.

“When you’re talking about taking a third to a half of the available developable land off the table, then you have serious scarcity issues, and that will affect the land prices,” he said. “I don’t think that was the intent of the county. I think they just didn’t realize until they began seeking that input just what that impact would be.”

Developers also are concerned that land currently used to build homes on large-acreage lots could be unavailable for that purpose. Proposed plan changes call for land that is currently divided into three- to five-acre tracts to be used for higher-density residential development.

“There’s not a lot of us that have done acreage development in the unincorporated area. We’ve done it because of the demand from people who want to build on three- to five-acre tracts,” said Sara Ray of Southgate Homes Inc. “I think people who want to live on those large lots will still want to – they’ll just leave Greene County to do it.”

Working together

Commissioner Coonrod said the county is trying to get as much input as possible from local groups. The county already has met with the HBA regarding the issue, and a meeting is scheduled with the Greene County Farm Bureau in December.

“We want to have an intelligent, respectful discussion with them and other groups that have varying interests in the development of the county, whether it’s the continuation of agriculture or continued conversations about residential development,” Coonrod said. “We’ve asked any group that wants to meet with us about this topic to contact us.”

Despite the differences in ideology, Morrow said he’s glad the county is taking comments from the public and area organizations into account.

“I think they’re doing the right thing by gathering public input,” Morrow said. “I don’t know what the new incarnation will look like, but I think they’re doing the right thing by taking it back to the drawing board.”

The current incarnation of the plan is available through the county’s Web site, www.greenecountymo.org.

Land Use Plan Goals

• Protect natural and cultural resources, including ground water, air, wildlife, woodlands, agricultural areas, historical sites and open spaces

• Ensure efficient development and uses that will not unnecessarily tax the transportation and public utility systems

• Provide adequate supplies of land for agricultural, residential, commercial and industrial uses while providing adequate open space

• Encourage land best suited for agriculture to remain agricultural

• Encourage residential development closer to urban areas and encourage more dense residential and commercial development in those areas

• Provide adequate development areas to accommodate projected population increases during the next 20 years

Source: Greene County Land Use Plan