Water quality, sprawl hot conference topics

by Paul Schreiber

SBJ Reporter

pschreiber@sbj.net

More than 100 participants from a 10-county area met for the fourth annual Fall Meeting of the Ozarks Regional Economic Partnership Oct. 29 at Ozarks Technical Community College. Attending were area businesspeople, as well as members of state and local governmental agencies.

The meeting was designed to spark ideas and increase awareness of how community growth impacts neighboring areas, said Allen Kunkel, manager of regional development for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

Kunkel said understanding the relationship between annexation and infrastructure placement is fundamental to managing growth.

"Most people think as you annex areas to your city things are automatically going to happen. Well, annexation really doesn't attract growth, it's infrastructure and highways that determine where growth really occurs and spurs. And then you have annexation plans that really follow that."

In respect to this, area towns have developed strategies for future growth. "Each community has come up with an urban service plan of how far they're wanting to grow over the next 30 years," Kunkel said. It's important to have "a clear regional plan on infrastructure growth and annexation management."

The economic partnership serves Dallas, Polk, Dade, Greene, Webster, Lawrence, Christian, Barry, Stone and Taney counties.

Growth Management

Addressing issues of regional growth and long-term planning was Steve Austin, president and CEO of Bluegrass Tomorrow Inc., a private, nonprofit planning organization based in Lexington, Ky.

Austin's presentation centered on applying "smart growth" principles to community expansion, showing how directing growth within a regional framework impacts quality of life and economic development.

Austin said new development and growth should be "people-centric." Revitalizing under-utilized or neglected downtown areas into more people friendly spaces and creating better neighborhoods that are more people conducive is the key, he added.

Slowing traffic, incorporating green spaces and parks, and making foot travel possible are ways neighborhoods can better accommodate its inhabitants, Austin said.

Shirley Click, regional work force development manager at the Missouri Career Center, said Austin's graphics and presentation lent weight to the importance of evaluating community growth issues on a regional basis.

Click, however, attended with ulterior motives.

"For me, this is more a way to network with businesses, to hear about other work force needs, meet new business leaders. That's the main reason that I have interest in this partnership because work force is, I think, a key issue," Click said.

Networking also was a motivation for Kim Lightfoot, field representative with Rural Missouri Inc.

It was a forum to meet people and get referrals, particularly the names of people who might qualify for Department of Labor grant moneys available for tuition assistance to low-income, seasonally employed farm workers, she said.

Water quality

Managing growth and its impact on water resources was explored through groups connected with water issues in southwest Missouri. Loring Bullard, director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, said issues addressed included proliferation of septic tanks, managing run-off at development sites and instances of groundwater.

In March, a water-quality summit with 40 delegates representing different stakeholder groups met at Drury University, Bullard said. Groups such as farming, banking, marina owners, resort operators, state and local agencies, education groups, manufacturers and real estate personnel considered issues and long-range planning to best utilize area water resources, he added.

Part of the difficulty in adequately handling water needs in southwest Missouri is the increasing number of people living in rural areas on larger home tracts without municipal service, said David Casaletto, program coordinator for Table Rock Lake Water Quality Inc.

Casaletto said Missouri's House of Representatives is considering a new concept regarding water utilization. It has formed an interim committee to consider legislation to establish an on-site wastewater district. "This will be a basin-wide district where houses or subdivisions could voluntarily join to allow them to get (state-revolving funds) or low-interest funding from the government.

"That district then is responsible to make sure these systems are maintained," Casaletto said. He's hoping the upper White River Basin could be a trial for that concept. The growing trend is to look at things on a watershed-wide basis, rather than by county or municipality, he added.

Holly Harber, research manager for the Missouri Department of Economic Development, said the water monitoring segment was helpful. "Sometimes (water use is) happening without relationship or without regard to the strain that's being added to the water supply."

Infrastructure

Glen Leroy, principal with urban planning and architectural firm Gould Evans Goodman Associates in Kansas City, said communities across the United States are at a crossroads prompting some basic decision-making. Addressing the economics of infrastructure, he said communities must choose either to continue a sprawling pattern of growth or select a more compact form of development.

"The evidence that's coming out is that sprawl is not an economically sustainable pattern in the long run. We can't afford our infrastructure anymore at as low a density as we're developing," Leroy said.

Regional cooperation among communities and relevant agencies, a change in consumer attitudes away from a sprawl mentality and exhibiting the political will necessary to enforce decisions are important to effective, long-term development, Leroy said.

Lowell Thomas, vice president of Nahbolz Construction Corp., said staying the course requires flexibility in community planning. "It's always going to be fluid. It's going to depend on the efforts and, to some extent, the integrity of the people that are doing it," he added.

Forecasts

Leroy said it's likely southwest Missouri is akin to other regions in the country in that without intervention, sprawl will continue "to the point that the community begins to reach a point of resistance with the ability for local governments to fund their infrastructure in the long run.

"That is the trend that we're seeing emerge nationally. There's not enough tax base being generated by the low density to support the immense infrastructure it takes to support it," Leroy added.

Keeping pace with growth is a reactive exercise for City Utilities, said Ken McClure, CU associate general manager for administration and vice chairman of economic development for the Chamber of Commerce.

"We don't lead the growth, but certainly where it goes we have to be prepared to provide the necessary infrastructure that goes there," McClure added.

Mark Viguet, senior manager of communications at CU, said electrical demand has grown 3.5 percent annually during the last 15 years, and added that CU projects annual growth at a rate of 2.7 percent. All of Springfield, portions of Greene County and a section of northern Christian County are covered in CU's 320-square-mile service area, he added.

According to the OREP's Web site, www.ozarkspartnership.com, the Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area's per capita income is $25,756, and the medial household income is $34,661. The current unemployment rate for Springfield's MSA is 4.2 percent, up from 3.5 percent in 2001.