Blunt signs bill repealing 'village law'

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri property owners seeking to create their own village will have to do it in the next two months.

Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation Thursday that repeals a 2007 land-use law that makes it easier for landowners to incorporate their property as an independent community and thus avoid county planning and zoning.

That 2007 law had angered many rural residents.

As part of a deal to get the repeal passed, it won't take effect until Aug. 28, when most signed legislation becomes law. The bill had been slotted to take effect when it was signed by the governor.

Lawmakers in 2007 approved the village law with little scrutiny or debate. Since then, a southwest Missouri developer who supports House Speaker Rod Jetton has tried to turn his land near Table Rock Lake into a village.

Property owners near the eastern Missouri city of Washington and in Camden County near the Lake of the Ozarks have also attempted to create their own villages.

The 2007 law allowed for a petition for a new village to be placed on the ballot after 15 percent of the registered voters in the proposed new town sign an incorporation petition. It set no minimum for a town to be incorporated and allowed for proposed villages with populations of less than 100 to be exempted from having to show the ability to provide basic municipal services.

Those changes will be repealed in August under the legislation signed Thursday by Blunt.

Blunt signed the bill without any fanfare -- simply noting the action on a section of his Web site that lists bills signed into law.

Most lawmakers -- some of whom claim they had been duped before voting on the 2007 bill -- this year wanted to repeal the village law. But Jetton, R-Marble Hill, who has defended the law as helping private property rights, tried to preserve the 2007 changes.

The inner-Republican fight surfaced in the session's closing days last month and prompted a closed-door Republican caucus meeting. The squabble also threatened to kill several major bills, including one that cracked down on illegal immigration.

Besides the village law repeal, Blunt signed 20 other bills Thursday, including one requiring that the American and Missouri flags flown above state property be manufactured in the United States. The governor's office in a news release indicated that there are flags displayed at about 100 state buildings, parks and other sites.