COUNTRY DISCOMFORT: A NEW LAW WOULD REGULATE DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL AREAS

FRUITLAND, Mo. -- Sitting in her backyard on a gentle summer night, Ruth Hermann used to gaze at horses grazing in a neighboring pasture.

These days, the view is much different. Seven used, vacant mobile homes stand where the horses used to graze. Most of them have been there for about a year and a half, a visible reminder of a mobile home park that has never developed.

Hermann and her husband, Charlie, live in a modular home in a rural Cape Girardeau subdivision near Fruitland off County Road 533. Their yard is meticulously landscaped, their spacious rear deck carefully crafted.

Hermann said she wishes "the trailers" had never been put on the hill next to their small piece of ground. She'd prefer vacant land to developed ground.

"Houses bring people, barking dogs, neighbors and noise," said Hermann.

A development company, Holigan Homes, brought in the mobile homes, which were trade-ins from people who bought houses in other Holigan developments. Holigan spent the last 18 months putting in a $75,000 sewer plant, and extending electricity and water at the site, said Charles Haubold, who operates a Michael Holigan Homes franchise in Cape Girardeau.

But the Holigan development firm is no longer interested in developing the property as a mobile-home park. Haubold said his franchise, which doesn't own the vacant mobile homes or land, is trying to help the Holigan development firm sell them.

The development problem near Fruitland is just one example why Cape Girardeau County needs planning and zoning, supporters of the November ballot issue say. Planning and zoning would have provided the Hermanns and other neighbors a chance to voice their views over any proposed mobile home park.

Even if a permanent planning commission and the County Commission approved the project, the developer would have had to start on the project within a year or resubmit a development plan.

Voters on Nov. 7 will decide whether to authorize county planning. A simple majority is needed for passage. If approved, the County Commission will appoint an eight-member planning commission, which will make planning and zoning recommendations. The County Commission has the final say.

The county has had no control over development since 1992, when voters rejected a proposal to impose zoning and tossed out planning as well. Roger Arnzen, who directs the county's mapping and appraisal office, has assisted a temporary planning committee in developing proposed planning and zoning regulations for the unincorporated areas of the county.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said the prosecuting attorney's office encouraged the commission to put the issue back on the ballot since the county has moved up to first-class status based on its assessed valuation.

In 1997, Cape Girardeau County became the 15th first-class county in the state, meaning it had assessed valuation of $450 million or more per year for five years. Cape Girardeau County is one of only two first-class counties in the state that doesn't have some type of planning and zoning.

Voters in first-class Jasper County defeated the measure in April for a third time. Jasper County Commissioner Ben Johnson said he thought the county did everything right to get it passed -- spent $30,000 for a county plan, put it online and educated voters on the issue. State law prohibits the issue from being on the ballot there again until 2002.

"We have things here that made us really consider it," he said. "We have a lot of new housing developments, and there should be some sort of standards. It takes 10 years for a subdivision in the county to get built out, by then the developer is bankrupt and never kept his promises to the residents for roads and stuff.

"Then the people come to us, but we don't accept their roads."

The opposition in 100,000-resident Jasper County said they moved outside city limits specifically to avoid government interference in the way they build.

"They didn't want Big Brother coming in and telling them what color to paint their barns," Johnson said. "We weren't trying to do that."

Locally, opponents of planning and zoning also view it as unwanted government intrusion into their lives. They say it would hinder new businesses in rural areas and lead to greater bureaucracy in county government.

They've been vocal. The county's temporary planning commission, which helped draft proposed planning and zoning regulations, held two meetings last week to explain the ballot issue and hear from county residents. Four more meetings are scheduled over the next two weeks, including 7 p.m. hearings on Wednesday and Thursday at Notre Dame High School and Delta High School, respectively.

At the first hearing, opponents loudly railed against the plan, arguing that rural residents should be left free to develop their land as they see fit.

Doug Flannery, who lives near Whitewater, Mo., and is running for the First District County Commission seat, is one of the most vocal critics of the proposed planning and zoning regulations.

Flannery said the regulations would make it difficult for rural residents to set up non-farm businesses on their land. He and other opponents resent the fact the County Commission has put the planning issue back on the ballot.

"I thought we were heard then," he said, referring to the 1992 vote.

But county officials have received complaints from other residents about everything from junk cars to a planned recycling plant.

"We tell them there's absolutely nothing we can do," Jones said.

While county planning doesn't require zoning, commissioners have made it clear that if the ballot measure passes, they will implement zoning.

Arnzen said a hearing would be held before the County Commission enacted a master plan and regulations for residential, commercial or industrial subdivisions and mobile-home park regulations.

Commissioners have said they would also enact zoning regulations, but only after a hearing was held in each of the county's 10 townships.

Even if the planning issue passes in November, Arnzen said it likely would be next April before the county commission would be ready to enact zoning.

Managing Editor Heidi Hall contributed to this report.