NO ZONING OPENS COUNTY TO FREE-FOR-ALL

While both advocates and opponents of planning and zoning in Cape Girardeau County agree that its 1992 end hasn't had much effect so far, the potential for problems exists.

First, any sort of residence or business can go up anywhere in the county, regardless of its neighbors.

But the county's lack of zoning could affect city dwellers, too.

City Planner Kent Bratton said that in the early 1970s, when Cape Girardeau was a third-class city, city officials might have had extra-territorial planning and zoning authority. For two miles outside the city limits, Cape Girardeau officials could have dictated zoning according to city ordinances.

However, when the county's planning and zoning commission developed a master plan for county development in 1975, Cape Girardeau's power ceased. Still, city officials might have protested county zoning decisions within 1 1/2 miles of the city limits if the officials had passed a zoning plan for the extra territory themselves.

Bratton said the city developed such a plan but never passed it.

Now the game has changed. Cape Girardeau is a charter city, and the Missouri Revised Statutes say a charter city must have a population of at least 65,000 to enforce zoning in a two-mile area past the city limits.

This rules out Cape Girardeau.

Technically, a factory could locate just outside the city limits, near a residential neighborhood. No city or county zoning regulations could stop it.

Glen Birk, who served on the county's planning and zoning commission for two years before it was dissolved, said he foresees some problems.

"I think the county needs some system of organized growth," he said. "Without a plan, some major problems will develop. Right now, people can build any type of structure anywhere they want to."