ZONING: REPEAL OF PLAN AWAITS ACTION BY COMMISSION

JACKSON -- Although voters last week overwhelmingly rejected county-wide planning and zoning, county zoning regulations won't officially be repealed until the Cape Girardeau County Commission takes action.

J. Fred Waltz, attorney for the county planning commission, said Thursday the county commission is required to formally act within a "reasonable period of time" to declare the program terminated.

"The essence of what people have done is terminated the program," Waltz said.

He said some of opponents of planning and zoning indicated they primarily were opposed to a zoning plan proposed by the commission and not necessarily against the county planning commission. But, Waltz added, Tuesday's vote scrapped both.

"They terminated 20 years of work for the purpose of I don't know what," he said. "I never did quite understand what their objective was.

"But what they have done is voted to terminate the program, so there is no planning, there are no subdivision regulations, no setback line ordinance, nor will there be any zoning ordinance."

Waltz said that according to Missouri law, county commissions aren't able to implement planning and zoning without submitting it to the voters.

"They (voters) have terminated the power to act under the enabling statute, therefore they terminated the entire program," he said.

Eventually, Waltz said the planning commission will be dissolved once the county commission formally terminates the program.

At a commission meeting last week, Cape County Associate Commissioners E.C. Younghouse and Leonard Sander discussed the steps that need to be taken. Presiding Commissioner Gene Huckstep was out of town.

"We're trying to figure out what the right thing is to do and determine what is the next step," said Younghouse. "As far as we're concerned, it is a dead issue for right now."

Younghouse said the three commissioners likely will take formal action Thursday.

Huckstep indicated during that campaign that if voters rejected planning and zoning he would favor dissolving the program quickly and not taking any further action unless petitioned by citizens to do so.

The county commission will have no authority for planning or zoning without action by the voters.

"In essence, we will have absolutely no regulation at all," said Waltz. "What this does do is, because there is no county ordinance in effect, the cities (Cape and Jackson) will then have the power to extra-territorially zone, and their regulations are more stringent than the county's."

Waltz said the extra-territorial zoning power is provided by state law to give cities the opportunity to have some input into development within a two-mile radius to protect its boundaries and future annexation areas.

Even after the planning program is dissolved, Waltz said that violations that occurred before the vote could still be enforced.

Waltz said that because of federal flood insurance regulations, building permits still will be required. He said the commission will need someone to issue permits and check out applications.

"But now, building permits cannot be denied for any basis except for flood insurance," said Waltz.

During the past 20 years of county planning, Waltz said that the master plan was a land-use plan, but with little enforcement power.

"The planning commission was kind of like a mediator, disseminating information," he said. "But when it came down to making a recommendation and it was not taken, our legal recourse was very questionable because we had a guide to future development, not land-use control."

The zoning ordinance was prepared as a way to give the planning commission some authority, because of increasing problems with development in the county.

"Many times we did not have a solution for people," said Waltz. "At least under the master plan the developer had an obligation to tell us what he was going to do and offer a plan of improvements.

"We would make a recommendation on whether it was a good idea or bad idea, and would notify adjoining landowners to see if there was a problem."

But now, Waltz said the communication with adjoining landowners might not occur.

"The reason we only filed three lawsuits in 18 years is, if we had violations, we would convince them of the problems with what they were doing and why we thought they should do it a different way. Most of the people would see that," Waltz said.

He said the subdivision regulations that were on the books were minimum standards that focused on the size and location of easements, lot sizes, and other general criteria. Waltz said he hopes developers will follow the standards in the future, although they're not required.

A key role the planning commission played in subdivision design, said Waltz, is to insure that entrances onto county roads had adequate site distances.

Waltz added that the planning office also served as an important clearing house for information about state and federal regulations that are required for development.

Waltz fears that some development now could occur without knowledge or an understanding of what's required. The end result will be that some people will complete a development only to find it violates the law.

Without some type of planning ordinance, Waltz said he believes the work done over the past 20 years will deteriorate as the area continues to grown.

"It won't be bad in the first year, but will happen slowly," he said. "When you have people developing that know nothing about it, you will eventually get a bad result."