P&Z: LET'S STUDY THE PLAN IN DETAIL FIRST

Planning and zoning in Cape Girardeau County never has gained widespread acceptance by rural residents. Another effort to establish county planning and zoning appears headed to a vote.

So controversial has the topic been that voters in 1992 rejected a countywide master plan that would have laid the groundwork for future zoning in unincorporated areas of Cape Girardeau County. In rejecting that plan, voters also scrapped a limited planning regulation and a planning commission that had been around for 20 years to oversee it.

Now the County Commission wants to put a land-use planning and zoning proposal -- absent any building codes -- to a countywide vote in August. There had been discussions about an April vote on the proposal, but the commission decided that would be too early considering the plan hasn't even been drafted yet.

A 10-member committee has been meeting since December 1996 to come up with a proposal. Maps illustrating existing land uses are being drawn by the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission in Perryville and by the county's mapping department, but they aren't yet finished.

Once the maps are completed and the committee drafts a planning and zoning proposal, it must be presented to the County Commission for approval and ordered onto the ballot within 10 weeks of the proposed vote.

The County Commission wants to hold public meetings in each of the county's 10 townships to inform voters about the plan. Those meetings likely will be heavily attended in the rural townships, and people will have a lot of questions and criticisms about what planning and zoning will mean to them.

All of this will take time. If the County Commission really wants to sell the proposal -- and it will take a lot of selling considering the controversial history of planning and zoning efforts in this county -- it had better set aside a long time to explain the plan. There will be a lot of questions to be answered, and it will take a concentrated educational campaign if county officials hope to enact planning and zoning.

August is less than seven months away, and without even a planning and zoning draft in place, that may not be enough time to fully inform people on the issue. The County Commission would do better by spending the year coming up with a workable plan and worry later about putting it to a vote.