ELECTION'94
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 28,1994
3A
Development plan angers some
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
A visitor to Robert and Lois Neis' farm four miles south of Eudora can expect to be greeted with smiles and handshakes.
But bring up the subject of Horizon 2020 and you'll see Robert Neis' brows furrow and his fists clench.
"It irritates me," said Neis, a former Douglas County commissioner. "We need planning. We don't want hodgepodge. But the city of Lawrence wants to dictate what I can do."
Horizon 2020 is a guide for the Lawrence City Commission and the Douglas County Commission on future development. The plan outlines where housing developments, industry and shopping areas can and should be built until the year 2020.The plan, which is still under consideration by city and county officials, is meant to control Lawrence and Douglas County's massive growth by rezoning areas for either growth or preservation.
But the plan runs into problems when future growth or preservation is planned over an area where rural homeowners live. Encouraging such development sometimes leaves rural homeowners feeling as if their
voice has been left out of the process — or that their rights are being ignored.
Neis helped create Douglas County's zoning system in the mid-1600s. But his own creation will be used to implement Horizon 2020 and restrict what he can do with his family's 160 acres of soybeans, corn and other crops. Neis can't sell his land to developers at almost $4,000 an acre. Instead, he has to sell it as agricultural land, which goes for $500 to $700 an acre.
Horizon 2020 is meant to preserve farming as a way of life in rural Douglas County. But Neis doesn't appreciate it because he no longer has complete control over his own land.
Such conflicts are part of the perils of planning urban growth into rural areas, said Eric Straus, head of the urban planning department at KU's School of Architecture and Urban Design. Straus, who for more than 10 years has consulted various Kansas towns about their own development plans, said such planning was difficult but essential.
"You can't wait long in a fast-growing city like Lawrence." Strauss said.
Few places have urban-rural conflict to the degree Lawrence has it, Strauss said. Butler County, which is experiencing population
spill-over from Wichita, and Miami County, which is getting spill-over from Johnson County. Do have many of the same conflicts.
Part of the problem, Stauss said, was that rural homeowners often want conflicting rights. Often they resent encroaching development and ask their political leaders to stop it. But those same measures keep them from selling their land to a developer for a fair market price.
"The public, and government in particular, need to come to a consensus as to what rural rights to protect and what rural rights not to protect," Strauss said.
The overall need for a plan cannot be questioned, said Sheila Stgillsdill, a planner for the joint Lawrence-Douglas planning office. By 2020, she said, Lawrence's population is estimated to grow to about 87,500, an increase of more than 22,000 over today's population. That number also accounts for almost 90 percent of the county's overall growth over that same period.
Stogsdill said such numbers made advance planning essential to both good development and rural preservation.
"One of the goals is to preserve agricultural land where it's feasible to do so," she said. Horizon 2020 currently is in the hands of a
steering committee made up of urban and rural members. Once public comment is finished, it will be given to the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission, said Max Entrilkin, commission head. After that, it will be sent to the Lawrence City Commission and the Douglas County Commission for their consideration as a final guideline.
Entrikin said such reasoning was little consolation for many rural people. They often feel they do not matter because city administrators do the planning and often call the shots, he said.
"That's the way I thought, and I don't think it's changed that much," he said.
Entrikin said he thought Horizon 2020 was necessary. Plans for a full-sized shopping mall in the county's rural area — a "cornfield" mall — was stopped in the early 1980s when county officials showed in court that they had a definite land-use plan for the future. But he also said preserving rural rights was a problem that would have to be addressed.
"We have a lot of head-scratching and eyeblinking to do about rural development, and believe me, if I had anural story, I'd tell you," Entrikin said.
Yumi Chikamori / KANBAM
WHERE THE CANDIDATES STAND
Robert Neis runs a load of soybeans through his threshing machine at his farm south of Eudora. Neis fears city and county officials planning the city's future growth will keep him from doing what he wants with his land.
GOVERNOR
GRAVES — He said economic success in Kansas depends in a large part on the success of the agriculture sector and his job was to search for new and innovative ways to market all our state's products. By doing this, we can strengthen the
strengthen the entire economy, rural and urban.
ATTORNEY GENERAL
SLATTERY
He believes that government should intrude in peoples' lives as little as possible and that most decisions that affect peoples' lives should be made locally. He said that if he were elected gover-
Jim Slattery (D)
carefully balance the rural and urban interests in the state before signing or vetoing any legislation or before initiating policy.
Carla Stovall (R)
SCHODDFOR
He said he was an environmentalist and that the environment needed greater attention.
Government should work with companies to leverage the environment from development.
Richard Schodorf (D)
U.S. HOUSE — 3RD DISTRICT
Jan Meyers (R)
Judy Hancock (D)
HANCOCK —
She said she thought that was primarily a state and local representative should be very in tune with the elected officials in their districts and with their con-
the grass roots, she said.
U.S. HOUSE — 2ND DISTRICT
BROWNBACK
Brownback said the key to revitalizing rural America was the creation of jobs. We must have jobs in rural areas so people can earn sufficient income to be able to live in our rural areas, he said.
Sam Brownback (R)
KANSAS HOUSE — 44TH
CARLIN — Carlin said he wanted to bring the information superhighway to all members in the 2nd District. He also said he would be bringing the same level of quality education to rural and urban areas in the 2nd District.
BALLARD — She believes both rural and urban communities are important to Kansas. She said if all legislators listened to their constituents and other legislators, everyone would better understand why they would prevent urban and rural communities from pitting against each other. She said that we depended on agriculture and industries and that we needed to work together to meet everyone's needs.
SLOAN — He believes that government should balance the interests of the cities' development with protecting natural resources.
Barbara Ballard (D)
KANSAS HOUSE — 45TH
Tom Sloan (R)
SWALL — He believes the city needs to balance the interests of humanity vs. degradation of nature.
Forrest Swall (D)
KANSAS HOUSE — 46TH
SCHMIDT — "I am concerned with how it affects Lawrence," he said. "My priority is looking out for my constituents."
Eric Schmidt (R)
Troy Findley (D)
KANSAS HOUSE 47TH
FLOWER — She thinks that people like to live in communities where they know their neighbors. "More people are moving to the country, which is creating a rural urban mix."
Joann Flower (R)
Charlie Gelst (D)
GEIST—He thinks that development supports the migration of urban people into the country.
"Development is creating a cosmopolitan rural area."
DOUGLAS COUNTY COMMISSION
BUHLER —
"That's why you
have guide
plans and long-
term decisions
for growth," he
sales should
be allowed to grow
and annex property. But we
should look at it
long term."
Lisa Blair (D)
BLAIR — "Once you become part of urban society, you have to give up some person to be part of the community. I think the Douglas County Commission is telling us that it can preserve some of those individual rights."
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