MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
AUGUST 26, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Discussion: Implementation Schedule Of The Johnson County Land Use Plan
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore introduced University of Iowa Graduate Intern Taylor Newton. Newton will work with Planning and Zoning for the next two years.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak said they have requested today’s meeting to get the Board’s recommendations on the Land Use Plan. He said that staff has their own ideas, but they always like to confer with the Board to make sure Planning and Zoning is moving in the right direction. Dvorak said they have time limits in the Land Use Plan Implementation Schedule, which are not magic numbers and can be altered. He said, if the Board recommends significantly changing the completion dates, for example, moving a one-year completion date back to five years, they believe they should have to go back to the Planning and Zoning Commission, because it’s really an amendment to the Land Use Plan. Dvorak said, if they stay within the time frame, then at the end of each year, Planning and Zoning will update the Board in a work session. He said they will ask the Board if they want to continue moving in that same direction. R. Sullivan said one thing that is fairly important is that this holds the Board accountable on some things. Moore agreed with Sullivan. He explained that when Planning and Zoning first did this with the plan in 1998, the Board adopted the Implementation Schedule. Moore said at that time, the Board was telling the public that the Board had listened to them and this is how the Board was prioritizing what the public wants done. Moore said that by adopting that, the Board has committed to achieving the Implementation Schedule. R. Sullivan suggested Dvorak start at the top of the Implementation Schedule, beginning with re-evaluating current North Corridor Phase I and Phase II concepts. Dvorak said all Board members have different concepts on what those phases are. He said the way it is set up, implementation is something the Board can do, some things the Planning and Zoning staff can do, and they can appoint a committee. Dvorak said the committee can be comprised of County staff or members from the general public.
Stutsman asked if Secondary Roads shouldn't be involved in the process. She said if the Board still holds that they want to have development coincide with roads and roads planning, then they should be at the table, too, saying if the upgrades are feasible or not. Dvorak said, as we talk about re-evaluating design standards and developing a comprehensive massive transportation plan with the Johnson County Council of Governments (JCCOG), a lot of these things may come under one heading, but a lot of them may be grouped with other things. R. Sullivan said they had the appointed Land Use Committee together for fifteen months and they concluded that the Board will have to decide. He said that going out to get additional public input at this point might not be the best plan. He said he thinks the Board should have a couple work sessions and develop the plan.
Dvorak said that after talking with Moore, they agreed a subcommittee, including the County Engineer’s staff, Board members, Planning and Zoning staff, could serve the Board. He suggested that working through a subcommittee might save time. Dvorak said as of August 26, 2008, they were just throwing out ideas, but that they could also work directly with the Board. Moore said, like with the chip seal policy, they had a subcommittee draft a policy and brought it back to the Board as a whole. Dvorak added they might even throw the Health Department in, because they do have some pretty stringent requirements around Coralville and Lake Macbride. Stutsman said she would be supportive of developing an in-house committee of people, because it is helpful to have people bring the basic concepts together. She said the Board still sets the policy and makes that final determination. Stutsman said a lot of time can be saved if a subcommittee hammers things out and gets the Board all the information they need to make a policy decision. Neuzil said he also wants some general understanding about what each Board member wants, trying to avoid a situation where a committee meets and makes Board recommendations, only to find out that there is not a Board majority supporting the recommendations. Stutsman said that is what the work session will be about. Harney said he thinks committee input can be good, but with the Land Use Study the subcommittee couldn't reach a decision and ultimately the Board needed to make the decision. He said, if they want to have a committee provide information to the Board, the Board needs to make the decision.
Moore said he and Dvorak are cognizant of a couple of issues near and dear to the Board. He said at the top of the implementation schedule is re-evaluating the North Corridor. Moore said he knows Neuzil has an interest in that. Moore said the department is currently providing a report annually on agricultural land and evaluating farmstead splits. He said defining public hunting areas and developing appropriate policies were subjects discussed with Dvorak and Assistant Planner Josh Busard on August 25, 2008. Moore said they believed it was something they could do through their Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, as his department can identify all the public hunting areas, and then reference state law or whatever law is applicable, because that is what is appropriate. He said his department doesn't have a lot of say over the public hunting areas. Moore added that staff is looking into downcast lighting regulations. Moore said they were now getting into two years.
Moore said he would go back down to the action step at the bottom, re-evaluate design standards for County roads. He said he agreed with Dvorak's suggestion to use an in-house committee, which the Board seemed favorable to. Moore said there are two items they could do so with. He said one would be the Corridor phase concept, and the second would be the design standard for County roads. Moore said those concepts are quite a bit for the upcoming year. He said, if the Board agrees, they could limit themselves to these two high priority projects for the upcoming year. Stutsman said she agreed, especially with the design standards for the roads. Neuzil said that may incorporate the scenic roads issue. Meyers added that the one above scenic road improvements about adopting a policy of funding road improvements all tie together. Dvorak said they could come up with answers to some of the other issues by working on those two main projects.
Stutsman said they need to make a decision about the design standards, so that every road in the County is not going to be city design standards. She said, then the Board needs to move on to how they will fund the projects. Meyers added that all these projects are going to come up whenever there is a conversation about one of the projects; the others will come up as well. Moore said there are links everywhere. Stutsman said they can't talk about one without the other. Moore said that defining the Corridor links into the transportation system. Moore said he believes they will be able to complete the project within two years. R. Sullivan asked Moore what he was talking about when he said within one year, he wanted to know within one year of when. Moore replied within a year of the adoption of the plan. R. Sullivan said this was adopted in May, 2009. Moore said yes. Stutsman pointed out that this is a guide and not an ordinance. She said if the project can't be completed by the target date of May, 2009, it will be okay. Moore said they should start in 2009 though.
Neuzil asked about staff time; if they want to set up a two committee process or do the action items designated for being within one year, like the four items towards the bottom, that can be done in-house. He said it could be within the department and then Planning and Zoning could make some recommendations. Neuzil said he hoped that each time the department is doing so, they would interview the Board. He said the League of Woman Voters does a very good job of doing a survey of issues. Neuzil said every once in a while they do a survey and get a feel for where the Board is, and then they target an actual issue that they focus in on. Moore said there are some issues about having two committees, because they can only have two Board members on each committee. He said the Board may want to consider not setting a fixed committee membership by the Board but members rotating out. Moore said that way they each get exposure to each of those committees as they keep working along and no one is left out. He said that as they generate work from each of the committees, they would keep in touch with the Board, so they can keep abreast of where they are going.
Neuzil said another way to do this is to have a few Board members and providing more updates and getting some feel from the rest of the Board. He said particularly as they start to put the structure of Key Issues meetings together, it could be an opportunity to at least give a report or update and then get some feel about the project. Neuzil said he understands that no one wants to miss out on anything. R. Sullivan proposed dedicating 45 minutes to an hour at the next Key Issues meeting to review the maps and visit with County Engineer Greg Parker and a representative from Public Health, and the Board will give feedback which can then be taken to the committee.
Moore asked if R. Sullivan meant to have a committee of Secondary Roads, Planning and Zoning, and Public Health staff work on these, but then come to the Board's Key Issues meetings. R. Sullivan explained that what he thought Neuzil was saying was to start with the Board and end with the Board. Neuzil said all he is saying is that he thinks Moore and Dvorak would want to know what each Board member thinks about the phasing of the North Corridor. Stutsman said she thought they should just forget the whole discussion and have the Board vote on Thursday, August 28, 2008 as to what they are going to do with this. She said in her opinion, the purpose of a committee is to educate her about things she doesn't think about in phasing. Stutsman said staff in Secondary Roads, Planning and Zoning, and the Public Health Department are experts in their fields. She pointed out they think about things that Stutsman doesn't think about. She said she responds to situations from a more subjective point of view, rather than objective. She wants to hear the objective point of view before she makes a decision as to what she feels politically is in the County's best interest. She said that is where she would like to start from, to have those objective viewpoints first, and then move on from there.
Meyers said he understands what Stutsman is saying but the issue he faces is, if there is a committee with just two Board members on it, then the other three Board members are not getting the kind of input Stutsman is asking for. Stutsman said she doesn't know if she would even say input from the Board members. She said she thinks Neuzil wants to move it right into the political arena. Neuzil said he would like to explain. He said that as elected officials, Board members have an obligation to inform department heads of their philosophy about what the elected officials believe. He said, if Stutsman doesn't think that, he thinks that is wrong, but he respects her thought. Neuzil said, if Stutsman wants to base her decisions only on what experts say and then weigh in, he would rather weigh in first, so the experts know some general philosophy of their position. He said he could go either way, but that it seems strange for the committees to do all the work, go through all the new phasing, and then find out that three Board members don't like it from the very beginning.
Harney said it is a much larger problem than just the phasing. He said it involves making a decision about where the Board and where Planning and Zoning want growth to occur. Harney said he doesn't think the Health Department has the expertise in septic and sewers and what kind of ground can support certain types. Harney said they went through this when they had Phase One and Two in how they wanted to restrict growth. He said they still had people asking about Phase Two areas. R. Sullivan said he thought they were all over the board and he wanted people to walk away with some kind of direction. Neuzil asked what would be most helpful for the experts in the County. Moore said when the Board adopted the current Land Use Plan, they adopted the same growth areas they had before, the North Corridor, Phase One and Two, and the villages. Moore said perhaps the Board needs to decide if they want to change that growth concept. He said, if three or more of the members want to, then Planning and Zoning will do whatever the Board wants them to do.
R. Sullivan said his perspective was, reading the Land Use Committee report, that they had punted it to the Board. He said he had adopted the report with the intention to spend some time working on it. R. Sullivan said he thinks the Board needs to put some work into the plan. Moore said, rather than a committee, they should dedicate a work session with the Board and Planning and Zoning staff, along with staff from Secondary Roads and the Health Department. He said that way all five Board members can give feedback to staff on what their opinions are. They each hear others’ points of view, so they can find out where they want to go as a majority. Moore said, instead of any other committees, the Board could work with staff, and they could discuss the definition of the phasing and the Corridor. Harney said earlier, when he was talking about different highways, he was thinking about long-term planning. He asked how many times people have asked for more commercial property and the Board has never addressed that issue. He said the zoning for the 965 extension down to Highway One has to be in the plan.
Neuzil said the Board has identified economic growth areas, but they have not really concentrated on it. Stutsman said this just deals with the North Corridor. She asked if they are going to deal with just the North Corridor or with the whole Land Use Plan. Stutsman asked if they are going to talk about Phase One or Phase Two. Moore said that the Land Use Committee didn't want to make a decision on changing the Corridor as it is. Moore said they left it up to the Board to decide what the majority wants to do with the Corridor. R. Sullivan said he thinks it safe to say that they aren't talking about going south of Iowa City. He said the Committee is talking about the North Corridor specifically. Dvorak said he thinks they need to define the area where growth will occur and where it won't occur in the immediate future. Maybe in ten years from 2008 they could evaluate what they've done. Dvorak said the concept of the phasing, which some people don't care for, is still the direction they prefer. Dvorak said among the issues are where to draw the zoning lines.
Neuzil said he hopes the conversation goes beyond this issue. He said the conversation is about the Land Use Plan and it is their guide. Neuzil said it is getting a feel for where the majority of the Board wants growth and development to occur. He said that six years ago the Board determined, though not unanimously, the growth area. Neuzil said he hopes the Board will look at that again. He said the Board has changed and that he personally wants to see a change. Neuzil said it may not be called the North Corridor anymore. Harney said that is the question, if they want to look at the North Corridor the way they had defined it or do they want to add areas. He said a guy came in the other day wanting to know where to build, but that he definitely wanted to stay in the West Branch school district. Harney said it is hard to find locations for something like that.
Moore said that is worth tying into the design standards with Secondary Roads, because wherever they allow growth they have to have roads. R. Sullivan asked how they want to proceed. He said he wasn't positive, but he thought he heard Stutsman's viewpoint of wanting the committee first in the minority. R. Sullivan said he thought he heard Meyers and Harney say they wanted the Board to tackle it all at once with staff present. Harney said he thought it was a good way to do that, so if they needed to get more information, the staff would be present. Dvorak said they could do it at a Key Issues meeting and invite Secondary Roads and the Health Department. Stutsman said that if they are going to do this, they need to have a separate meeting and the Board needs to devote two to three hours to this. R. Sullivan said that would be a work session.
Neuzil said all the Board does is get those ideas out and then put the committee process in place. He said they at least get some feel for what they should do. Stutsman asked why bother with the committee then; the Board had already made a determination and that it would be a waste of the committee's time. R. Sullivan said, if they decide to go ahead and meet, then the Board could always decide they need a committee at that time. He said if they don't, the Board could just decide if they need another work session. Stutsman said, basically at the work session the Board would be telling the committee what they want, and that would appear to be asking the committee for a rubberstamp. She thought it wouldn't be a good use of staff time. Neuzil said, the way he sees this, his philosophy on the situation is far different from the other Board members. He said that R. Sullivan's philosophy will be different from the other Board members as well. Neuzil said the idea is to at least understand each Board member’s opinions about where they want growth and development to occur. He said, if he was a department head, he would look at that list and then structure a policy based on those compromises of the five Board members. Neuzil said that is what government does, look at general concepts, try to put something together, and then bring it back to the Board for something to agree on.
R. Sullivan said, obviously one of the places they are going to rely on the committees is if they have five people who think something is a good idea and then have someone counter that. Moore agreed and said that whatever the Board adopts, they know Dvorak is going to administer, as that is his role. He said, however, that up to the point of adoption, they are going to feed back what they feel is their best professional opinion of things, even if the Board doesn't want to hear it. Moore said they are obligated to do that, but once the Board adopts something they will administer that.
R. Sullivan said he would like some kind of transparency that could be laid on the map. He said a lot of times they look at different types of maps, and when they start talking about phasing and zoned land, it would be real useful to have map overlays. Stutsman said they need to make a decision and move on, as they have already spent half an hour on this issue. She recapped that they were going to have a work session with the staff and the Board, and the Board will give direction to the staff in terms of how they want it framed. Stutsman asked if that is what they have decided. R. Sullivan said that is what the majority wanted. The Board and staff discussed a number of possible meeting dates. R. Sullivan said the meeting will be scheduled for October 10, 2008 at 9 a.m.
Moore said there are two items they can't separate because of the nature of them. He said one would be to re-evaluate the design standards and the other is the policy for funding of road improvements. Moore said, from what he understands, if they don't do the AASHTO designs, they may have to pay for some of it. Neuzil said that County Engineer Greg Parker would say he wouldn't sign the document. Moore said that has to be part of the discussion. He said Dvorak and he were talking about ideas, such as Newport Road. Moore said only part of Newport Road was projected as not being AASHTO designs because some Board members like Gable's curves, but the rest of it met the AASHTO design guidelines and so he asked why they couldn't apply for funds for the rest and then the County pay for whatever wasn't, if that is what the Board wants to do. Moore said those are things they can talk about during the meeting. Dvorak said there may be some requirements that they aren't aware of and that is where the need Parker's help.
Neuzil said it comes down to the areas like on Prairie du Chien Road where there are ten houses, and then the area opens up again. Moore asked why they can't think more like that. He said that would be part of the discussion if they tied those two in. Stutsman asked if they were discussing moving those roads standards up to first year. Moore said as long as they were in the second year they should be completed by the second year. He said they don't want to move anything around if they don't have to. R. Sullivan said, obviously they will try to get things done as quickly as they can. Moore said, if they move anything earlier, there is not an issue. But, if the Board moves something from year one or two, into year five, they have changed it, and as Dvorak said, they probably need to amend the Land Use Plan to move it around.
R. Sullivan asked if everyone was comfortable with the road focus in Year Two. Harney asked if they moved the bottom one over to the first year, or if they are leaving it in the two year. Moore said they haven't moved anything around yet, they were just going to start working on it. R. Sullivan said they completed the village plan for Frytown and he thinks everyone feels good about that. R. Sullivan said, in light of all the construction, he knows that some Sutliff citizens are interested in moving forward. He said that Moore said now may be a good time, as some people are rebuilding anyhow. R. Sullivan said he thought Sutliff would be a good village to take on. He thought some villages were more urgent than others, in that those in Sharon Center seem to have more issues and concerns than those in Windham.
Moore said he hedged on that one. He made a request to the Planning program to do Sutliff. He doesn't know if they will do so, but he has asked. Dvorak said he wasn't aware if Sharon Center had some concerns. R. Sullivan said he knew in the past there have been people trying to do commercial. Dvorak said to do commercial they have to have a paved road. He said they can't get a building permit on a chip seal road. Neuzil said they have it right now but the Board could change that policy to one way. R. Sullivan said with 11 villages, there are always five or six that are agitating and five or six that aren't. Stutsman asked if they would move it up in two years. R. Sullivan said they wouldn't necessarily have to move everything up, just have one or two they do first. Moore said they have made a move anyway, because it was within five years they wanted to get the request in. R. Sullivan said they'd have to get a couple done to get it finished in five years anyway. Moore said even if the students don't do so, the staff could undertake it, depending on their workload. He said it might keep them pretty busy with re-evaluating the North Corridor and design standards. Moore said that in the meantime they are going to see if they can't get help from the students.
Neuzil said the main thing that comes out of this is that the definition of an unincorporated town. He said it helps determine where the Board wants growth and development to occur. R. Sullivan said he feels they are lucky that they haven't been sued. Moore said that staff wants to take this development further. Moore said Planning and Zoning doesn't want to just create bedroom communities in the villages, they want to create sustainable living areas for people. He said they want to save on transportation trips, so they have to be able to allow commercial development to occur in those villages. Moore said their ordinances are preventing them from doing so. He said most villages are served by chip seal roads, and not pavement. Moore said they have to resolve that issue somehow, and he would like to take the next village concept a little further, where they start getting a little more firm in their recommendations to make villages sustainable. He said they might have to relax the pavement ideas to allow certain kinds of commercial development, such as stores or gas stations. Moore said otherwise he thinks they are setting people up for problems in the future. Neuzil pointed out that there will only be houses, because that is the only building allowed on chip seal roads.
R. Sullivan said this wouldn't change the implementation schedule; it's just they would start another project going at the same time. Moore said it is just if they move something out further than what they adopted, then they have to amend. He said, if they take something earlier, there is no amendment. R. Sullivan said it looks like a lot of the cool County green type stuff that Busard has been working on is within the five year plan. He asked if this schedule was an appendix to the Land Use Plan. Moore said it was part of the Land Use Plan. Dvorak said, in theory, in January or February, this will change by saying for example, LEEDS: completed. Then that goes out on the website that they had accomplished the goal.
Harney said he wondered why the Board has to define hunting areas and develop appropriate policies. He thinks that is Conservation and DNR. Dvorak said they weren't sure if they knew exactly what they wanted when they put it in. He said they were having some problems with people developing or doing farmstead splits, and then people complaining about losing their hunting spots because of the regulations. Dvorak said discussion ensued to define public hunting grounds. He said there is Corps hunting ground, DNR hunting grounds, and Conservation hunting ground. Dvorak said they need to define each of those areas on a map. Harney said, if they want to spend the time doing a map, it is up to them. Dvorak said his son-in-law hunts a lot, but doesn't know where to hunt in Johnson County since there was no map or no area defined as public hunting ground. R. Sullivan said he thought GIS can do so fairly quickly.
Stutsman said looking at how ambitious the project is, she would like to consider moving out the Scenic Roads Ordinance, as that is not a priority. She said she thinks there are other things they should be spending their time on. Dvorak said that in year two, when they get into the different road topics, it seems like it will come up in conversations. He said the funding of road improvements will hit the table some point in the conversation. Neuzil said that the roads on the current Five Year Road Plan are all basically hard surface being fixed into a nicer hard surface. He said it is year six and seven that they start getting into if they should go back. Neuzil said the Board could also change it, as they have done that before, but that there is time to identify some road strategy within two to three years.
Harney said he is along the same lines as Stutsman on that Scenic Roads Ordinance. He said that is laid out with environmental issues and how they maintain them. He said he isn't even sure if they need one, specifically scenic roads or others. Neuzil said he didn't think they would even need an ordinance. Dvorak said what he has heard in today's meeting was that the committee would report to the Board what their thoughts are on the Scenic Roads Ordinance. Meyers said the very last meeting is to re-evaluate design standards for County roads and that would be a Scenic Roads discussion. He said it may not necessarily be an ordinance, but it would result in guidelines or philosophy. Stutsman asked where the committee is coming from as she thought the Board wouldn't be doing anything with committees. Dvorak said they would be having a meeting on October 10, 2008, and that by then they would have something out there to look at those specific items. He said he is making an assumption that this is a possibility. Moore said they have a year and a half before they would need to amend this.
R. Sullivan said he liked how Moore had laid everything out, and that he didn't see the need to change anything, although the Board knows they may need to do so in the future. He said they may decide there are some things they may need to do. Moore said they aren't going to be uncontroversial ideas that Planning and Zoning will broach with the Board and the public eventually. R. Sullivan asked if everyone was okay with what they currently have. Neuzil said it is a good start. Meyers said the five-year regulations, to encourage non-carbon-based energy, and encourage LEED design, are going to be popping up in conversations long before five years. Neuzil said, as far as priorities go, it sounds like they will want some direction on where they should be growing. He said eventually they will need to compromise with Parker on road designs.
R. Sullivan said it is not a formal meeting, but he wants to make sure that everyone gets a clear indication that the Board is comfortable with the schedule. Neuzil asked Dvorak if he was comfortable with it. Dvorak responded it was realistic, and that a lot of it depends on the timing of things. He said there are a lot of variables as of today's meeting, but that they will know more a few months. Moore said they would take R. Sullivan's advice to arrange visual presentations in the October 10, 2008, meeting. Stutsman said Dvorak and Moore should be prepared for five Board members to come in and direct them on how they will be doing everything. Harney said that at some point they should have a work session with Secondary Roads. Stutsman said they would be there on October 10, 2008. Moore said that is where they would hash everything out. R. Sullivan asked if Secondary Roads staff has seen the plan. Moore said they are involved in the Land Use Plan and the Implementation Schedule. He said, however, they didn't have a lot of comments. R. Sullivan said it might be a good idea to get this plan to them since there are many road-related issues. Moore said he will give it to Parker. Dvorak said he is going to invite Assistant Transportation Planner John Yapp to the meeting. He said they would like to have Yapp sitting in because there are some things that they would like to get help on. Moore said Yapp developed a master transportation plan. He said he knew Yapp was swamped, but it doesn't hurt to ask him. Dvorak said he knew Moore was working with Yapp on another committee.
Adjourned at 10:54 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2008
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on July 9, 2009 at 4:30.