Land use plan for watershed prepared

A design for the Philips tract meshes natural features with development.

By ROLF ROSENKRANZ

March 17, 2003

Red for commercial development. Green for stream buffers. Blue for residential areas.

The different colors of ink on a transparent overlay represent the first draft of a land-use plan for the entire Gans and Clear Creek watersheds.

At a recent meeting of the Bonne Femme Watershed Partnership, member John Ikerd moved the colored transparency from one watershed map to the next to coordinate the plan with exisiting developments and natural features. Each map highlights different features: residential areas, streams and forests.

Development in one part of the environmentally sensitive watersheds will limit the degree and kind of development elsewhere in the watershed, explains Ikerd, an MU professor emeritus of agricultural economics.

Within the coming weeks, Ikerd and other members of the Bonne Femme Watershed Partnership will produce a computerized map designed to serve as a blueprint for comprehensive land use in the watersheds.

“Our purpose is to be the first ones to introduce a watershed plan,” Ikerd said. “People have been talking about it for years. Now we’re putting it on paper, saying, ‘Let’s be involved shaping what the city does,’ rather than reacting to city proposals when they come in.”

The partnership’s initiative comes as contractor Elvin Sapp works on his own plan for developing the Philips tract. The 515-acre tract is considered a bellwether for future growth on the city’s southeast side.

The watershed group and some residents worry about the effects of urban development. Parts of the Philips property are upstream from Rock Bridge Memorial State Park, and adding impervious surfaces such as roads and buildings could affect water quality.

Initiatives like the watershed partnership and the Boone County Smart Growth Coalition stress the importance of a comprehensive land-use plan for the area.

“Piecemeal development cannot be allowed to occur,” said Barbara Hoppe, co-chair of the Smart Growth Coalition’s steering committee.

Smart Growth member Alyce Turner fears development on the Philips property might set a precedent for future expansions in the area.

“It’s undeveloped land,” Turner said. “City planners think they’re going to stop development along (U.S. 63), but they won’t.”

Tony Davis, a resident of Rock Quarry Road and member of the watershed partnership, said development on the Philips tract would necessitate further expansions along U.S. 63.

“If the city were to acquire the massive amount of infrastructure needed here, the area would be severely damaged,” he said.

The watershed partnership has teamed up with MU’s Community Informatics Resource Center, which provides data on streams, flood plains, soil quality and impervious surfaces.

Jim Meyer, a specialist at the center, said he will help the partnership come up with suggestions for development in the Gans and Clear creek watersheds.

“If you do commercial development in one area, you need open land in another,” Meyer said.

Meyer calls a sketch plan for the watersheds a “doable, feasible thing,” and wonders why governments, developers and others haven’t done more to come up with a comprehensive plan.

“It’s not only a public, but also a private issue,” Meyer said. “The city and county have the authority and responsibility to invite all parties involved into the decision-making process.”

Jim Davis, an MU assistant professor of rural sociology who’s been hired by the city and county for help with storm-water issues, said he hopes the sketch will be a stimulus for city and county governments to get together and develop a watershed plan.

Sapp has signed a contract to buy the 515 acres contingent on annexation into the city and rezoning. Craig Van Matre, attorney for the Philips trust, said he expected opposition to the property’s development, but he feels that “we made a fair deal and have no reason to change it.”

Fifth Ward Councilman John John, a real-estate agent who represents Sapp, said the contractor knows about the residents’ concerns.

“We will talk with them, but we have to get to the point where we can throw something at them so that they can throw something back,” John said. “Engineering alone will cost around half a million. We have to get far along in the development plan because we don’t want to lose that much money.”

While Sapp will be “trying to meet the city’s guidelines” of maximal 30 percent impervious surfaces, John said, it is more important to reach an “acceptable quality-quantity level.”

John said that theoretically, even with 100 percent impervious surfaces, the water could be pumped into a lake and there still wouldn’t be problems with storm-water runoff.

He added that a phase of public discussion will precede the developer’s rezoning and annexation efforts before the City Council.

Van Matre said the Philips family “originally tried to develop the land themselves. But they realized the best thing for them and everyone else is to turn it over to a confident and qualified developer like Elvin, and they’re very happy with their choice.”

Robert Lerch, a U.S. Department of Agriculture soil scientist who has studied water quality in streams south of Columbia, said the Philips tract “would best be left as green space, but that won’t happen. Sapp is a major and aggressive developer who’s going to fight it through.”

“Development needs to make money,” Lerch said. “How (Sapp) is allowed to make money off that land is the question. We need a reasonable compromise that everyone can deal with.”