SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
April 17, 2015
Sullivan’s
Salvos 4/21/15
In this edition:
*Newport Road Rezoning
*Education = Cure For Poverty?
*NAMI Walk
*Shelter House Gala
*Did You Know?
*Newport Road Rezoning
The
Johnson County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 last Thursday to approve a
rezoning on Newport Road. There is a great deal of misinformation out there
regarding this area of the county. Please allow me to set the record straight.
The
applicants (Jeff and Judy Stevens) own a 14-acre parcel, which includes a
house, some outbuildings, and a hay field. The Stevens wanted to rezone it from
Ag to Residential, with the idea that somewhere down the line, they may sell half
of it for development.
This
parcel sits squarely in the North Corridor Development Area, which is the
county’s designated area for residential growth. While the land has been used
as a hay field for decades, the Corn Suitability Rating (CSR) is only 58 -
pretty low for Iowa. There are no environmentally sensitive areas on the
property. The Land Evaluation Site Assessment (LESA) score showed the land to
be very appropriate for residential development. There are already literally SCORES
of homes in the area – just look at aerial photos. Adding homes to this area is
infill, despite what opponents would have you believe. Opponents claim the
traffic counts are too high, but they are only half (1000 vehicles per day) the
limit established in our Road Performance Standards.
By
any reasonable measure, this application meets every standard set forth by
Johnson County. Are we required to rezone, then? No, the law never requires it.
But there is only one area of the county where we WILL rezone, and this is it.
Everywhere else in the county is off limits (except villages). All farmland is
protected everywhere EXCEPT this area, where a great deal of residential
development has ALREADY occurred.
Could the Board have voted this down? Yes. But I believe it is
critically important for the Board to be predictable. The public, including
landowners deserve predictability.
And
yes, landowners do have some rights! I
am more willing than most Supervisors to put requirements on landowners. But I
don’t think it is fair to arbitrarily pick winners and losers. I believe you
create policies, then you follow them. If they need fixed, you fix them. This
was a case of following our policies.
Can our policies be
improved? Certainly! I have spent years on the losing end of 3-2 votes that
would strengthen our land use policies. I am hopeful that those days are over,
and that we can move forward with improvements to our existing policies.
Meanwhile, we recently
had another rezoning in the North Corridor Development Area. It is almost
exactly the same size. No one complained about it. Why? What is the difference?
I asked opponents to
explain the difference, and only got one response – while Newport Road is 4
miles from infrastructure of Solon and/or Iowa City, the other rezoning was
only two miles from the “infrastructure of Shueyville”.
That
is rich. If you know anything about the area, you’d know that Shueyville does
not HAVE any infrastructure! No city water, no city sewer…they don’t even
maintain their two main roads – Johnson County does!
Clearly
this response is just grasping at straws. The only difference between those two
rezonings is political. And bringing politics into zoning decisions creates
problems.
Zoning
decisions are not popularity contests. That is the OLD way of doing county
business. Want something rezoned? Well, do the Supervisors like your Daddy?
Thank God we are not operating this way any longer. It almost always favored
the rich and well connected, without regard for the merits of a given
application. We should make zoning decisions based upon the facts, not other
relationships.
*Education = Cure For Poverty?
Conservatives
and liberals don’t agree on much. One thing they tend to agree upon is the
claim that education is the cure for poverty. This is a universally accepted
truth. I push my own kids to continue their educations.
But
does education really work? There are several studies that show a worker with a
college degree is likely to earn much more money over her lifetime than a
worker without. I am not going to dispute those studies. But I found this
interesting data set while reading Ezra Klein:
In
1970, the educational attainment of the poor broke down like this: 56% had not
finished high school. 31% had a high school diploma. 8% had some college, up to
and including an AA. And 6% were college grads.
That
same look at the educational attainment of the poor today looks like this: 23%
have no high school diploma. 34% have a high school diploma. 28% have some
college. And 15% have a college degree.
Obviously,
today’s poor are MUCH more educated than the poor of 45 years ago. Yet by
almost every measure, the poor today have deeper struggles than the poor 45
years ago. How do we explain this?
I
think the answer is pretty simple, really. While education is a huge help to
many people, it is not enough. We need to return to the values of the New Deal,
and adequately fund the social safety net.
Your
Chamber of Commerce types will reluctantly support educational funding – they
like the idea that with education, a motivated young person can pull herself up
by her bootstraps. Heck, I like that idea, too.
But
we need to acknowledge that our motivated young woman is unlikely to “pull
herself up” without adequate shelter, food, medical care, etc. Education is
great, but education alone is not enough.
*NAMI Walk
I
am once again participating in the NAMI Walk for the Mind of America. The 2015
NAMI Walk is Saturday, April 25 at the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area. Check-in: 9:00 am; Start Time: 10:00 am.
Feel
free to sponsor me (or another walker) by visiting nami.org and looking up the
Iowa City walk.
For more information about this event, please
contact:
*Shelter House Gala
The
Shelter House is holding its annual Gala on Friday, April 24 at the Hotel
Vetro. Doors open at 5:30, with dinner at 7:30. For more info, contact
sarah@shelterhouseiowa.org.
*DID YOU KNOW?
All Johnson County Land Use Plan documents are available at: http://www.johnson-county.com/dept_zoning.
Anyone
interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the
County website-
"Sullivan’s
Salvos" is sent once per week to any interested party. It will give a
brief update on issues of interest to Johnson County residents.
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come solely from Rod Sullivan, and neither represents the viewpoints of the
whole Board of Supervisors nor those of groups or individuals otherwise
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As always,
feel free to contact me at 354-7199 or rodsullivan@mchsi.com. I look forward to
serving you!
---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 5:12 PM
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