(Okoboji)– Okoboji has become the first lakes area municipality to adopt a revised zoning ordinance that incorporates low impact development techniques.
City Administrator Dennis Daly says the city council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt the policy.
Daly says the new policy will take some time to implement and that there will have to be a considerable amount of education with not only developers, but city officials as well. Because of that, existing developments will have three years in which to comply with the ordinance. New developments will have to abide by it as soon as it takes affect upon publication. That’s expected to happen sometime in the next few weeks.
Daly says the city council and Planning and Zoning Commission had been working on the ordinance for about a year and had reviewed and tweaked it several times before it’s final adoption Tuesday.
On a related note, environmentalists in the lakes area are promoting a concept they say would result in more unified zoning among the cities and county, known as “Smart Growth”. It would establish a commission of representatives from various cities and the county that would make recommendations to the various planning and zoning commissions on development projects. The recommendations would be based on environmental factors.
Representatives of the Cleanwater Alliance have been presenting the concept to various city councils in the lakes area and will be at the board of supervisors meeting this coming Tuesday. They say they’ve had a warm reception so far from the various cities they’ve presented it to.
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