(Wahpeton)– Discussions following last year’s flood into requests from contractors making repairs to shorelines in the Iowa Great Lakes for unified shoreline ordinances was the topic of an online meeting in June held by Dickinson county officials and representatives of some cities. In an update at Monday evening’s Wahpeton City Council meeting, Dickinson County Supervisor Steve Clark said those talks have morphed into something new…
“Since then I’ve had a number of contractors and citizens contact me and wondering if we can carry that further to where it would be unified county zoning across the board.”
Clark says having one zoning board for the entire county would have some efficiencies…
“Right now it’s just kind of in the talking stage. We’re trying to re-bring it up and trying to get all the municipalities interested. We’ve probably got a couple that aren’t but if enough pressure could be brought on. The contractors would really benefit if they had one place to go to get their permits and one set of regulations to build by and develop by. I don’t know how you are here in Wahpeton, you know like for the county for finding people to serve on the zoning board and board of adjustment stuff is getting more difficult all the time. The younger people don’t seem to want to get involved in things like that. My thoughts on it if we had one unified zoning, we could have an administrator and maybe a couple of inspectors and things like this, and then the boards that went along with it would be, instead of staffed one here, one there, it would be one from each municipality, things like that, so that everybody could have their input.”
Wahpeton City Councilman Brad Jones says getting a single zoning ordinance county-wide in Dickinson county will especially be a challenge among cities around the Iowa Great Lakes given their unique characteristics…
“Arnolds Park is very commercially oriented, as you know. We’re not. So we’re going to have a little difficulty there and that’s going to have to be worked out. We think our codes have been pretty tough over the years. But building heights, I definitely think as far as on the waterfront, 35 feet up, I definitely think we should be unified there. Whether you can get us together on the rest is maybe a little…”
Clark says the goal for now is for the cities and counties to start having the talks, but he admitted getting a county-wide zoning ordinance passed is likely at least years away.
