(Arnolds Park)– The process of updating Dickinson county’s long term comprehensive land use plan officially got underway Thursday evening. A public meeting was held to gather input. The revision is expected to take about a year to complete.
Thursday evening’s two-hour meeting gathered input on lake issues, land use, housing, transportation, infrastructure and parks and recreation.
There was a broad concensus that the updated land use plan should be centered around issues such as water quality, orderly development that would not jeopardize the area’s ecology, the formation of a “utility district” that would have a taxing authority to address storm water run-off, updating the county’s subdivision regulations, unified ordinances among the county and cities, protecting undeveloped, highly productive ag land, and so on.
Some of the more unique ideas tossed out at the meeting include things such as damming Mill Creek to expand the Iowa Great Lakes further south; and merging all the cities and county into one large governmental entity.
There was also a call for coordinated efforts in long term planning between the county’s and cities planning and zoning commissions and the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary Sewer District.
Thursday evening’s meeting was coordinated by the Northwest Iowa Planning and Zoning Commission, with which the county has contracted to perform the update. The commission’s Curt Sullivan says they’ll be meeting in the future with the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission for further input.
