Development Obstacles

[BS Planner]

Is anyone dealing with the subdivision of large parcels of Ag land into smaller lots along existing streets and placing one home on them, which is creating situation where it would be incredibly expensive to extend utilities past these lots and is also creating more ownerships that will have to be dealt with in land assemblies.

If anyone is dealing with this or has dealt with it in the past, I would appreciate some guidance. Thanks.

 

[Chet]

Sorry, but who isnt? Can you be more specific to your issue?

 

[Cardinal]

I saw something similar in a community I worked in. They decided to permit two-acre lots with septic on the fringe of the village, so that "when we decide to extend the sewer, they can subdivide and sell off the other lot to pay for it." Oh yeah, right, that'll happen. ^o) The county zoning chair and I argued that this was not a realistic strategy and the village was cutting off its only avenue of growth (river to the east, steep slopes on the south, county and DNR lands on the northwest). The great planner from the regional planning commission I was working with on the project proposed a solution. He had them create a new zoning district for two-acre lots. If anyone can figure out how that helps, please let me know.

 

[Lee Nellis]

Require that they submit a plat showing how the lots will be divided in the future. This will allow you to ensure adequate r.ow., easements, etc.

 

[BS Planner]

Sorry, but who isnt? Can you be more specific to your issue?

Well, we have an Ag district with a 3 acre minimum lot size and 210' minimum lot widths. We have had several two or three lot subdivisions in the last few years of land that is in areas of the city that we believe have high growth potential. In these areas of high growth potential, we would like to discourage subdivision of these larger tracts of land to maintain their development potential. It seems to me that Ag districts should have larger minimum lot sizes (say 20 acres) because you can't conduct a true Ag use on a three acre plot of land. Therefore, I am considering a proposal to increase the minimum size of Ag district lots to 20 acres or getting rid of the Ag district all together and establishing maximum lot sizes that can be subdivided in the city. I've noticed a lot of other cities here in the KC metro area don't have Ag districts. I'm not sure if either of the two options mentioned above would solve our problem or make it worse.

 

[BS Planner]

Require that they submit a plat showing how the lots will be divided in the future. This will allow you to ensure adequate r.ow., easements, etc.

Although we don't make them show future division of lots beyond what they may be proposing, we do require the dedication of right-of-way for future streets that line up on the metropolitan grid.