COUNTY ZONING: ELECTION POSSIBLE IN APRIL

Developing a planning and zoning system for Cape Girardeau County has proven to be a balancing act. How much planning and zoning is enough and how much is too much?

"We are trying to get some sort of control in the county," said Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones. "But we don't want to regulate every little thing."

Associate Commissioner Larry Bock agreed. "The idea is orderly growth and protecting property values in the county."

Tom Tucker, executive director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission, and John Dudley, chairman of the local commission drafting a planning and zoning proposal, met Thursday with commissioners.

The 10-member local commission has been meeting since December 1996.

Once the committee drafts a proposal, it will be presented to the Cape Girardeau County Commission. The commission will review the ideas and make recommendations to the public.

A series of public hearings will be scheduled in each township of the county.

Jones would like to see an election in April.

County planning and zoning has proved controversial in the past. In 1992, voters rejected a proposed countywide master plan, scrapping the 20-year-old planning commission in the process.

Opponents feared the plan as written would have resulted in over-regulation.

Over-regulation is not the goal of the county's three commissioners.

"It was never our intention to have inspectors enforcing BOCA codes or measuring water pipes," Jones said.

However, Tucker said, planning and zoning regulations should be stringent enough to offer some protection for property owners.

"What we want is some common sense," Tucker said.

On Thursday, commissioners asked Tucker's help in updating the county's 22-year-old master plan. Planning and zoning proposals would be contained in a separate document.

In addition, Dudley, Tucker and the commissioners talked about planning for future land use in the county and asked if future plans, including zoning designations, should be drawn on a map.

In 1991, the planning commission completed a future land use map for the county that took current usage of property and expanded it slightly.

Current usage in an area is a good predictor of future use, Tucker said.

"There is no sense bucking it. You're not going to beat it and you will just make people mad," Tucker said.

Jones said he could support a future use plan that designated only a few obvious areas as commercial or industrial, at I-55 interchanges, for example.

"Everything would be subject to change with approval of the planning and zoning commission," Commissioner Max Stovall said.

Bock said most complaints he heard about the previous proposal dealt with specific ordinances -- building a fence through a creek or stabling horses.

"There were a few questions about why was this commercial or why was this residential, but that wasn't the big thing," Bock said.