Keep cities’ ‘zoning areas of influence’

The Sedgwick County Commission prizes property rights and seeks less bureaucracy, as it should. But because one landowner’s free exercise of property rights can be a neighbor’s nightmare, surely commissioners can agree with mayors across the county that cities should have some say in land use just outside their borders.

At Wednesday’s meeting, county commissioners will consider a proposal by the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission to amend the county’s 30-year-old “zoning areas of influence” policy, which enables 17 cities’ planning commissions to scrutinize and vote on zoning and other changes requested in surrounding unincorporated areas.

The majority county commissioners have advocated eliminating the policy and therefore sparing developers and homeowners what they see as a “duplicative” and “unnecessary” step. In any case such zoning requests still would be reviewed by the MAPC, which is composed of appointees of the County Commission and the Wichita City Council.

But as the mayors of Goddard, Cheney, Bentley, Mount Hope, Colwich, Clearwater and Derby wrote in a Sunday commentary in The Eagle, the current policy recognizes that development beyond their city limits can “affect public infrastructure and long-term costs to taxpayers” and “promotes healthy communication among builders, county residents and cities.”

Under the MAPC’s commonsense compromise, approved 11-1 last month, cities’ review of zoning cases outside their borders would continue, but they would have a shorter window to respond, the size of some of the zoning areas of influence could be reduced (most now are much larger than the cities themselves), and it would take just four of five county commissioners to override a city’s objections (now the vote must be unanimous).

As they take up the issue, county commissioners also should heed the MAPC’s defeat, on a 5-7 vote, of a motion to eliminate the zoning areas of influence policy. If commissioners scrap the policy anyway, they’ll be setting aside not only the cities’ well-founded concerns but also the MAPC’s expert advice.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Keep cities’ ‘zoning areas of influence’."