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Show stgven Walli.Expres. Editor -of a four-part series . mv land and I'll do with it as I 11 .- is just one of the many at-f at-f .hich makes land use and ment for future growth a very H problem. '" example of land misuse in a 4&tec I area would be Rock " Wyo., where public officials their 'arms to anything that ffith growth." problem in Rock Springs wasn't , i a problem of mismanagement much as non-management," said vjis 'att- Sweetwater County, ?,i planner. icMrding to a recent study by the ah Basin Association of Govern-t Govern-t by 1987 the Uintah Basin will 7700 additional housing units to inodate growth. -Because of the cost of housing to many people will not be able to permanent dwellings," said Bob poison, Uintah County-Vernal City .jner '"Some people don't unhand un-hand the need for higher density ';iB - he added. "If we don't have density housing, there will be a lot nubile home parks or other housing .ill consumes less land." According to Nickolson, the present -L-jsing in the Basin is not even close to l.cmniodating expected growth. He "s said he expects a quadrupling of abile home parks. Sweetwater County planner, Dennis fills, said there are two reasons that ij percent of new homes in his county at mobile homes: with a disposable amunity, major employees find -.utile homes convenient and single ae ownership is beyond the reach of :ple. - Many of the problems we encounter ,t associated with the low-income vising and mobile homes," said Jon nilh, Social Services, Rock Springs, ijj. He don't know the causes and ef-icl." ef-icl." added Rich Unger, Rock Springs planner. "We don't know if those type of people are attracted to mobile homes or if mobile homes are the cause of the problems." The assistant superintendent of the Rock Springs School District said that his son, whose family had grown too large for their trailer, was looking at building a home in Rock Springs, but was discouraged by building lots which cost $28,000. Another problem associated with growth, according to Nickolson, is the tendency to build sprawling communities com-munities or major subdivisions in the outlying area. Nickolson mentioned several proposals for subdivisions in outlying areas. The most recent in Coal Mine Basin, which would require the county to provide services such as law enforcement, garbage, fire protection, water and sewer. These services would be costly in traveling to the subdivision by county personnel and would require added personnel. Urban sprawl also creates serious economic problems for existing agriculture. One of these is the inflated value imposed on adjacent farmland when land sells for a higher price than its value for producing crops. Eventually Even-tually agriculture is not able to survive the economic strain of the high tax rate. A method being used in Martin County, Calif., to manage growth is to implement a residential development review process. Each year governing bodies of jurisdiction involved in the county set an annual residential growth quota, based on planned growth rates, current trends and utility capacity. The quota is allocated to three review periods of four months each. All development projects must await action by a special Residential Development Review Board (RDRB). Every four months, the RDRB meets. If the total number of units approved under normal procedures in the planning area has not exceeded the growth target previously set, all projects are approved. If the target is exceeded, the board holds a hearing to assign a rating to each project based on criteria in the joint power agreement between entities involved. The criteria clearly encourages low and moderate income housing and rates each project on that criteria. Projects with the highest rating and within the target rating are approved. Many other methods of growth management can be used, but most are useless unless a city and county master plan is developed and approved. A high priority in developing the Uintah County master plan, which is presently seeking public input, is agriculture preservation. "The difficulty comes in turning the high ideal (agriculture preservation) into a workable program," Nickolson said. "Most farmers are in favor of agriculture preservation until they want to sell their land, because they don't was anyone to restrict that sale," Nickolson added. The Farmland Assessment Act of 1969 which is commonly referred to as the Greenbelt Amendment was adopted by the State of Utah as a means of agriculture preservation. The act permits that farm and ranch owners request that their land be classified as agricultural and valued and taxed according to provisions of the act. If a change in land use occurs from agriculture to non-agricultural land, the owner must pay the tax benefits he has received for agricultural land during the previous period of up to five years. According to the Utah Foundation, an independent testing firm, the green-belt green-belt amendment isn't an effective tool to preserve agriculture lands. According Ac-cording to the study the five years of back taxes isn't that much of a burden to the farm or ranch owner when he sells his land. Other methods of agriculture preservation include zoning, agricultural districts, acquisition of development rights, and transfer of i -" ' I " : ; V v . t ' - .- 1 f 1 " . .'s i , I -. f . ---.' I I - ; I t"A 1 1 THE HOUSING OF the people who come with future growth could pose a problem with high development rights. In King County outside of Seattle, Wash., a bond was passed so the county could buy up the development rights to all farm lands in the county. The development rights were the difference in the market value of the land and the . value of the land for farming. When a developer wants the land for another purpose besides agriculture, he pays the development cost to the county and the land cost to the owner. "This method turned out to be very expensive," Nickolson said. "There are many things the county could do to perserve agricultural lands, but there is no free lunch." interest rates and a tight housing market. r - Z JirXSKB f fl MOBILE HOMES are crowded end to end and side by side in Rock Springs, Wyo. where population almost doubled over night. |