Johnson supervisors approve village plan for Windham over residents' objections
Over the objections of residents and property owners, the Johnson County supervisors have approved a village plan for Windham, an unincorporated southwest Johnson County hamlet that was the last holdout in the process.
Approved 4-0 on March 8, with Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz absent, the plan is part of a countywide growth blueprint. Supervisors chair Lisa Green-Douglass said the goal is to inform future decisions regarding Windham.
“In our comprehensive plan we talk about how development in the overall county will happen and it goes outward from cities, outward from villages so that it would eventually, way in the future, be infill rather than spotty type sprawl development,” Green-Douglass said.
The plan ― the last one adopted for a Johnson County village ― creates a boundary for Windham and identifies areas where growth can occur.
“When we talk about a plan (that) will limit development in Windham, 'limit' doesn’t mean that it will squelch it or disallow it all together,” Green-Douglass said. “It means it will limit it. It will dictate what type of development can happen according to the plan.”
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But it apparently wasn't limiting enough for many Windham residents and property owners. They and their supporters at the meeting reiterated previously expressed concerns about the plan and proposed making changes to it, including setting a smaller boundary for the village, banning or placing strict quotas on certain kinds of development and allowing the plan to be amended by a majority vote of Windham property owners and residents.
“We just want to be left alone,” area resident Judd Lawler told the board.
Windham citizens ask for changes in plan
The planning process began last summer with meetings where county officials informed the residents about the village planning process. The residents, according to a county report, said they liked their tight-knit, rural community and wanted to keep it that way.
They said they felt the proposed plan would encourage growth within the village boundaries, and could bring industrial and other uses they would find objectionable. By the second meeting, an attendee was asking “if the proposed village plan process could be abandoned so that no plan was adopted,” the report said.
A letter from a Windham citizens committee rejected what it said was the supervisors' contention that they were required to impose the plan and proposed an array of changes that include an annual, one-unit limit on home and business construction, the reduction in the village boundaries and the ability for property owners and residents to veto proposed developments. It also called for a 10-year moratorium on the use of any value-adding property improvements in the village in reassessing the value of other properties there.
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Lawler, at the March 8 meeting, told the supervisors that Windham residents were confused about the purpose of pushing development in their small, undeveloped community, and urged the board to formally accept the proposed changes.
“We’re still opposed to any plan at all because it’s unnecessary and maybe, from what we’ve heard, one person in the area would like it and everybody else that we’re aware of is opposed,” Lawler said. “But, we said, we’re also willing to compromise, so let’s just get these things in writing.”
He said the residents were "demoralized” by the county's refusal to do so. “They’ve no longer got hope that the board will listen to them.”
Republican state Sen. Dawn Driscoll, addressing the board over Zoom, voiced support for the residents.
“I know that in the rural part of Johnson County, that it is so important that these voices are heard,” Driscoll said. “We fight all the time for rural representation and these residents have banded together and I feel have done a phenomenal job of showing their passion for preserving their historic Windham.”
County says residents' proposals won't work
But the Johnson County Planning, Development and Sustainability Department told the supervisors in a memo that it did not support the proposed boundary changes or most of the other proposed alterations, saying they were too limiting and could have the effect of shifting growth to even more rural areas, contrary to the goal of the plan. It also said approving property uses is, under Iowa Code, a responsibility of the supervisors, and cannot be delegated to the residents and landowners.
In addition, the memo quoted Johnson County Assessor Tom Van Buer as saying he did "not know of any code that would allow for the freezing of an assessed value as laid out in this proposal."
Green-Douglass said the supervisors have legal parameters, including state code and a unified development ordinance, they must work within.
“Some of the things you asked for... they’re not allowable,” she said.
Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach her at PBarraza@press-citizen.com or 319-519-9731. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Johnson County supervisors approve Windham village plan
