Planning for the future

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For the last 17 years, the West Des Moines comprehensive plan has been a document changing with the demands of development.

“We were moving along pretty well, and then a little project called Jordan Creek came along, then the West Side (Land Use Vision Plan),then another little project called Wells Fargo,” said Clyde Evans, the city’s director of community and economic development.

Little things are still coming along – some would say coming along in a big way – in West Des Moines, where the City Council adopted a comprehensive plan, circa 2010, in late September.

Johnston, once a sleepy suburb like West Des Moines, also is edging closer to final approval of its comprehensive plan. The document has been just one year in the making. When completed later this fall, it will provide the community and owners of development land a key insight into how the city sees itself growing – all the way to 2030.

It is safe to say that little in the documents will be cast in stone. Comprehensive plans, which provide the big picture of the city’s perception of itself and how it will grow, change as a city’s needs change.

Evans points out that his city’s new map to the future replaces one that in 1993 envisioned a community of residential districts where the corporate campuses of Wells Fargo & Co. and Aviva USA now stand.

Jordan Creek Town Center? Well, it was open countryside with an upscale residential community and exclusive country club being planned for land near Interstate 35/80,which would have been way out on the city’s western borders back then.

West Des Moines extended sewer and water lines – the magic elixir of development – to the area, and it prospered.

West Des Moines has wrapped up a process it initiated in 1999, hoping at the time to update the 1993 land use plan.

A decade ago, the city took its task seriously. A 17-member citizens advisory committee was appointed and met more than 50 times, putting in 80 hours of meeting time. The committee met with city staff, toured outlying areas that eventually would become part of the city and discussed land use recommendations.

The current round of planning started in earnest last year, when the city was completing its annexation of land that would place sections of Madison and Warren counties within boundaries that already included land in Dallas and Polk counties.

At public hearings earlier this year, some residents living near newly extended boundaries came to realize that their rural lifestyles were going to change, possibly sooner than they anticipated.

But as any planner will caution, comprehensive plans are key to orderly growth, with land use designations reserved for commercial and residential development. Some of those rural residents could see little change for decades to come.

The process also catches the eye of developers, especially landholders who have bought property with an eye to future growth.

They want to know where roads are planned, where the city envisions office parks and residential areas.

Gerry Neugent, president and chief operating officer of Knapp Properties Inc., which owns a key piece of development property south of the Raccoon River, said Greater Des Moines communities have become more accommodating of all interests during their planning processes.

“Generally, I would say that in the 36 years I’ve been in real estate, either as a lawyer or in the development business, I think the last 10 years it’s been a much more transparent and professional process,” Neugent said.

He said it is important for developers to know where cities hope to see the development of offices, retail and other commercial developments. Streets and major transportation routes are a big area of interest.

“Generally you’ll find that there is discussion with landowners; most of the cities haven’t done stuff in abstentia from the ownership,” Neugent said. “They make it a pretty transparent process. If it fits what we think is right, we might say, ‘Is this where the road should be?’ Those are details within the plan that can be discussed. All metro cities, we find, are easy to visit with and receptive to our ideas, or they explain why they don’t agree.”

The comprehensive plans are as noteworthy for the view they provide of the city’s past as they do of the present.

West Des Moines did its first land use study in 1947 and passed its first zoning ordinance a year later. By 1958, the city had more than doubled in population, from 5,200 to 10,850 people. The land area increased from 1.6 square miles to 17.3 square miles. In comparison, the 2010 comprehensive plan attempts to meet the needs of a city expected to grow from its current population of 51,744 to a projected population in 2030 of between 83,493 and 133,371 people. The new plan studies land uses in an area of 77 square miles.

In 1983, the document became more than a zoning map and carried the impressive name Comprehensive Land Use Management Plan. It dealt with land use planning, capital improvements planning and policy planning and focused on the location, design and timing of the physical development of the city.

A decade later, the plan evolved into a policy and goal-setting document.

In 2003, the city adopted a planning model it called the balanced scorecard, which had six themes: planning and community development, collaboration, sustainability, resource management, community enrichment and community safety. Those themes carry through in the 2010 comprehensive plan.

The new plan focuses on land use changes south of Iowa Highway 5 and east of Interstate 35; west of Jordan Creek Parkway along Mills Civic Parkway; the 105th Street connection to Alice’s Road and an eventual interchange over Interstate 80: and a technology corridor in the area where Microsoft Corp. will build a data center near Booneville Road and Xavier Place.

In Johnston, the comprehensive plan is expected to be ready for a City Council vote in December. It, too, has gone through a round of public debate in which residents were asked for their views of the Johnston of the future.

Of key concern was creating a sustainable community, a buzzword for responsible growth that has taken a practical turn in the city’s watershed study and planning that will be incorporated into the document.

David Wilwerding, Johnston’s community development director, said there have been no big surprises in how residents would like to see the city grow.

“I’ve been doing this long enough I don’t get too surprised anymore,” he said.

Since the last planning document was adopted in 1998, the city has grown to 16,000 people from 7,000 and property valuation has increased to $1.6 billion from $500 million.

Areas of focus include the northwest section of the city, the so-called Gateway area that runs along Merle Hay Road from the south into the city and areas that need additional investment or redevelopment on the city’s east side.

As with Evans in West Des Moines, Wilwerding said the comprehensive plan adopted for his city will go through many changes through the years.

“Comprehensive plans are made to be altered,” he said.

Many of those changes occur after developers have a chance to look at the plans and see how their projects fit.

Steve Niebuhr, senior vice president of construction and management services for Hubbell Realty Co., said his company has not been as active in the current planning processes in West Des Moines and Johnston as in the past, primarily because it is not buying large sections of land with an eye to future development.

Typically, when the company is ready to develop property, the comprehensive plans have already been approved. It does want to know where utilities and types of development, office or residential for example, are planned.

Hubbell could propose the changes that make a comprehensive plan a “living document,” as Evans describes the documents.

“We may pay a little more for ground that’s right and ready to go, the utilities are to it and it’s smack in the path of development … and we want to turn it real quick,” Niebuhr said.