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DEVELOPMENT: Consider all impacts

| February 5, 2021 1:00 AM

Do you own stocks, gold, commodities, Bitcoin or any other “investment?” Do you have a 401K, a 403b? Tell me what your guaranteed profit is? Tell me that you don’t have a risk of loss?

Land is an investment, like any other. There is no guaranteed profit. A landowner/developer is not guaranteed a massive profit because they want to build a sardine can of homes on the land.

I keep hearing that landowners have the right to do with their property as they please. For the most part, I agree. But, not at the expense of the residents around that land.

If the 200 homes that are slammed onto your property cause more traffic, solid waste, sewage, water demand, infrastructure stress, and reduce the quality of life of the citizens as a whole, then there is a limit to how you can use your property. Maybe only 100 homes.

Maybe some city future growth plans need to be revised to limit density. This 4-6 homes per acre cannot be the way the prairie fills in. Unless you’ve lived in a city with wall-to-wall tract developments, you can’t conceive of what this county will look like and how the quality of life we have now will be long gone.

The decision makers have to stop fearing litigation from landowners and zone for the citizens’ quality of life first. Some investments reap huge profits; some small; some lose. No one is guaranteed a profit.

Get involved. Demand that the citizen quality of life comes before profit or economic benefits. Ask the decision makers what they value more, quality of life or $?

ED DePRIEST

Hayden