HUMBOLDT — Contentiousness over a proposed comprehensive plan for Humboldt waned Wednesday evening during a Planning Commission session.
First, City Administrator Larry Tucker said, on advice from City Attorney Fred Works, the plan needed to leave the planners’ hands. No need for City Council members to vote on the plan because it could be held in abeyance until a request for utility extensions outside the city were made.
Then, Don Becannon, Planning Commission chairman, proposed gutting the plan of its controversial elements, zoning and annexation.
Becannon described the plan as “just a blueprint of where and how to extend utilities outside city,” which fit into Tucker noting he received a letter from Allen County permitting utilities in its road rights of way. Tucker also anticipated a similar letter from the Kansas Department of Transportation for K-224.
Becannon suggested eliminating one entire page of the plan and parts of others, emphasizing that it had nothing to do with extraterritorial zoning or forced annexation. He also proposed removing a sentence that said rural residents could ask for annexation if utility lines were put next to their properties.
“Anyone can ask for annexation any time they want to,” he said. “We don’t have to tell them they can.”
Prior to Becannon’s suggested cuts, Tucker said there was no reason for the planners to do anything else — they had approved it — or to ask the City Council for accord until a request for utility extensions was received.
As for a reserve fund to pay for any utility extensions that might be requested, Tucker said planners should ask for such a fund when council members begin to construct the city’s 2013 budget in June.
“You, or anyone else, can ask the council to include things in the budget,” he said.
After Becannon’s proposal, planners voted to have the plan reworked so they could consider it again at their May 2 meeting. Additional changes may be made then.
Several rural residents attended the meeting, and were receptive to Becannon’s proposed changes. Zoning and annexation from the start stuck deepest in their craws.
Tucker said a committee to be appointed by Mayor Nobby Davis, which was to consist of members from rural areas and the Planning Commission, was no longer needed.
PLANNERS looked at a proposed truck route map that has Ninth (old U.S. 169) and Bridge (it crosses the Neosho River to the west) streets as primary avenues. Also, two blocks of 13th Street, 14th running north to K-224 and Central Street running east from 13th, were designated.
Rationale is to keep heavy trucks off residential streets.
