Researchers who have studied Iowa’s 2008 floods have shown that certain land use practices contributed to the natural disaster. New floodplain management recommendations from a panel of experts were mostly shelved during the 2010 legislative session. However, the appropriations bill approved just before legislators adjourned in March included some provisions that could improve floodplain management. Section 17 of Senate File 2389 (text) spelled out 10 “Iowa smart planning principles,” which “State agencies, local governments, and other public entities shall consider and may apply […] during deliberation of all appropriate planning, zoning, development, and resource management decisions […].” Section 25 established an Iowa Smart Planning Task Force to encourage and support the use of such principles. By November 15, that 33-member task force must submit policy recommendations to the governor and state legislature.
Iowans have a rare opportunity to support wise land use policies by speaking out on the task force’s draft recommendations, which cover five broad areas:
Establish a framework to coordinate planning, geographic information and data systems, and state-level investment.
Require completion of regional comprehensive smart plans within 5 years after legislation is enacted.
Create financial incentives and offer technical assistance to incent smart planning at both the regional and local levels.
Develop a watershed planning and coordination program, including goals and strategies referencing land use for each of Iowa’s nine major river basins.
Make the definition of “local comprehensive plan” uniform throughout the Iowa Code.
The task force is accepting public comments through October 10. Click here to download the full draft recommendations (pdf file). This survey at the Rebuild Iowa Office website asks whether you support, oppose or are neutral to each specific recommendation, and leaves blank space for suggesting anything that should be added or deleted from the document. Surveys can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to Aaron Todd at the Rebuild Iowa Office. His contact information is here.
The smart planning recommendations will be discussed at five public meetings and one webinar between September 28 and October 7. I’ve posted event details for the meetings in Spencer, Red Oak, Waverly, Coralville, and Boone below. You do not need to attend a public meeting or sign on to the webinar in order to submit comments.
Increased precipitation is expected to lead to more major flooding in Iowa in the coming decades. Terry Branstad dropped the ball on flood prevention during the 1990s. Although I-JOBS has funded many valuable flood mitigation projects, those are not a substitute for more comprehensive and coordinated land use planning.
After the jump you’ll find an action alert from 1000 Friends of Iowa, containing the times and locations for the public meetings and webinar. I’ve also posted the suggestions that 1000 Friends of Iowa co-founder LaVon Griffieon has submitted to the Iowa Smart Planning Task Force.
From a 1000 Friends of Iowa action alert of September 18, 2010:
The Iowa Smart Planning Bill, Senate File 2389, was signed into law on April 26, 2010. The bill does not mandate how communities should grow, but requires that municipalities consider Smart Planning Principles when planning for the future. The bill created a Task Force which has worked to create a draft recommendations for public comment concerning how smart planning will be executed in Iowa.
The Iowa Smart Planning Task Force has scheduled a series of public meetings across the state to receive citizen input on the final version of the Draft Recommendations.
Visit http://www.rio.iowa.gov/smart_… for the survey instrument, public input meeting information and to download the final version of the Draft Recommendations.
The meetings will take place in five Iowa communities and online. This is a fantastic opportunity to make your opinions and thoughts about Smart Planning known, and to have a real impact on the future of flood prevention in Iowa. Numerous studies conducted after the 2008 floods concluded that better planning could help decrease flooding, save money and resources, and build cooperation.
All the meetings will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and the Webinar will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The meeting schedule is as follows:
Iowa Smart Planning Task Force Public Input Meetings Schedule
* September 28: Spencer City Hall, 418 Second Ave., Spencer, IA
* September 29: Montgomery County History Center, 2700 North 4th Street, Red Oak, IA
* September 30: Waverly Civic Center, 200 First Street N.E., Waverly, IA
* October 5: Meeting Room A, Coralville Public Library, 1401 Fifth Street, Coralville, IA
* October 6: Webinar, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., originated from Iowa State Association for Counties Office in Des Moines
* October 7: Boone City Hall Auditorium, 923 Eight Street., Boone, IA
Recommendations for Iowa Smart Planning Task Force by LaVon Griffieon, 1000 Friends of Iowa
In 1985 the Office for Planning and Programming in Iowa was dissolved by the governor and the legislature. That office provided an umbrella to oversee eighteen state agencies and twenty- eight boards, councils and committees which were concerned with one or more aspects of land resource allocation or planning. For the past twenty-five years Iowa has had no one agency which is aware of land use planning or programming in our state. Land use is an activity with pervasive effects on almost all facets of growth, development and environment.
This void is evident in every area of the state. The lack of a state office which is in touch with local governments across Iowa was never so evident as in the aftermath of the 2008 floods as we sought to coordinate efforts in local communities in Eastern Iowa. 1000 Friends of Iowa’s recommendation is to establish an Office of Sustainable Planning and Programming once again to coordinate Iowa’s land use planning and management, coordinate state agency efforts, cut costly repetitive programming and fill an obvious void for Iowa. This office would serve as a link and support to every city government in the state. It would serve as an information clearing house and repository for GIS, coordinate cooperative planning efforts to eliminate waste and redundancy. We agree that all planning begins locally. Establishment of a lead agency for Iowa’s 948 cities and 99 counties to look to for guidance on how to plan and implement smart growth principles and coordinate growth statewide could never be as timely as it is now. Iowa’s Council Of Governments (COGs) do not exist in all areas of the state at this time. Iowa has 18 RPA and nine MPOs. However, there is no state agency to serve as an umbrella to coordinate all these efforts.
Smart growth saves money, resources and builds cooperation. Iowa needs to embrace a serious plan to grow responsibly, by forming a department at the state level to store and review comprehensive plans to be sure that Smart Planning Principles are being met. Small communities and rural counties have little means to afford professional planning. The Office of Sustainable Planning and Programming would administer technical and financial assistance for comprehensive planning. The department would conduct research and disseminate information.
Planning to avoid flooding is simple. Let floodplains be floodplains. Levees have been used for more than a century in an attempt to control floods. Levees are prone to failure. Flood control reservoirs can store large amounts of water but they eventually fill up with silt and dams fail, e.g. Delhi. Designated floodway boundaries are based on historical data and local governments are slow to revise them after new record floods. Local governments are lured in to believing that floodways protect buildings in the rest of the floodplain. They don’t. Climate change is causing increased rainfall in Iowa. Many Iowans and our decision-makers don’t believe in climate change, but the increases in rainfall can’t be denied. After the 1993 flood in Ames, city officials said that Ames would never experience a flood of that magnitude in their lifetime. Many Ames residents lived to see another one in 2010.
In the Des Moines Lobe, alone, there are 5 million miles of drainage tiles. Cities have installed storm sewers and paved over the landscape with impervious surfaces. Even if we had kept all of the wetlands that were here before all of this drainage, we probably would have experienced flooding in 1993 and 2010. So the cheapest and most practical solution is: don’t build in the floodplain and begin the process of gradually moving development that is presently in the floodplain, out. In order to fulfill these simple goals we will need state oversight and outreach for education and funding opportunities coming from a dependable source whose sole focus is outreach to communities concerning smart planning.
In the past two years, HUD allocated more than $642 million to Iowa because of flooding for flood mitigation. Dave Swenson, ISU Economist, found that close to $2.4 billion in federal aid was spent in Iowa to either restore households, assist businesses, repair or restore public facilities, or otherwise aid in the relief effort.
Our inability to coordinate our planning efforts is costing Iowans and American citizens tax dollars in addition to what homeowners, businesses, communities and our entire state has lost. Iowa can no longer afford to ignore coordinated comprehensive planning that upholds the Smart Planning Principles. The expense of recreating the Office of Sustainable Planning and Programming pales in comparison to the cost of not having a state department dedicated to coordinated comprehensive planning.Place the Office near the state Capitol and maintain an enhanced GIS clearinghouse from the State Library. The RIO staff has done an excellent job coordinating the effort to plan for the future. Staff should be considered to carry out the mission they have done such an excellent job in defining.
Farmland protection is not being adequately addressed presently in Iowa. Iowa has .098 percent of the world’s land mass and yet is home to 10-25% of the world’s finest soils according to the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service. That makes our soils a global treasure when coupled with timely rains and our climate. Presently, the age of the farmland owner is increasing at a rapid rate. In Iowa, the percent of land owned by people over the age of 75 has risen from 12 percent in 1982 to 27 percent in 2007. The percent of land owned by people between 65 and 74 has increased from 17 percent to 27 percent. This means that more than half the farmland in Iowa is owned by someone over the age of 65. Within the next twenty years it could be owned by out-of-state heirs who don’t care to invest their profits from the land into costly conservation efforts which preserves water quality and our soils. Visit http://www.leopold.iastate.edu… to read the full report by Mike Duffy, ISU Extension. Iowa needs comprehensive planning coordination throughout the state that protects farmland and an office at the state level that provides oversight into the manner which we use our land.