Planning opponents should prepare for bruised feet

Frontiersman editoria board

In the Valley, as in any growing rural area, zoning is a perpetually hot topic. At times it seems as though local developers and residents might have found a way to get along, but then comes another inevitable conflict -- another water-balloon fight between those who want to build on the land and those who want to live there, with each side hurling its missiles and then retreating to a safe distance to survey the damage.

A recent zoning ordinance before the Palmer City Council turned out to be more than a run-of-the-mill slide from one color to another on Palmer's zoning map. Concerned people turned out for both the council meeting and a Palmer planning meeting. One resident showed up with 60 signatures of people opposing a commercial rezone.

And who wouldn't complain? Who likes to see a fast-food joint or a gravel pit spring up a hundred feet from their bed of prize-winning begonias? Who appreciates the stench of a bleach bottling plant or the roar of a racetrack accompanying their backyard barbecue? Complaining about rezoning seems only natural in some such cases.

All of the Valley's zoning flaps only serve to address a single basic question, however: At what cost comes progress in the Valley? At what point is it appropriate to say that the benefit afforded by another commercial or industrial block in Palmer, Wasilla or somewhere between, is worth the ire of nearby homeowners?

It's easy to dispense pithy witticisms about development's inability to create a figurative omelet without breaking the eggs of public opinion, but the fact of the matter is that most of the Valley's residents don't seem to mind development. In fact, many seem to be in favor of it. They would just prefer that it not happen right in their backyards.

Some of the best-managed cities in our country today were planned to work in a certain manner from the ground up, preventing zoning from becoming a constant battle between developers and residents. Washington, D.C., for example, like many capital cities around the globe, represented a certain vision on the part of its founders that was carried out according to plan.

However, we in the Valley seem to lack this luxury. As the fastest-growing area in the state and one of the fastest-growing in the nation, we're forced to deal with problems as they come along. Unfortunately, this means that the future of much of the area must remain a matter of speculation. Without access to magic mirrors, crystal balls, or perhaps a deck of tarot cards designed especially for local zoning, we're going to keep stepping on each others' toes. All that we have to learn, it seems, is how to step lightly.