Wrangling the boom

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

By Bill Sniffin

For a long time, PLAN and ZONE have been two of Wyoming’s most unpopular four-letter words.

A conference last week in Casper, “Building the Wyoming we want,” was attended by 520 people. Its findings went a long way toward blasting people’s notions about these two words to smithereens.

The notion that Wyoming is just like a small city, but with extremely long streets, came to the fore. People from all parts of the state greeted each other knowingly as they worked together to learn ways to gain control over the unprecedented growth that has been gripping our state for five years.

Perhaps the real theme was, “What kind of place do we want to leave to our grandchildren?” This was echoed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal in his opening and closing remarks, and perhaps by the sea of gray heads in the audience.
Noticeably absent from the room were the ranchers and farmers who really hold the keys to what happens to all this land that is currently open space. Also absent were developers, realtors, members of the mineral industry and young people.

The current boom sort of sneaked up on a whole state of disbelieving citizens as the stars aligned themselves perfectly to cause our current growth. Five years ago there was just one writer talking about it and he called it Wyoming’s Golden Age.

It is impossible to condense all the important stuff that came out of the conference in one 750-word column.  Future columns will have details on some of the more pertinent information, though.  Here are some important ideas that emerged from the conference:

- Utah example. An outfit called Envision Utah shared some incredibly good examples of how you can get people together from diverse backgrounds to work out their differences for the ultimate good of all. These Utahans are planning as hard as they predict 5 million people will be living in the Wasatch Valley by 2050.

- Sonoran institute. Luther Propst’s outfit from Tucson shared many good examples of how to have growth on your own terms. Many Wyoming communities have used his services before and he recently opened a Cheyenne office.

- Local taxation. The conference included many city and county folks who felt the Legislature has taken away too many local taxing options, which restricts local control and options to control their own destiny.

- Wildlife Trust.  Bob Budd’s outfit offers a lot when it comes to developing open space and protecting Wyoming’s way of life.

- Bad guys? A developer called B.B. Brooks was cited as an example of the bad guy as reckless realtor. These Arizona folks have purchased some huge Wyoming ranches and are selling 40-acre ranchettes.  Mr. Budd called them “weedettes. … Too small to plow and too big to mow.”

-  How to do it?  The governor was in rare form as he urged people to make this process a bottom up rather than top down effort.

- New language.  Buzzwords like cluster housing, satellite development, hubs and discussion of innovative land models, like that of the Sand Creek ranch preservation anti-sprawl project near Buffalo, were voiced.

Another Buffalo resident told me rural folks in Johnson County are finally now talking about zoning as they try to get a grip on development in that conservative part of the state.

My biggest worry is that 80 percent of the people there were either government employees or on government boards.  Nothing will be done concerning this problem until the landowners, realtors, developers, mineral companies, and entrepreneurs are brought to the table.

Let’s not let this effort fade into our memories as just another nice-to-go-to government conference.

This was just a first step, and it was a big one.
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Wrangling the boom | Planet JH News Article: Right Wing Local

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