O'Fallon Still Balking at County's MidAmerica Airport Plan
Plan Reviewed by O'Fallon Planning Commission
BELLEVILLE, IL (September 17, 1999) -- The MidAmerica Airport Sub-Area Plan is still a long way off from being what the City of 0'Fallon, Illinois wants.
The plan was again reviewed by the O'Fallon Planning Commission, which serves as the city's airport zoning board. The commission voted unanimously recently to officially recommend to the City Council that the intergovernmental agreement not be signed yet.
The plan was proposed for all communities in the area to use as a guideline for zoning near the airport. The purpose is to protect the area and to avoid any developments that would infringe upon airport operations and cause a safety hazard.
The proposal has been under review for more than a year. In the meantime, O'Fallon has proceeded to draft and approve its own Airport Overlay Ordinance. The plan actually was used by Woolpert Consultants to help create the county's plan.
However, there are some distinct differences city officials do not like. Most of the differences have to do with the Joint Access Zoning Board (JAZB) which will be the governing body set up to enforce the plan.
"O'Fallon desires to be a part of any intergovernmental agreement," the Planning Commission wrote in its recommendation to the City Council.
"To this end, the city has been working with this project. As it stands now, the proposed agreement has five areas of concern for the city. The City of 0'Fallon is not alone in this matter as there are several other communities with similar concerns."
Other communities that have been asked to participate are Belleville, New Baden, Lebanon, Mascoutah, Shiloh and St. Clair County.
The Planning Commission is concerned that the regional airport land use plan is not consistent with the land use plan O'Fallon has been drafting for this area. The regional plan depicts this area as agricultural, while the city anticipates this area to see heavy commercial use.
The Planning Commission is also concerned that annexation agreements would be subject to review when zoning is considered as part of the agreement.
The JAZB will be made up of representatives from all communities involved in the regional plan. O'Fallon representatives, however, are concerned with the amount of control given to this body by the plan. On the issues the JAZB will vote on, the proposed agreement requires a three-fourths supermajority override of the City Council rather than a simple majority or a two-thirds supermajority.
The Planning Commission is also not satisfied with wording in the plan that gives the JAZB final authority on variances to the technical standards of the ordinance, variances for prohibited uses and interpretations of the ordinance.
The lack of a fee schedule for the services of the administrative agency, St. Clair County, is also a concern. There will be a fee schedule established, but right now the city is being asked to adopt this plan without those fees being known.
"O'Fallon is being asked to relinquish a great deal of control over land use within its municipal boundaries," said Ted Shekell, the city's director of planning and zoning.
Alderman Allen Medford, who attended the Planning Commission meeting last week and has been involved in this project since the beginning, agreed with Shekell and the commission.
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