The city of Luverne pays an Economic Development Director thousands of dollars a year to try and promote growth in Luverne, by giving thousands of dollars to individuals who supposedly don’t have enough money to start their own business.On the other hand, Rock County seems to want to discourage growth. When the Chairman of the County Planning and Zoning Board said he doesn’t like to see housing developments, one mile outside the city limits of Luverne, that is not a good omen. I have been to the Land Management Office four different times, in September, December, February and May, for information on a lot we wanted to build on. Not until the fourth time, did they inform me that it did not meet code. Supposedly, all lots where you want to build a house must have 200 feet of public road frontage in a non-subdivided area. It doesn’t matter that we bought this lot more than 20 years ago! If you are trying to sell or rebuild on an existing acreage without the "correct" amount of frontage, can it really be legally sold or rebuilt on? Does the front of the house have to face the road frontage? Why does the county care how much frontage a building site has? Aren’t there other landowners affected by this law?There are many building sites in Rock County overlooking the beautiful Rock River Valley. Many of these sites are on marginal land which has poorer productive capabilities. Some land is close to a 1/2 mile from a public roadway, because of the river. Why should a person have to buy 200 feet of land all the way to the road just to meet the "interpreted" zoning requirement? On a 1/2 mile distance, this would be an additional 12 acres. As long as a person has an easement access to their parcel, why not encourage building? Are county officials concerned our tax base is too high?Our county should develop the lower flood plain lands of the River Valley for recreational use and work with people to build on higher sites above the valley. More needs to be done to encourage development in Rock County instead of chasing people across the border to South Dakota. If the county would put a copy of the zoning laws in our county library maybe residents could find out for themselves what the code says. Would that be asking too much? Can the codes be revised to be more accommodating to builders?After all the problems with the previous Land Management Director, apparently the current employees feel they need to dot ever "i" and cross every "t." These strict interpretations of the zoning laws are just discouraging growth in Rock County. Gene AshbyRural Luverne
