HomeMy WebLinkAboutA005 - letter from Top-O-Hollow neighborhood To: Members of the City Council November 20, 1979
From: Top-0-Hollow Neighborhood
During the recent, city election, several candidates advocated a Sensitive
Zoning Ordinance. The advocacy for such an ordinance recognized that certain
areas need special consideration when they are developed. The proposed devel-
opment of Stonebrooke above Hallett Quarry would be considered a senstitive
area and fall under such an ordinance.
The Hallett Quarry is in the watershed that may be crucial to the water supply
of the City of Ames. Development increases storm water run-off that picks up lawn
fertilizers, gasoline and oil and other debris and may jeapardize this water supply.
Agricultural run-off may already have contaminated the water. No one really knows
the extent of the damage now or in the future, because no study has been documented.
Yet development, is proposed and that development might be started before the impact
of it is assessed by the study. The developers have surmised that there may be
some problems, but their decisions to control erosion and retain storm water run-off
during and after the building process, are at best guesses without any concrete
facts, we feel.
During the City Council meeting of October 30, 1979, RESOLUTION NO. 79-473 was
passed, authorizing the expenditure of $36,000 to fund research in the Hallett
Quarry watershed area as a supplemental water supply for the city. "The Planning
and 'Zoning Commission submitted a statement of support for the research for protect-
ing the City's water resources and for realizing the importance of this study to
future land planning in the Hallett's Quarry area."
The Top-O-Hollow Neighborhood Association still feels it necessary to point out
and requests that this study and research be completed or at least a good distance
on the way, before the Stonebrooke development is allowed to begin.
We also are still concerned about the zoning asked. in the area for R-1. We
feel the proposed high density is a long way from living up to the intent of R-1
zoning. Although the developers continue to say they could have an even higher
density according to the total acreage, we want the study to show and will continue
to question just how many acres are actually suitable for development. And when it
is all said and/or done...we feel it will drastically change the nature and appear-
ance of our neighborhood.
It is continually stated at various meetings that the neighbors do have a right
to question and reject such proposed changes, nothing to date has been done to in-
dicate that they are really listening to our complaints and suggestions. Although
some units have been moved from the southeast corner of the proposed development,
they have simply been moved to another site and the total density has not changed.
We feel the Patio Homes, single family units - zero lot line, are nothing but
duplexes with a fancy name, and we feel the inclusion of duplexes in an R-1 zone
needs careful consideration.
In a meeting with Merwin Dougal, Nov. 13, he indicated that the total design
for the development should be changed. The high density units should be moved to
the less sensitive area north and west so as to be above the proposed on-site
retainer pool for storm water run-off and where there is more open space. He
feels the area along the water-way is too dense and they should modify the encroach-
ment along the stream.
(2) Top-O-Hollow Neighborhood statement:
Dougal suggests that instead of the high density units above the water-way
that perhaps . narrow ranch style homes would be better. This would not
only cut down the total use of the land area and create less storm water run-off,
but seems necessary because it is so close to the single family dwellings on Top-
0-Hollow. Another suggestion he made, was that all of the units in the sensitive
area be eliminated altogether. He feels the density is far too high for the total
development. These are just a few of his concerns and siiggestions...it is interest-
ing to note that there has been no real contact with Dr. Dougal by the developers
at this point. We feel his suggestions should be sought out and seriously considered
before any development takes place.
We want to contribute the information about possible development all over the City
of Ames for consideration of the Council. We asked for and received from Dean Brennan,
the enclosed listing of all the available land and lots within the City of Ames (and
the Ames School District) . We feel the potential for over 5,400 dwelling units in
Ames is a fact that should be taken into consideration at this time.
Since there seems to be so much land already under development and the "pinch" is
on, not only for money but for people to move into these units already under consid-
eration, it slows the need to rush into the Stonebrooke rezoning and PUD acceptance
until the watershed study is completed. There are costb to the city when areas are
annexed and developed...not to mention maintenance budgets...and we question if Ames
can tolerate any more development at this time.
So I guess we are saying...does this area need to be developed at all, at least
at the present time. When the developers were asked why they needed to take this
sensitive area and build houses on it, why couldn't they build somewhere else, they
said it was because they didn't "own" land elsewhere. Ile submit the idea that it is
way past time when there should be more cooperation between the developers in the
City of Ames. The welfare of the total city should be given more consideration and
not just small, private segments.
Enclosed you will find some facts from "Nations Cities Weekly" - August 27, 1979,
that perhaps we in Ames should consider very seriously. In our recent Bond Election
some of the voters seemed to be saying that Ames needs to cut it's spending and we
dare to suggest that this is one way this might be accomplished...a slowdown of new
areas annexed and/or opened up for development.
We have not touched on the issue of our feeling of the need to just simply pre-
serve the the total area because of the uniqueness it contributes to our neighbor-
hood and the protection it gives to the wildlife - both plant and animal. Besides
the usual small animals, deer have been seen there - Dr. Dougal and those with him
saw large deer tracks while walking there recently. When this protection is gone,
these precious gifts will be gone forever. We enclose "A prairie man makes his
last. Iowa stand" .from the Ames Tribune, June 29, 1979. Also two articles from the
Des Moines Register - for your consideration on this important issue.
Thank ,you for your time and concern for our Top.-O-Hollow Neighborhood.
Pauline Williams
Chairperson
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At home Roger Landers surveys the Ames High prairie he's fought for
and nurtured for the past nine years.
By ROSALIE YACKNIN to stop spraying roadsides so wildlife can the prairie.
Community Life Editor still find some refuge and the prairie Last week he led a tour for one through
plants won't finally disappear. his prairie, greeting individual plants as
Roger Landers is leaving Iowa but he's "Quite a few counties," he contends,
leaving behind him a gift—the rebirth of "spend $20,(M to $30,00 a year spraying As part
f July
Iowa's prairies. roadsides whether they need it or not. tour of the the traditional
dHigha Prairie, oRoger
It's a tenuous rebirth: some unsprayed They wouldn't need to if they planted a Landers will speak on"Understanding the
•oadsides: a farmer's field freed to native prairie mixture but it's hard to buck Prairie" at 4 p.m. in Ames High School,
;rasses; plans for 80 acres of prairieland tradition,even if it costs money. A prairie room 31. Following the talk, he will lead a
n..Apj eny: seven painstakingly nurtured to many people is a weed patch."
acres of native plants growing behind
kmes High School; an apartment complex HE'S COAXED, taught and prodded 1�
.Vith natural prairie landscaping. city, county and state governments to set
He's also leaving behind his ideas, ideas aside prairieland, marshland and
ie has clung to as tenaciously as the roots woodland, protecting them from develop-
A the native plants he's protected cling to ment,at least for the present.
:he Iowa soil. Landers is not anti-progress: he is
cautious. He explains his position by
L4NDERS RELIEVES prairies pro juxtaposing two extreme. viewpoints oil
rid,e continuity with past. When the land use. � e
.ontinuity is broken, the land, and in the "There's the protective side to preserve >
long run those exploiting the land,suffer. natural areas. It's not very productive in
'-We can see how in a century and a half the agricultural sense, but it's a heck of a
we've changed from grassland to bare lot more energy efficient in terms of
:and with a loss of soil, even though its maintaining water sheds and not using g
very productive," he reflected last week, herbicides. The other extreme is the
Then, with the faintest glint of irony, he productive side.
imended, "Productive in the tempora "None of us is smart enough to know
knanders,
se•" what the balance between protective and for 17 years an ISU botanist, productive should be, so I say the option
seems to measure time in decades rather should be on the safer side. We seem to
ban seasons, as though he's adopted the have over-produced in the last few year
AL
)atience of his prairie plants whose seeds o why push that?"
)urrow deep into the earth, waiting, for 44 To demonstrate what prairies are all
;ears if need be, to find their place in the about, Landers leads tours through the
un. Ames High Prairie, his prairie. Eleven
For 17 years, in the heart of farm years ago, when the former cow pasture
ountry, he's preached preservation of was threatened with becoming a parking
irairie plant life in the face of farmers lot, Landers was among those whox'T '
,vho consider prairie plants to be weeds convinced Ames voters a prairie was
uld weeds mortal enemies to crops. worth preserving. In 1970, when the Ames
;peaking slowly with a soft Texas drawl, school board agreed to lease the land to the
he tall, red-headed prairie advocate has Nature Conservancy. Landers became a
•easoned with county supervisors — member of the Conservancy Committee
'fiercely individualistic,"he calls them— charged with restoring and husbanding
h '10s
last Iow stand
familiarly as a gardener identifies each begun by natural causes or from fires he loses patience "with an ISU
flower he has planted by hand. He knew deliberately set by Irdians. These fires administration that gives me no explana-
the newcomers and the survivors hiding invigorate rather than destroy. tion of why it rates preservation low in R!,
among splashes of silver, green and Although Landers terms himself a plant priorities." But, he conceded, attitudes,
wheat-colored grasses. To this man of the person, not an animal person, the even so-called establishment attitudes,
prairie,each species of plant,each section creatures of the prairie did not escape have changed over the years.
of land has a story to tell. notice. InterruRting himself midway "It's not as bad as'69 and'70 when some
Restoring a prairie takes time, he through a story,he exclaimed at the sight of the agronomists were really paranoic
explained. About 90 percent of the growth of an indigo bunting flashing across the and saw my environmental stands as
nearest the high school is still of foreign sky; and then,a jay, "probably chasing threatening, as if we were going back to
origin, but native species increase up the after a butterfly," the stone age overnight. It's, as I've said
rise and down the slope to the wood, until He spied the small creatures, too, often,as an ecologist once said. `We should
the land looks again very much as it did a holding out a stalk of goldenrod with a fly be training ourselves to a life of joyous
thousand years ago. gall bulging from its side and kneeling austerity."'
• close to another plant, he described how it
HE POINTED to a clump of porcupine houses a beetle. "One is hard put to see Landers is leaving Iowa to return home
grass. When this grass alternately wets where they do good," he reflected, but to Texas. Ile will be working to improve
and dries, it twists into a corkscrew shape they don"t do any harm." Texas grazing land as part of a research
and burrows into the soil. "It's not a Leaving the prairie, he gestured to a• team connected with Texas A and M
species for raising sheep,"Landers noted, lone tree intruding on the open land. "I'm ' University.
Ile showed off a bit of whorled milkweed not in a hurry to remove it,"he said. "You "My leaving," he said slowly,"will only
whose milk can act as an instant tatoo. At learn to be patient in an area like this.', be felt temporarily. There has been a kind
times it has been used to burn initials into of coalescing of people that maybe I've
skin. LANDERS ADMITTED his patience had something to do with, but the interest
Wild verbena lined both sides of a with nature's vagaries does not always has always been there. There's no
narrow trail. "It has a nice color blue and extend to people. Chewing the sweetness A shortage of people to carry on conserva-
should be in flower by the fourth of July," from a blade of fresh prairie grass,he said 2, tion—only a shortage of time."
low
Landers predicted. There was false ftp
boneset, once thought capable of curing
broken bones when brewed into tea; and
wild bergamot wearing bright yellow
flowers — a weed by Landers' definition "
because it is not native to the prairie —
and Iowa's state flower,the prairie rose. '
Lander's trained eyes spotted silver
sage, once used to destroy worms in
children and the false indigo whose ^
underground root system pushed up shoots t
00
after the last prairie burning.
The prairie's custodians periodically
burn away plant growth, Landers said,
because they've discovered burning en-
courages the growth of new species. t�!;
Before the white man came, prairies
frequently underwent burning, either
tour through the prairie.
The Ames Audubon Club, the Nature
Conservancy and the Sierra Club are ► . ,( 3'ag 3 , .
sponsoring this activity,open to the public. I
1 a .i-=.
z
u
' aee
r 3
110
MOMONWAk-
w c
a
3
A I I things small In photo above, Landers gently grasps a goldenrod stalk as
he admires the symbiosis it shares with a fly gall,On the left,
and wonderful the botanist demonstrates an oddity of the prairie — the
birdsfoot plant which forms a claw as it matures.(Tribune
photos by Rosalie Yacknin)
DES MOINES SUNDAY
REGISTEk 8 JULY 8, 1979/SA
Ue S. bishops United Statement
• Dingman said Kayser's concern
see orft4j M 1 about what was happening to the AW family farm led hill, to sell the
bishops in the 12 states on the idea of
our land use developing a united statement on the
Christian perspective of land use. "Family farm operations have
Dr. John Bart, a religion faculty been forced to expand In size and ca- I
Larut nnust not be sold in per- member at Howard University in pitalization in order to survive in an
petuity,for ute land belongs to rite, Washington, D.C., was hired for a Agricultural economy built on a
and to me you are only strangers year to head the"Heartland Project"
arui guests. with offices in Sioux Falls. A w Itin .'bigger is better' mentality. ...Under
— LoOkoes:s:n•x team recently produced the prelims-- alizatfibe on we threaten the continuance ss of technology and
By WILLIAM SIMBRU nary draft of "Strangers and Guests: of our heritage. It is forgotten and
M.w•1or ibukAw wr,M Toward Community In the desecrated."
Inspired by Leviticus, technology, Heartland." The statement advocates the rights
phernicals and corporations, Catholic I The bishops have approved it as of all who work the land — farmers
hi-hops from 12 Midwestern states their preliminary statement and it is and farm workers alike — to a just
have begun drafting a statement on being circulated in the 44 dioceses for compensation for their labors.
God's ownership and man's use of the comment before a final version is Draft Perspectives
land. drafted, beginning in November. The The preliminary draft assesses the
The foundation of the statement, goat is to present the finished spring
The
from a historical and so-
being prepared by a group including m all the U.S. bishops at their spring ciolo real rs
rpeeting in May. B Pe .pective then attempts
IiLshop Maurice J. Dingman of the to put land use in a Christian perspec-
CathoGc Diocese of Des Moines, is The process will involve hundreds tive through a study of biblical texts
that we all are"strangers and guests" of hearings,making it one of the most and an analysis of
extensive consultations with the laic y Past Papal enssed
ou Gud's land. Y cats. Many readers have expressed
But the statement doesn't settle for that the Romarl Catholic Church has surprise that such "conservative"
plows plautudes, ever attempted in this country. popes as Paul VI have taken strong
It tackles such controversial issues The statement, being viewed by stands favoring reform in land dis-
cs the lots of family farms, growing many within the church as hard-hit- tribution.
land alossownershipb ly farms ands Ung, even radical, laments that
y Pe "Christian values of wise stewardship Another section charts t course for
culators, the inability of aspiring ; P � abetter and more Christian future.
farrr,trs to a inability
land and capital, of resources,respect for life,commit- Dingman said the statement deliber-
pollution of land by chemicals and ment to justice, self-sacrifice, eom- atel was kept unspecific
passion and humility are being y P pectfd of hear the
abuses of technology. i bishops hope the hundreds of hearings
The project was born 18 months replaced by the pursuit of goods and
rgoney.As a Christian will.produce the specifics.
ago during a conversation between het statement contains
�oPI'�we have But the draft
Dingman, who is serving a three-year helped ravish the land and stood by some "social principles"
term as president of the National silently while others plundered and
that have
Catholic Rural Life Conference, and
exhausted its resources." evoked some controversy.
the Rev. Leonard Kayser, rural life It affirms that"as a food producing "The first priority for the church is
director for the Sioux Falls, S.D., region, we, in the heartland, have to promote a broad Ix,licy of land
diocese. grave responsibilities to mankind." reform which affirms the right of op-
Gloomy]Future portunity for common people to own
But the future of the"heartland"is or control the land on which they live
seen in gloomy terms. and labor," says the social principles
"It is not surprising that we. . . are section.
faced with prospects for a dill, To promote such a land reform
economic and social future. The ' Policy,the statement calls for laws:
legacy of land abuse has not been con- I Y Limiting large land holdings by
fronted but has grown to crisis pro
portions... . absentee owners.
•'faxing land progressively at a
higher rate as hoidhig.s grow.
• Setting up e.-state taxes in such a
way as to prevent a tew from Satnirng 11
large holdings.
• Changing tax laws to eliminate
capital gains tax breaks that help
wealthy investors and hurt small
farm farmilies and the agricultural
poor.
Tues., July 3, 1979 ■ DES MOINES REGISTER
SHWation, may
foul new lake,
g - n
��e��.y learns
By LARRY STONE z
It"OW Stall WOW
A $2 million state lake under con-
8 d or+� n.^a c n z �r t "-
a z nacoo rin w'o Ta corns
YtfUCtlUn near Payette may be in moo;=o' x.^�sn r' o ] n��.�n p ro nti nin
Spa ` wac o pN a o v ro n ino oo. o .'o
grave clanger from siltation, the]'.Owe
�ni,v� �N i a ro-•n,a.o � b'.r of nn...^m n i�iNn K ca
Conservation Commission learned `o o'�i� ��}v� o��ro�s• c� n< 3 i a 3 N �r
NfUlyday ti'o<"^ �xNvnx °�' �« y ^Noi'9 _ <
=3 wn,yr o.mroa•_r-, v < n
a- a Commission planner Ken Smith " 'r ' °•""o i0 i V"; !Z
"
N
said that most of the lake's 5,000-acre
watershed is privately owned and
subject to erosion. Some fields,Smith u v a"-:7 v i'v o c
.•.v.N ac � no'
said, lone as much as 40 tons of soil per acre each year. S,p�,r
Thr. 135-acre lake is in the Volga I
River ltecreatiun Area.
Smith said he hopes that the
problem will be alleviated after the 8f'38 V
area receives "state lake watershed"
designation, entitling landowners to n'o m o ^ "c v n '�R
1-4
r•ecy.ive 75 percent state matching "•JR o ;z= R ,% _77- A
gfanty for erosion COOtr01 work.CUI11- O't
iniysioners also may elect to seek
easements on some property to
prevent lend use problems,he said.
The commission has a policy of not
building artificial lakes unless the
watershed can be protected. But the "
Volga Lake project was a mandate of r _
theluwaL.egislature. n e� 3 �,`pWcn�m 6 � zoc>r��'
The soil erosion concerns were d ^^ o o » " n n n?>� a
A�• N" V A N N 9 y �of - �1 J..ii.w .•C 1t.'O
raised during a presentation of ' <�`0 :<� o '^� W c y o a
_ zzznma w �.
proposed µcans for the Volga arrea. ro o�i'; _ so r A W
Consultant Bill Ray of Louisville Ky., g�--N�, r-
,� ' Nm nb Fo% n'm
outlined three schemes, ranging from
intensive to moderate park devel-
opment.All three would include.some d^
b �j<My<a n;omr�.�v —v ".c. s�"v a aN.onN-
ramping and rental cabins, trails,
�
waw�awk �`...nis-'oapn•t. a n Boa nn" pp�nN�r�n
' wv "•`c Y air�i NN C ..w MY ^Aa�d aC
I wildlife areas,and interpretive sites.
The cuss of developing the
5,500-acre recreation area could
range train $7 mullion to ill million,
NB�n�o A,ga'. n iO'<6� fy " U nil••.� A
It sly said. o'r�n
A tinal master plan is expected to N ^ m ti a3 w w e 8 M o i d n n ado
tw approved litter this summer.
In other action(in Monday the coin
in►ssion approved a policy which o =
membe..rs hope will reduce the .,'o. a.N N 1 m o
agency's fuel consumption by 21?
percent. The plan calls for less; iw N W
snowing in parks and other state _
areas, nwre walking and less driving
I by enforeetneul officers,and lowered
i tilerinostats iii buildings during the
winter.