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Hearing set for right- of-way dedication

Fjeldahl

A public hearing will be held next month on a Ward County policy requiring the dedication of road right of way in the platting of new lots.

The Ward County Planning Commission on Thursday set a hearing to take place during its next meeting on March 16 at 7 p.m. in the Ward County Office Building.

The Ward County Farm Bureau has been investigating the policy allowing the county to take property for rights of way, holding a public hearing Wednesday to allow landowners to air objections. The controversy over the policy isn’t new, though. Zoning administrator Amber Turnquest said the county examined the policy in 2015 and again in 2016 with no changes made. A public hearing had been held last year.

The policy requires landowners who plat 40 acres or fewer to give land to the county for a 75-foot right of way from the center of the road on county roads and a 40-foot right of way on township roads. In other situations, by state statute, the county and townships hold 33-foot easements from the center of their roads, and landowners continue to own that property. The county then purchases the amount of right of way necessary when a road project is built.

The Farm Bureau has objected to the taking of the land from platted properties without compensation. The Farm Bureau is calling for the county to provide compensation going forward and pay landowners who have been previously affected.

Turnquest noted 10 of the 11 largest counties have policies that require dedication of rights of way for roads when land is developed. She explained the policy was created to ensure developers and not county taxpayers paid for the cost of road right of way made necessary by the development. Even if only one residence is built, the likelihood of additional residences being built in the area then increases, she said.

Ward County Commissioner Shelly Weppler, a planning commissioner, said the “developer is coming in the back door” when the county allows individual developments to occur in an area, one at a time, without any rights of way dedication.

“In the end, it’s development,” she said. “If you do not have that right of way, you have done away with what we are requiring of people who develop the land. It’s planning for the future.”

Ward County Commissioner and Planning Commissioner John Fjeldahl, who moved for the public hearing, said certain landowners should not have to dedicate land for roads that everyone uses.

“That, I think, is flat wrong,” he said.

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