All Karen Sapp wanted was to carve out a few 5-acre tracts so her three sons could build houses on her 108 acres southeast of Columbia. Now her quest to rezone the land for that purpose is caught up in a land-use clash becoming more common as urbanization continues creeping onto agricultural land.

Lora Wegman graphic

The Boone County Commission yesterday denied Sapp’s rezoning request, siding with neighbors whose protests highlighted the tension rural landowners feel as development spreads nearer.

"My main concern is that that is agricultural land out there," Boone County Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller said today. "There is not a sewer collection system, and it just makes sense to leave it" zoned "at A-1 at this time. I don’t oppose at all her giving her children land, but" rezoning "is not in the best interest of the county or the neighbors. It’s premature to make it a higher density. It will be that way someday, but for now, it’s premature."

Sapp’s land, which is a figure-eight shape with frontages on Rangeline Road and Route AB, is zoned A-1, an agricultural designation that allows for tracts no smaller than 10 acres. She hoped to rezone the entire acreage to A-2, a zoning designation allowing tracts as small as 2.5 acres.

"Five-acre lots seem like a feasible thing," Sapp said at a June 19 meeting of the Boone County Planning and Zoning Commission. "You can drive around and see that some of the 10-acre tracts aren’t really kept up because they have too much acreage to maintain. At this point in time, I want to give three tracts of land to my three kids."

Almost 30 neighbors attended that meeting to protest the rezoning, which they felt would open the door to subdivisions and development ruining the rural character and agricultural viability of the area.

"I’m not objecting to" Sapp "giving the children 5 acres, or even less, for her kids to live on," said neighbor Jerry Barnes, who with his brother and father run Triple B Farms Inc. "But the neighbors are concerned with the 108 acres being zoned to A-2 open zoning."

When the planning and zoning board recommended denial of Sapp’s request, she appealed to the Boone County Commission.

One neighbor, Charline Brittain, 73, stood up in support of the rezoning last night. Brittain said she and her husband have 240 acres on Route AB and until two years ago they had farmed row crops there. With Ashland creeping north and Columbia expanding, Brittain said it is likely the area will be developed.

"I’ve lived there since 1957, and I’m very pleased that our neighborhood has grown the way it has," Brittain told the county commissioners. "It’s a great community. We are not being realistic if we can’t visualize and see down the road five, 10, 15 years. Everything will develop and will develop properly because of the commission. … You can understand there’s going to be a development boom in the south and southeast."

More than 20 neighbors disagreed with Brittain. They presented a signed petition asking the commission to deny Sapp’s request. The petition asserted that the best use of the land was farming. The letter included several points of opposition, including concern about the high-density development that A-2 zoning allows and the lack of infrastructure to accommodate it.

Neighbor Vicki Pauley said rezoning would irrevocably change the area.

"It’s a wonderful community. … I enjoy the lake and skiing. We have wonderful neighbors that are good to us," she said. "There are so many subdivisions. That’s the future, once you’ve zoned A-2. Then it’s done."

The three county commissioners voted unanimously to deny Sapp’s request but said they would work with her to rezone smaller sections of her land as A-2P, or Planned Agriculture 2, which requires a specific site plan for any development and a minimum lot size of 2.5 acres.

"I think the opposition has a fear of the unknowns, and an A-2P could address a lot of those unknowns," Northern District Commissioner Skip Elkin said in the public meeting.

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