CC Planning and Zoning Board discuss survey results

By Alan Carman
The Imperial Republican
    On Tuesday, April 14, 2025, the Chase County Planning and Zoning Board met in the courtroom at the Chase County Courthouse in Imperial.
    The meeting was called to order by John Arterburn at 1:00 p.m. Members present were John, Shona, Marcy, and Tim. Motion by Marcy, seconded by Shona to accept the minutes of the previous meeting. Motion accepted 4-0. Ryan and Grant joined the meeting at 1:03.
    There was no open forum at this time so the board took a zoom call with Keith Carl to discuss the constant contact survey results. This was the second meeting discussing the results of the survey.
    A total of 529 people started the survey, but only 246 completed it, with most of the completed surveys coming from rural Chase County and Imperial.
    Rural Chase County returned 101, Imperial 102, Wauneta 25, Champion 6, Enders 5, Outside Chase County 5 and Lamar 2. 77% of the rural entries did not live within a mile of a city or village.
    Of the 243 surveys, 153 owned property in rural Chase County. When asked if they felt the Chase County Zoning and Subdivision Regulations were effective in managing growth and land development, 41 responded yes, 74 no and 119 had no opinion.
    When asked if they were in favor of the County entertaining Commercial Wind Farms/Energy Systems, 78% were not in favor of development.
    When asked about Commercial Solar Farms/Energy Systems, 75% were against them. Even when it came to personal alternative energy systems (Solar, Wind, etc.), 121 people were against the development, with only 40 beinf in favor of the systems.
    There were 118 replies against nuclear power and 54 that supported it.
    The survey showed small losses in population over the last 25 years, but nothing drastic.
    When asked if renewable energy farms would be zoned business, everyone was a little surprised that they are actually listed under agriculture zoning. Also public use energy is allowed to set up in any zone.
    There was some discussion about how to provide more affordable housing in the county, but no real solutions were found.
    The meeting returned to open forum and Dennis Harmon with Highline Electric expressed that they were considering installing some small solar farms of about 20 acres, to help with local power supplies and hoped that the committee would not completely keep solar energy out of the county..
    The committee approved the costruction of a Pole Barn on property owned by Krissy Krausnick.
    The meeting adjourned at 2:35 pm.