On our Breaking News page, we highlighted the decision made by the Council earlier this month to establish an urban holding zone (UHZ) for Shady Cove.  This zone will allow annexation and rezoning of County land into the City without the normal assurances that city services, such as streets, sewers, storm drains and water will be available to serve the level of population densities envisioned by the property owners.
  There are very few municipalities, especially the size of Shady Cove, who have UHZ's.  The challenges of placing the kinds of conditions on the zone that will protect those already living here are daunting, and the zone also places the power of who gets in and who doesn't directly in the hands of the Council, rather than having it reside in the City codes.  Our city officials can pick and choose based on favored friends, rather than the clear and specific criteria that is set out in the city's annexation and zoning ordinances. 
  If this holding zone had been in place last year, 68 acres west of town would have easily slid inside the city limits, even though the ability to provide the service enumerated above had not been demonstrated by the owner.  We look for that application to quickly come before the Council again this year and be quickly approved via this UHZ.
  On our Flywater Prequel page, you can read a status report on ground water in our town.  Without river water available for domestic use here, the 368 units proposed in last year's 68-acre annexation project has the potential of bringing many news wells here to serve all those dwellings, further impacting those of us currently depending on that ground water ourselves.  That property cannot possibly be developed to the densities proposed unless it is annexed in and obtains access to our city's sewer connections.  So leaving it out in the County until we have domestic river water available here only makes sense if we care at all about protecting our ground water.
  In previous land use hearings, it has been stated that annexation itself presumes subdivision, and opens a door to development that can never really be closed.  At  some point, the threats to our water, streets, sewer connections, and property values will become real, not just theoretical.