NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Reno County Planning Commission is going to continue to wait on direction from the Board of County Commissioners before tackling any fire-related planning and zoning regulations. The topic was one of a series of potential areas brought up at Thursday's meeting, but County Planner Mark Vonachen advised the board that it's not time to talk about that yet.
"We're still waiting on direction from the county commission," Vonachen said. "I don't see that topic right now as being a need, to really have a formal, in-depth discussion, because we don't know what we're going to be asked to do, if anything. There's still a lot of discussion going on right now. I think I would, as a board, hold off on that."
One thing it does appear commissioners want some guidance on is lot size and whether three acres is enough to build on or not, but the very preliminary and brief comments seemed to focus on, if anything, assuring through regulation that proper ingress and egress for fire equipment is maintained, rather than specific restrictions on lot size.
"Now, it may become a topic in the future that we have to address," Vonachen said. "Right now, I would just not even consider that."
Also, since the primary problem with rapid wildfire spread in the area appears to be invasive cedars, unless a regulation were put into place outright banning the plant and funding were put in place to pay for mitigation and continued eradication, there isn't much a regulation can do to stop that.
Vonachen told the planning board he doesn't know how fast the commission will have questions they might want the planning board to answer.