Meeting with Expert: Bruce Fountain

Madi and I had a conference call with Bruce Fountain, the Sarpy County Planning and Building Director to discuss land use in Sarpy County. Our focus is on the change in land use typology as agriculture land is rezoned into residential and commercial land. Bruce Fountain informed us that there are a few driving factors changing the land use in Sarpy County.

It is currently the fastest growing County in Nebraska with extremely good school districts. There is a population increase in the area as many families are moving to take advantage of the school districts. Secondly, in areas where utilities have already been laid out for farmers it makes it easy to rezone the land to residential districts. The areas of rezoning and development have been largely driven by where utilities already exist. Bruce Fountain also informed us about the conservation requirements for the County. All of developed land has 40% of the property in a conservation overlay. Our conference call with Bruce Fountain was very beneficial. As we continue our research we will be looking into the agriculture land that still exists and answer the questions of will it be protected as agricultural land or will it be developed into residential land? We will also be taking a look into the growth rate of Sarpy County to see how it is affecting the change in land use.