Rural development curbs are not all bad

In response to a recent article about “real estate experts raising regulation concerns,” I am both amused and not shocked. What, you mean the developers can’t scarf up cheap land, build huge housing tracts, take their money and leave?

How awful! In reality, what’s happening is exactly what is needed to ensure our livable future. We need to maintain our rural areas so we can, for example, have farms close to our urban areas to shorten the travel route for fresh products and for the economic viability of the rural area.

We have a vibrant and productive agricultural community in the county and we need to encourage it. This community is also attracting tourism with wineries, farm stands and small shops in our rural towns, especially with the encouragement of the "Bountiful Byway."

We need to encourage further economic development in our rural areas, including ways for people who purchased land with the hopes of selling for development to find alternatives uses for their land.

Additional suburban sprawl only results in higher costs for us all to maintain an ever expanding infrastructure of roads, utilities, and eventually water and sewer lines; and increasing traffic congestion and air pollution by lengthening commuter travel.

And, yes, we do need to look at denser development in the urban areas. Developers should be looking at this opportunity. There are older areas in our cities that may need to be looked at over time for ways to increase density while maintaining a people friendly environment.

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Rural development curbs are not all bad."