Jodi’s Journal: The bumpy road to regionalization

I wrote a column ahead of the mayoral election eight years ago with the headline: “The next big issue no one is talking about.”

For a brief trip back in time, you can find it here. 

As it turned out, I was maybe ahead of my time in writing about the emergence of regionalization. But not anymore.

This year has given us multiple powerful demonstrations of how Sioux Falls and its surrounding communities no longer expand in isolation.

A data center was proposed in northeast Sioux Falls, and residents of bordering Brandon rose up in opposition. In recent weeks, the conversation shifted to Crooks, which sits north of County Road 130 from the proposed Smithfield Foods processing plant.

But while these are the moves that generate public interest and sometimes outcry, the building blocks of regionalization are bigger picture and generally not as attention-generating.

Last year, two longtime city of Sioux Falls leaders who are now retired ended their careers with some legacy work. Shannon Ausen, representing the Public Works Department, and Kevin Smith, representing the Planning and Development Services Department, met multiple times with communities adjacent to Sioux Falls to help establish shared growth boundaries among Sioux Falls, Tea and Harrisburg.

An agreement like this guides planning for all three communities, eliminating everything from potential issues for area landowners to misaligned driveways and intersections.

“We’re all going to succeed, but only to the extent that we’re intentional about all of us succeeding,” said Smith, when I asked him recently for his thoughts about how regionalization needs to play out here.

“It isn’t my community or your community. It’s our region.”

That’s the right mentality. But with it also comes regional responsibility. I didn’t ask Ausen or Smith how many people showed up at the public meetings to establish the growth boundaries, but I know how few showed up to provide input when Sioux Falls last year approved the update to its comprehensive plan establishing future land uses looking out to 2050. Not many.

“Those aren’t just colors on a map,” Smith agreed. “They exist for a reason — to provide a level of predictability for developers but also a level of foresight or information that you as a property owner, whether you’re a commercial property owner or residential homebuilder or person looking to buy a home, to see what’s being planned there the next 25 years.”

It’s hard to think 25 years into the future when you’re looking to buy or renovate a home today. I suspect it’s even harder when your family has owned property for generations and development keeps creeping closer.

But none of this happens overnight. Foundation Park in northwest Sioux Falls has been planned and then zoned for heavy industrial use for a decade. Heavy industrial use covers everything from a meat processing plant to a major manufacturer to metal fabrication facilities. They can bring uses that generate noise, odor or traffic.

It’s hard to envision when you’ve seen cornfields for years, but the growth road map rarely ends up being wrong. The only question is at what pace it will take shape.

Just as anyone making a major investment in Sioux Falls — a home, commercial property, etc. — should be thoroughly knowledgeable of the current and proposed future land uses around that property — our regional neighbors would benefit from becoming equally aware, and vice versa.

There are benefits as much as there are potential conflicts. The success of Sioux Falls has led to opportunities for residential and commercial growth in many neighboring communities that now enjoy greater diversity of housing, neighborhood retail and service options and additional quality-of-life amenities funded by their resulting population growth. Just this week, I read a report about multiple communities benefitting from a shared road construction bid.

Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken has paved a path toward regional leadership with ongoing meetings bringing area mayors together and regular one-on-one outreach. Our next mayor will need to build on that, recognizing that the job increasingly requires showing leadership at a regional level. While a community ultimately has jurisdiction over what happens within its own city limits, a spirit of collaboration, cooperation and communication is key. Think of it like building allies: the greater that bond, the stronger the influence and ultimately success of the region.

The road to regionalization is going to be bumpy. But it’s navigable already and can be a smoother ride with the right strategy.

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