Neighboring landowners battle over proposed rural housing development

For as long as government has existed in the United States, one of its primary functions has been to balance the rights of private property owners against those of the people surrounding them and the public interest. What, then, happens when the parties involved reach a zero sum difference of opinions?

Darrell Sloth, Nick Heine, John Oltman and Russ Roberts, all of whom live along V Avenue between Dike and New Hartford in rural Grundy County, are adamant that the fourlot housing development their neighbor Jami Fettkether wants to build by clearing eight acres of wooded area and converting it from A-1 agricultural to R-2 “suburban” residential land would have negative repercussions both for them and for the future of the county itself.

“If you let in a little conclave of houses here in the middle of an R-1 section, what’s to stop this from happening in Shiloh Township, or down in Black Hawk Township, or Colfax Township or some other place where it’s the same kind of situation?”

Sloth asked. “How do you tell them they can’t do it when you told this person they could do it?”

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Parkersburg Eclipse News-Review

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