By Jason Hancock

When Steve Klein started buying property in the Saylor Township of rural Polk County more than a decade ago, he did not fancy himself an environmentalist. In fact, his immediate plans were to try to re-zone pieces of his property to recoup some of his initial investment.

“I told a friend of mine in Florida that I had purchased a wetland area,” he said. “He laughed at me and said ‘We have got plenty of swamps down here I’d be happy to sell you.’”

He approached the county about his plans, and he was denied.

“They said this area was supposed to be the ‘gateway to Saylorville Dam,’ and that it would be more suited to recreational areas.”

So in 1997, Klein sold a portion of the 20 acres he tried to re-zone to the Johnston Soccer Club. He donated the rest of it, sitting at the intersection of Northwest 66th Street and Toni Drive, and it was decided that the club would build soccer fields on the land. With the future of the area supposedly set, Klein said he decided in 2000 to build his home on his 80 acres of property, and eventually, a miniature golf course next to what would one day be youth soccer fields. It was at that point that a strange thing started happening to Klein.

“Taking over the responsibility of the wetlands, I sort of felt like I had become a steward of the land and the animals in the area,” he said. “That really wasn’t my goal. But my heart has gotten into it, and it’s become a part of me.”

Three years ago, the soccer club decided it wouldn’t need the land Klein donated. It was going to sell it, and help the developer re-zone the property to light business, which would allow warehouses or other shipping/receiving type businesses.

“I was horrified,” Klein said. “But I figured the [Polk County] Board of Supervisors would never re-zone the property. They had already considered it and told me no.”

But, the re-zoning was approved, and construction began two weeks ago.

So what changed? That’s the question Klein said he has been asking for years, but with no acceptable answer. If pressed, however, he’ll offer one of his own.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “I couldn’t get this land re-zoned, but people with connections and friendships with local leaders don’t have the same problem. They aren’t going to tell their friends ‘no’ on too many instances.”

Sour grapes?
Tom Hockensmith began serving his first term as a Polk County supervisor in January 2003, eight years after Klein attempted to re-zone the 20 acres now under development. He said any accusation of favorable treatment is completely ridiculous.

“I looked at the area and saw that there were other properties that had been re-zoned,” he said. “We can’t allow one person to re-zone their property and then tell the person next door they can’t.”

So Hockensmith, along with the rest of the five-member board, voted for the project, despite a negative recommendation from the county planning and zoning commission.

“The project was in line with the county’s comprehensive plan,” he said.

In fact, Klein has had several pieces of land re-zoned over the years in the area for similar uses, Hockensmith said.

“He basically is saying he gets what he wants but someone else doesn’t,” Hockensmith said. “That just isn’t fair.”

He has had land re-zoned, Klein said, but it is “half a mile to the east and sits on 26th Street. That’s where I was told this type of development should go, since one day that will be [Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway]. So that just isn’t an acceptable answer. This isn’t just sour grapes. It’s what was portrayed to me as what the future of the area would be.”

Klein said when he went to meetings to protest the development, he got the feeling that the decision had already been made.

“The Board of Supervisors knew the developer, they knew the representative of the soccer league, it was all very ‘good old boy’ politics,” he said. “That’s just how things seem to go in Polk County.”

That couldn’t be further from the truth, Hockensmith said. The board always looks at zoning changes with an open mind, and for the supervisors to go against the recommendation of the planning and zoning commission, the developer had to make adjustments to improve the project.

The president of the soccer league at the time of the re-zoning, Douglas Romig, could not be reached for comment.

Environmental concerns

The property in question contains a “farmed wetland,” which means a wetland that was converted into farmland before those types of areas were protected by law.

“The land was farmed for so long, the wetland characteristics have been diminished,” Klein said. “The last four years, though, it hasn’t been farmed. It has been allowed to become overgrown, and slowly, nature moved back in. All these animals from my wetlands — salamanders, bull snakes, central newts, turtles, all types of birds — they all started to move back to the area. Everyone assumed there were no animals in there, but I’ve seen them.”

That all changed when construction started.

“The animals that could get away from construction equipment ended up back on my property,” Klein said. “It really broke my heart.”

Danielle Wirth, professor of environmental science at Des Moines Area Community College, said it usually only takes about 18 months for life to begin to re-emerge in areas like this, according to data she has collected over her years studying the wetlands around Saylorville Dam.

“With low levels of pollution, life will return,” she said.

The animals Klein describes are precisely the types that populate these areas, Wirth said, but they are just the tip of the ecological iceberg.

“There are plants and animals, but also bacteria and macro invertebrates,” she said.

The concern is that every bit of biological diversity matters, Wirth said, and the destruction of that diversity affects the human population whether we know it or not.

“The reason this happens is because the people drawing the lines on maps are engineers and politicians who don’t have the knowledge to be making these decisions,” she said. “They don’t have the moral authority to be making decisions about these areas.”

In addition to the damage Klein said has been done to the environment, he said the development will also have a negative impact on the value of his land.

“I now have a mini-golf course next to an industrial development,” he said. “I live next to an industrial development. This was supposed to be soccer fields. What do you think that does to my land value?”

These types of complaints are not unusual, said Bret VandeLune, Polk County’s land use planning manager. Every new development is met with some resistance from the general public.

“But this was a development in line with what we want for the area,” he said.

That area of the county has changed so much in the last 10 years, VandeLune said, that what one board believed a decade ago might not necessarily work when reconsidered today.

“That area has been in transition,” VandeLune said. “Ten years ago, the requirements of re-zoning might not have been met. Today is much different.”

In regards to the planning and zoning commission’s negative recommendation to the board of supervisors for the project, he said that could stem from many people who still want that area to be soccer fields as opposed to warehouses. But that doesn’t make it a bad development.

“This is consistent with the county’s 2030 plan,” VandeLune said.

As for his environmental concerns, a letter written to Klein by Larry Land of the Polk County public works department said the erosion control measures have been observed and comply with Iowa Department of Natural Resources regulations.

Those assurances do little to appease Klein.

“I feel like in Polk County, it’s not what you know, but who you know,” he said. “I’ve brought legitimate concerns to the board, and they just didn’t care. These good old boys get together behind closed doors and resolve things without any input from the public.”

“That’s just Steve Klein,” Hockensmith said. “There wasn’t a huge groundswell of opposition to this project. It was basically just him.”

A lot of people don’t step forward, Klein said, because they don’t think it affects them directly.

“Hopefully, one day that will change and people will pay attention to this type of thing before it’s in their backyard,” he said. CV

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