NEBRASKA CITY – Dave Schmitz plans to retire this spring after collaborating with the rebirth of Otoe County’s comprehensive development plan and new zoning map to guide progress in areas from chicken coops to shopping malls. He will finish his 53-year career with the land records he promised to safeguard in good shape, but his first campaign for county assessor three decades ago was embellished with his belief that the area was ready to bloom and was primed to grow.

Schmitz: Has that happened? "No, not really. It really hasn’t happened. I mean they are trying to get it going out north of the hospital with that project now. I think the population, if you look back in the records from … I graduate from Nebraska City Lourdes in 1971 and you look at the population of Nebraska City then and the population now and you’re not going to notice a lot of difference.”

 

 Schmitz says water is precious in county's designed zone for rural housing

The idea that private developers, rather than taxpayers, should pay for new infrastructure like water lines and storm sewers thrived in Nebraska City politics. The city’s zoning appeared open to housing development, but Mayor Bryan Bequette noted  prior to his second term that the developers are not coming. Nebraska City’s population numbers had not substantially changed in over 100 years.

Schmitz: “Why didn’t Nebraska City .... why isn’t Nebraska City 35,000 people, 40,000 people like Kearney? Why didn’t’ it grow? I don’t have the answer. I don’t think the city fathers and the commissioners stifled growth here. I just don’t think they had enough interest from developers to lay out the kind of money you’ve got to do, to do a big subdivision.”

 

The county’s zoning map encourages housing in established communities, as well as transitional agriculture zones, but the primary area drawn on the map is 36 square miles near the Woodland Hills Golf Course and is neighbored by Lancaster and Cass counties.

 The Woodland Hills housing development was built with an agreement for water from Lancaster County 30 years ago, but Schmitz said the cross-border spigot has since run dry.

Schmitz: “Water is the problem. Water is the problem. A lot of it is not available and I don’t know that Lancaster County is ever going to release water services to Otoe County residents.”

Lancaster County is currently in the planning phase that includes a water pipeline across Cass County to the Missouri River.