There’s a reason the roughly 98 acres near 14th Street and Saltillo Road, not far from a South Beltway exit, have never been annexed or developed.
In short, it’s complicated.
The city has no plans to extend sewer and water to the area for at least a decade, but it requires land zoned as commercial and industrial to be inside city limits. One swath of land abuts Wilderness Park, creating environmental issues, and much of it is in the floodplain.
“It’s been a sleepy area for a long, long, long time,” said Kent Seacrest, the attorney representing C.J. Guenzel, one of the property owners.
Guenzel, one of the lead partners in a limited partnership called FOG, and R.C. Krueger Development Co., hope to change that.
FOG wants to annex and rezone as industrial nearly 74 acres just east of South 14th Street, land that abuts Wilderness Park, as part of Jamaica North Business Park. Krueger wants to annex and rezone as commercial about 24 acres west of South 14th Street and just east of U.S. 77 for Saltillo Express Business Park.
“We’ve been working on this for two and a half years to get it right,” Seacrest told the City Council on Monday. “It might be the longest process I've been engaged in. I gotta give C.J. great credit for his patience, perseverance, and his ability to compromise, making it a win-win for the community and Wilderness Park.”
The process began more than two years ago with the creation of a master plan for the area.
As a result of that, Guenzel — whose land abuts Wilderness Park — agreed to put 20 acres in a conservation easement that will be designated wetlands, near state-owned wetlands to the north created to replace wetlands lost during South Beltway construction.
Guenzel also agreed to transfer another 5 acres that abuts Wilderness Park to the city. That land, said City Planner Steve Henrichsen, will remain undeveloped and could either be incorporated into the park or remain as a buffer to the park.
As part of the agreement, Guenzel will adhere to the city’s new flood-prevention requirements and maintain a larger open space along a flood corridor than required by those rules to help control drainage into the park.
Adam Hinz, president of Friends of Wilderness Park, commended the work done to protect the park. Early on, Hinz said he was involved in meetings with city watershed and parks personnel as well as developers that resulted in a plan — and process — he hopes can be a model going forward.
“The real difference is C.J. (Guenzel) was willing to educate himself and make decisions beneficial to everyone. He’s a person who cares about his legacy and how that affects community life and nature,” Hinz said. “That’s why I’m hoping in the future this can be seen as an example of what’s possible along Wilderness Park and other sensitive areas. If it can be done here it can be done in other areas of Lancaster County.”
The process is in stark contrast to the controversy that erupted over the Wilderness Crossing housing development near First Street and Pioneers Boulevard, adjacent to Wilderness Park and across the street from a Native sweat lodge.
Hinz said his organization is stronger now, and he wonders whether, if conversations about environmental protections had started earlier, the outcome might have been better for everyone in that case.
The City Council will vote Monday on annexation of the land, as well as zoning changes and changes to the city-county Comprehensive Plan needed for the projects at 14th and Saltillo to move forward.
Since the South Beltway opened, the nearby interchange is the only one with a commercial area around it, Seacrest said, and once annexed it will generate more sales tax revenue for the city. It's needed in that part of town.
“South Lincoln has been growing and we just haven’t been keeping up,” he said.
Another complicating factor for the area is that the city isn’t planning to extend water and sewer there for at least a decade — and it’s unusual for the city to annex land in such cases.
Much of the surrounding area — none of which is within city limits — has had commercial and industrial development dating back to the 1970s, before the land was in the 3-mile jurisdiction of Lincoln, Henrichsen said. Outdoor Solutions, Shoemakers’ South Truck Stop, Magellan Pipeline Co. and a Sesotris Shrine social hall are among businesses in the area.
Now that the land is within that 3-mile city jurisdiction, Lincoln’s longstanding policy that commercial, industrial or urban residential land needs to be inside city limits comes into play. So to be rezoned, it must be annexed.
The idea behind the policy, Henrichsen said, is that those types of high-end uses should add to the tax base of cities, either Lincoln or other Lancaster County cities or towns.
The agreement is similar to another area just south of Saltillo between 21st and 25th streets that was annexed in 2007 but does not yet have sewer and water, he said.
The city is planning to extend sewer and water services to the South Beltway between 27th and 40th streets within the next five years, but it’s harder to get water service farther west because city water is divided into various districts, and 14th Street is in a different district.
Private wells and septic systems will work in the area because the property owners are looking primarily at contracting and industrial uses, Henrichsen said.
The city also has a longstanding policy of annexing land only when it’s contiguous to existing city land. In this case that’s Wilderness Park. The land being annexed by FOG touches Wilderness Park. The FOG land touches the Krueger land, which means it has to be annexed in order for the Krueger land to be annexed.
Guenzel, who was a trust officer with First Nebraska Trust Co. and is now on the board of directors and who opened a plant-based restaurant in Omaha called Rooted Table with his wife, said he’s not an experienced developer.
His family owned the land and ultimately he wanted to be a good steward of it, he said. His family also owned land just to the south that was acquired by the state — including a family home — as part of the South Beltway construction.
Guenzel said he relied heavily on Seacrest and his experience about how best to proceed — including a collaborative approach — and appreciated the city’s willingness to work with them. It was nice affirmation that he was doing the right thing when Krueger, an experienced developer, got involved.
“From my standpoint it’s about stewardship and being a good steward of resources,” he said. “I have kids ages 6, 9 and 10. I hope in 20-30 years when we drive by that area we can say ‘this is something we’re proud of.'”