Floyd County Mennonite Church plan pushing ahead

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

An effort by a group of Mennonites to build a new church northeast of Charles City is becoming a lesson in just how complicated things can become when working with various governmental bodies.

Nathan Fox and Eugene Martin presented their plans at a Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting March 9 to build a church on property the group has purchased along Underwood Avenue. Since then several governmental groups have become involved in the process of granting the required permissions.

The land is part of the Washington School Watershed district, established in 1977 for flood control and to manage water flow and runoff. It originally included five different landowners who owned land in what would be identified as Washington School Watershed Priority Area No. 3.

The water management plan called for building five terraces in the area and the easement agreement says that the easements established by the plan “Will run with the land forever.” The land in question is currently planted in crops.

The Mennonite group, operating as Living Hope Mennonite Church, wants permission to remove two of the terraces and use the area to build a church now, and eventually possibly a school. The group also wants to establish a cemetery near the church, and put in a ball diamond.

In an update on the group’s progress at a Board of Supervisors workshop meeting Monday morning, County Auditor Gloria Carr said the group has been working with Robert Goodwin, an Ames attorney with experience in drainage district issues.

The local office of the Soil and Water Commission, which was involved in the formation of the Watershed district by helping fund the project, has provided information to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) and IDALS has reported the information to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, Carr said.

“They have a couple of questions they’re following up with,” she said. “One is, ‘is it appropriate to remove the terraces?’”

The Soil and Water Commission is wondering if it even needs to be part of any future agreement, Carr said, as it is no longer participating in any funding or benefitting from the easements.

A local meeting of the commission will be held Thursday at 7:30 a.m., and at 8 a.m. the state will join the meeting and has asked the county to also participate, Carr said.

Supervisor Chairperson Linda Tjaden, who has been working with Fox and the group, trying to help them along in the process, said she would take part in the Thursday morning meeting.

Carr said they’re not sure if they’ll have an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office yet on whether the terraces can be removed.

Tjaden said Fox would also likely participate in the meeting.

“He wants to make sure that he is there to answer any questions that they might have,” she said.

The Mennonite group also has a public hearing with the Floyd County Board of Adjustment at 9 a.m. Wednesday regarding a conditional use permit the group is seeking to build the cemetery, school and ballfield.

Tyler Conley, an experienced drainage engineer with Bolton & Menk of Algona, said at the March 9 supervisors meeting that a proposed surface waterway, tile line and expansion and cleaning out an existing retention pond would be as effective for water management as the terraces that would be removed.

He called the impact on runoff “essentially negligible.”

One of the required actions is for all the other current property owners — some of whom are heirs to the original owners — to agree to amend the watershed easement.

“Nathan really cares about what the neighbors think,” Tjaden said. “He wants to make sure that he’s answering any of their questions.”

Tjaden said she was willing to talk with the neighbors with Fox, saying they were her neighbors, too.

“We answer their questions and they see there’s no money being asked of them, the Mennonite church is paying for the work. All we’re really asking is for the records to be updated with these easements,” she said.

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said, “Common sense says there’s got to be ways to make changes to this at some point. It looks to me like they’ve taken the water issue into account.”

Supervisor Doug Kamm said, “I don’t think the Washington School Watershed was ever built with the intent to restrict what people could do with the ground,” and he also called terraces “pretty old technology.”

“We haven’t built terraces for 20 years. There’s just other things. Conservation tillage actually took care of most of it,” said Kamm, who owns an excavation company. “The idea that they’re working on the retention pond down there or adding to it is probably more attractive than more terraces.”