David Yearout is the Planning and Zonuing Director for Geary county, which includes Junction City and Milford.

Yearout was a guest on JC Now on 1420 AM – The Talk of JC where he spoke about ‘a day in the life’ of a planning and zoning director.

“Most of my day is spent with questions with regard to how the zoning regulations apply to people on a day to day basis…the questions come primarily about ‘I want to do this’ or ‘I want to build it here’ or ‘I want to put a car port in’ or ‘where can I put a fence’ – those are the day to day things that we hear,” said Yearout.

And Yearout advises although the process may be frustrating, it’s important to remember that if it is not done properly or “up to code”, you may risk having to take it all down.

“Within the city we go through a permitting process and primarily we’re looking at issues about ‘don’t put the structure over easements’ because you’re not supposed to build buildings on an easement; there are setback issues, don’t put your buildings right up to where they’re virtually on your neighbbor,” said Yearout.

The concepts for zoning regulations and land use regulations grew out of larger cities years ago, and Yearout says it can be difficult to apply in Kansas.

“It’s a little hard to transfer that to Kansas where I was always raised hearing that ‘we’re land poor out here’ – we’ve got way more land than we’ve got people,” said Yearout.

Yearout adds that they also may get questions disputing the placement of fences – ‘is it on my property line’, ‘where is my property line’ – and other related issues.

Bottomline, it’s better to be safe and check out all the details before you make changes or additions to your property.

For more information on services offered by the Planning and Zoning Department click here.