Johnston council approves easements for Northwest water-main segments after public objections

The Johnston City Council on Monday voted to authorize staff to proceed with easement acquisition — including running parallel eminent-domain tracks if necessary — for segments b and c of the Northwest Annexation water-main extension, a project intended to extend water infrastructure to a new growth area.

City project manager Matt told the council the work would convert 15 feet of permanent easement to a water-main easement within an existing 40-foot sanitary-sewer easement and would require a temporary construction easement (about 194 by 50 feet) to support installation. He said the city prefers an amicable agreement but must keep schedule obligations tied to development agreements and has a target to bid the work in early spring and complete segments b and c by the end of 2025.

Property owner Bill Boyle said he and his wife were not informed about the scope of the project when they bought their property and objected to the proposed clearing. “They want to clear out a 40-foot path in my timber … tearing out all my trees that we paid good money for, and it just diminishes the property value,” Boyle said during public comment, asking for a delay so future buyers could assess value before work begins.

Attorney Dan Manning, representing nearby property owners Jerry and Helen Oliver, urged the council to address tree impacts in the project’s environmental information document. Manning said the document prepared for the SRF loan process (and completed by the Iowa DNR/Foth) makes no mention of the trees that would be affected and argued the city should use available right-of-way alignments where possible to reduce private-property impacts.

City staff and several council members said staff had consulted with the Iowa Department of Transportation and the DOT has constraints over placing mainlines in some highway right-of-way corridors; staff said they would continue to pursue discussions with DOT while notifying the DNR of public comments from tonight’s hearings. Council member remarks stressed the council’s desire to minimize tree loss while also meeting contractual obligations for servicing the growth area.

The motion authorizing the resolution (amended to specify segments b and c) passed with recorded affirmative votes by Council members Reddy, Burkhart, Cope, Evans and Martin. Staff said the public comments will be forwarded to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as part of the SRF environmental-review record.

Next steps: Staff will continue negotiations with property owners, run parallel acquisition tracks if needed, submit public comments and staff responses to the Iowa DNR, and proceed toward bidding the construction in early spring with construction anticipated in 2025.