The North Dakota Policy Council and LAND are holding a town hall-type meeting to address landowner concerns and are bringing in Cato Institute senior fellow Randall O'Toole to speak.

The meeting will discuss the implications of extraterritorial zoning, land use planning, and the Burleigh County comprehensive land use plan on private property rights and what landowners can do to protect their property, according to executive director Brett Narloch.

Narloch said he describes the NDPC as a a free-market non-profit policy research organization with its goal to educate the public in matters of public policy that affect North Dakota.

"The NDPC is pretty new. We just started in early 2007. LAND has been around for awhile. Curly Haugen is president of both organizations at this time," Narloch said.

Through the Cato Institute, O'Toole works on issues involving urban growth, public land and transportation. O'Toole calls for repealing federal, state and local planning laws and proposes reforms that can help solve social and environmental problems without heavy-handed government regulation, Narloch said.

Bismarck's four-mile extraterritorial zoning and the process Burleigh County is employing to develop its comprehensive land use plan drew criticism from the NDPC's executive director.

"The four-mile extraterritorial zoning is, in my opinion, completely against what is provided for in the constitution. People living in an area outside city limits are being regulated by elected officials they can't vote for. That's just wrong," Narloch said.

The development of the comprehensive plan is being done backward, Narloch said.

"The whole approach is wrong," Narloch said. "So far, what we've noticed is that the planners have made a plan and are then taking it to the public, asking how it can be tweaked. The whole thing should have been initiated by the property owners and all the information should have been collected and then the plan written."

Hopes had been to have O'Toole address the Burleigh County Planning Commission regarding the comprehensive plan. But the planning meeting was cancelled for lack of agenda items.

County commissioner and planning commission member Doug Schonert said that many of the planning commission meetings have been cancelled in the past year because of the moratorium placed on development. The moratorium was put in place by the county commission to allow development of the comprehensive plan.

Schonert said he does plan on attending the town hall meeting, because he agrees with O'Toole on some issues, such as extraterritorial zoning, which both oppose.

Narloch said the cancelling of the planning meeting was frustrating because of the effort put in to bring O'Toole to Bismarck.

"We're hoping that a lot of people show up for the town hall meeting, because these are important issues that affect property owners and will for a long time," Narloch said. "If we can get between 50 and 100 people to show up, I'll be ecstatic. I know that the date we picked wasn't perfect, but we did the best we could."

The meeting will be held starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Doublewood Inn, 1400 E. Interchange Ave. It's open to the public and there will be beverages and cookies.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)