(Radio Iowa) – Officials in the City of Okoboji have made temporary changes to a key ordinance to assist property owners dealing with significant erosion along the shore of West Lake Okoboji. City Administrator Michael Meyers says it usually takes at least a month to get a lakeshore landscaping permit. but requirements for a public meeting and other administrative steps are being waived. “In the City of Okoboji we had between 10 and 15 just catastrophic lakeshore collapses,” Meyers says. “…Recognizing the emergent situation that we were in, the city made a decision that having a month long process was just too long.” Property owners will still be required to get an engineer’s evaluation of the project and follow other zoning rules.

“Those are all still intact, so it’s not necessarily a blank slate for folks to do whatever they want, but it is an opportunity to make things go a heck of a lot quicker because for some of these landowners, time is not necessarily in their favor,” Meyers says. Lake-adjacent properties in the City of Okoboji are in a zone where landowners are to follow landscaping methods allowed in the ordinance.

“The intent of the City of Okoboji’s lakeshore landscaping ordinance is really to make shorelines appear as before any of us were here,” We’re really promoting native shoreline restorations, deep-rooted plants and just making sure that these lakeshores are really set up for success in the long term.” The shoreline of both West Lake Okoboji and East Lake Okoboji are within the city limits of the City of Okoboji, but Meyers says the majority of intense flood damage has been along the West Lake Okoboji shoreline.