Town Withdrawal from Dane County Zoning
Legislation proposed by the Dane County Towns Association (DCTA) commonly known as the “OPT-OUT” bill, or AB 563, is currently making its way through the Wisconsin General Assembly.
Dane County is the only large county in the state blocking towns from control over their own zoning matters and the Dane County Board will not surrender control over the rural towns.
The Wisconsin Towns Association (WTA) has worked for this legislation for decades. The DCTA has worked with WTA to pursue this goal in the Legislature almost as long. In all that time, Dane County has had many opportunities to change the way it treats the towns.
Our perception of Dane County’s policymaking abuse of towns is neither an exaggeration nor a fantasy. Dane County is the only large county in Wisconsin, which is not part of a regional planning commission for a reason, one we have become very aware of from 20 years of working on the Regional Planning Commission (RPC) issue. Our neighboring counties want no part of Dane County’s approach to land use and growth.
In the last session, as Legislature decided not to adopt AB 661 to grant Dane County's request for a chance to reform and instead suggested the county and the towns compromise, Of course, Dane County had no intention of relinquishing the power it wields over towns, and the County did nothing.
The County’s claim that they “compromised” by changing the Zoning and Land Regulation (ZLR) Committee is false. The County made no change in substance to the zoning committee and the DCTA never agreed that anything the County did was a “compromise”. In fact; while all areas outside of city and village municipal boundaries are subject county zoning, the committee continues to have five members. Two are from central Madison. Two represent districts dominated by villages and only one of five (ZLR) members represents a majority rural district.
The zoning committee controls zoning policy and the county controls the zoning committee. In 2014, the DCTA asked Dane County Board to restructure the zoning committee to include town representatives, similar to the set-up in Manitowoc County. Unfortunately, the county board “compromised” and changed the committee by adding a second, non-voting, high school student representative. This was at the very least an insult to all residents of rural Dane County.
There are 78,000 people residing in Dane County Towns and 60,000 of them have no representation on the (ZLR). The zoning committee is not just structured unfairly it acts unfairly!
The current Dane County zoning ordinance has not been overhauled since its inception in 1938. In addition, the (ZLR) has refused to accept Town comprehensive plans, rejected zoning petitions based on driveway length and other arbitrary factors, refused rezoning petitions for failure to cluster lots, refused to follow previously accepted and thus valid Town comprehensive plan provisions and extracted deed restrictions without informing applicants of their implications.
The key elements of the “OPT-OUT” bill, or AB 563, are:
The legislation will only apply to counties with a population greater than 485,000.
Towns may only withdrawal beginning in 2017 and in three-year increments there after i.e. 2020, 2023, 2026, etc.
All Towns choosing to withdrawal from current county zoning must adopt a shared zoning ordinance.
4. Each town will be free, however, to map its own zoning districts and the (DCTA) will develop a shared zoning administration system. The cost of the new zoning administration will be paid by application fees and taxes now paid to Dane County.
Dane County currently spends about $5,800 per zoning application and total spending by the county on its zoning division is about one million dollars each year. The towns desirous of withdrawal believe they can do this job for that amount or less.
Dane County will retain shoreline and floodplain zoning authority and there will be continuity of farmland preservation plans and zones.
Dane County will be unable to block plats and certified survey maps (CSM) in towns, which have withdrawn.
The DCTA and the WTA have pursued zoning withdrawal because we are tired of seeing the current zoning system throw towns under the bus. Towns have been prevented from making land use decisions they needed in order to survive. We watched over the past decades as the Town of Blooming Grove, once home to 9,747 people, was eviscerated by annexation because the Town could not respond to the City of Madison's aggressive growth. We watched as the County held back the Town of Madison and the Town of Burke, leading to their demise. Thirty years ago, the Town of Fitchburg chose incorporation over annexation, a choice the Town of Windsor just made this year.
This legislation is an overdue correction of the current situations between Dane County and its towns. Simply stated, Dane County Towns need this option. The six largest towns in Dane County are bigger than two-thirds of all the villages in the county. We didn’t have to lose five towns. The Town of Grand Chute, in Outagamie County, where the Fox River Mall is located, is an excellent example of how a town government can work in this manner. It remains in existence because the Town was not prevented from increasing its tax base.
It is condescending and insulting to suggest that towns need the tutelage of Dane County. Somehow, one third of the towns in Wisconsin manage zoning on their own, including towns in urban counties such as Brown, Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Winnebago and Rock.
I have been supportive of “OPT-OUT” legislation for quite some time. I testified in favor of the previous bill, AB 661, in the last legislative session and testified in favor of AB 563 on December 10, 2015 in front of the Assembly’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate.
The 28th District needs a Supervisor willing to lead, speak out and stand firm for the issue of local control and I believe, by my statements and actions, I am that leader.
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