Town Leaders Shaped Land Use Vision at 1996 Meeting

What happens when someone decides your town is the ideal spot to store a pile of rusting cars?

The answer depends on whether your town has the land use planning and zoning tools needed to evaluate the idea and, if necessary, say "thanks, but no thanks." That was the conclusion of fourteen town officials from across the state who met in Stevens Point on November 16, 1996 to discuss land use and other policy issues. The group voted unanimously to push for big changes in state land use and zoning laws at a special joint meeting of the WTA Board of Directors and the Executive Board of the Urban Towns Committee.

"Responsible management of our land, water and other resources is a goal that everyone in Wisconsin should work for when the 1997 Legislature convenes in January," WTA Executive Director Richard J. Stadelman said after the meeting. "Town leaders recognize that the alarming loss of prime farmland, helter-skelter development on the urban fringe and the decline of many downtown areas are all facets of the same problem. That's why we will ask others to join us in our efforts to build a new and more effective land use planning system for all Wisconsin residents."

The group drew up a comprehensive legislative agenda for the 1997 Legislative Session, but finding ways to improve land use planning emerged as the top priority. That's a significant change from earlier years, when town officials were sometimes suspicious about the whole concept of land use planning. Part of the concern was philosophical. But much of it was a pragmatic response to the way that towns have been treated by other governments. Land use planning often appears to be something done to towns, rather than by them. Town leaders have often been frustrated by the fact that town land use priorities are swept aside when land is annexed. Thus the reward for trying to preserve farmland could easily be the loss of both the farm (to development) and the land to a neighboring city or village.

But several factors appear to have reshaped town perceptions of land use. One is the divisive impact development is having on many towns. Urban and recreational land use pressures sometimes lead to ugly disputes that could end up making buffered aspirin a new line item in many town budgets. Even towns that have been spared such problems in the past can see the potential political and budgetary consequences unregulated growth can create.

They also recognize that some individuals may choose to leapfrog over towns, villages and cities with land use controls into towns with minimal or no constraints on land use. Another factor is the work of Rick Stadelman and other WTA leaders to learn more about land use issues and share their insights with town officials statewide. Finally, the July 1996 report of the state Interagency Land Use Council energized many town leaders by proposing that towns be put on a level playing field in terms of planning, zoning and subdivision regulation.

Some critics of the council's report fear that giving towns the same land use planning and regulatory tools as cities and villages will result in isolated and fragmented land use management. But there was no indication at the 1996 WTA meeting in Stevens Point that town officials see things that way. Several emphasized the need to work with village, city, county and state governments to develop responsible and durable plans. They also stressed their desire to collaborate with farm, business, environmental and other groups to achieve sound land use plans.

While town leaders expressed concerns about changing land use patterns in rural Wisconsin and the urban periphery, several noted that solutions to problems in these areas can only be found as part of a more comprehensive land use strategy. Accordingly, the group agreed to push for legislation to reclaim abandoned "brownfields" in central cities to stimulate jobs, housing and other development in neglected areas. While city neighborhoods will be the direct beneficiary of most of these renewal projects, this investment also helps towns by reducing the pressure for cities to expand outward and convert farmland to other uses. In other words, town leaders recognize that one way to protect their "greenfields" is by supporting incentives for the renewal of city "brownfields."

This kind of synergistic strategy can yield other benefits. For example, city leaders sometimes cite the need to subsidize services in the high-cost, low-revenue urban core by adding low-cost, high-revenue developments on the urban periphery. Thus, city leaders sometimes perceive annexation (some proponents of this view prefer the term "elasticity") as an imperative to support a wealth-transfer response to urban social and economic problems. But even leaving aside the question of whether new developments are necessarily net revenue generators for cities, this paradigm is a lose-lose proposition. Inner city residents and businesses lose because this policy consigns them to a de facto state of economic dependency. Town residents and businesses lose both tax base and control of their own destines. Joint, cooperative land use planning that emphasizes urban renewal is a creative response that can potentially yield a win-win outcome. But this kind of mutually beneficial relationship can only prosper in a land use planning and regulatory environment that gives all parties an equal seat at the table.

To learn more about this issue see the WTA Position on Land Use

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