Zoning & Land Regulation Committee - Regular Meeting

The time is now 6.31. Thank you.

I'd like to call the July 14th, 2026 meeting of Zoning and Land Regulation Committee to order. This meeting is being held in person and virtually through the Zoom meeting app. All persons wishing to speak are required to register via the Zoom meeting app at least 30 minutes prior to the meeting. However, people may also register in person prior to the meeting.

Come and see Director Violante.

First off, I would like to introduce committee members and staff. My name is Michelle Doolin, and I represent District 28. And with me tonight is Supervisor David Peterson, represents District 36. Supervisor Jeffrey Kroenig. Hello. Represents District 21. Supervisor Don Posler, representing District 29. And Supervisor Michelle Ritt representing District 18. And I'm going to pause so I can change the view. Let's see.

I thought I had it right on there.

Thumbnail and share. There we go. That way we can see it.

You'd think I'd know how to do this by now. But yeah, there we go.

All right. Staff members are Planning and Development Director Todd Filante. Interim Zoning Administrator Hans Hilbert. Assistant Zoning Administrator Dan Everson, Assistant Zoning Administrator Rachel Holloway, and Senior Planner Majeed Allen. Are there any town officials here tonight?

Yes, I was just checking my list. I'm aware of Amanda Nickel, Town of Vienna Supervisor, Kathy Clark, the Town of Vienna Clerk. I believe there are more, but I'm not...

Are there any town officials here tonight? Okay, yes.

Oh, Renee Lauber with the Dane County Towns Association. Yes.

Oh, there's one more.

Hello. Thank you.

Welcome.

You got one more.

Oh.

Jerry Anderson. Hello. Hello. All right. Please note that this is a work meeting of the Zoning and Land Regulation Committee. Public hearings have already been conducted for rezoning and CUP applications. Additional testimony will only be taken upon committee members' request. The committee members will need to make a determination whether or not to take additional testimony on an agenda item. I would also like to make an announcement regarding fraudulent emails being sent to zoning applicants. The public should be aware that individuals submitting applications to our department have been receiving scam emails requesting payment. Official correspondence from Dane County will always come from an email ending in danecounty.gov, Dane County spelled out. Anyone who receives a suspicious email requesting payment is asked not to respond. Instead, please contact Planning and Development Office at 608-266-4266. All right. So the first item on the agenda is public comments for any items not listed on the agenda. Is there anybody registered for?

No, there are none.

Okay. Is there anybody here who would like to make comments for any items not listed on the agenda? You can raise your hand and you would be allowed to speak. All right. We should move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the minutes of the June 23rd, 2026 ZLR committee meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes?

Postler moves approval of the minutes from June 23rd.

All right. We have a motion by Postler. Is there any discussion, corrections, or comments about the minutes before we take a vote? All right. If not, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries. All right. Our next item we need to move on to on the agenda is amending the minutes of the May 26th, 2026 ZLR committee meeting. Um,

Yes, this item is on the agenda because as a committee you previously approved those May public hearing minutes, but then we were contacted by Jill Landowski. She noted that she had been listed as in support of Conditional Use Petition 2703, but in fact she was registered as neither in support nor opposed, so she wanted that to be reflected in the minutes if possible. So I guess, I believe we'd be looking for a motion to... To amend that? Amend that or what's the...

The top of the motion would be to amend the previous action of the committee to reflect that change and then administer, we would administratively make a note on the previous minutes and that would be reflected on tonight's meeting's minutes.

Okay. So may I have a motion to amend the minutes? motion to amend amendments all right uh we have a motion by croning is there any other discussion questions or comments about this right all in favor say aye aye all right motion carries thank you for your diligence we have no items under public hearing portion of the meeting so the next item of business is zoning map amendments and conditional use permits from previous meetings So staff will update the committee on the progress made on these applications, followed by discussion and possible action. If the committee takes action on a rezoning petition, the petition will be forwarded to the county board. The petitions will be placed on the August 13th county board meeting, unless otherwise noted. If the committee acts on a conditional use permit application, this is the final action. If the committee decides not to take action on an agenda item, the next ELR committee meeting will be held Tuesday, July 28th. So the first petition is rezone petition 12,249, Steven and Jan Cohen in the town of Vermont.

Yes, this petition was before the committee in February for a public hearing. At the time, the applicants are requesting three residential lots, and one agricultural lot with the initial petition. This had town board recommending approval at the time with no conditions. However, staff had some concerns with soil suitability due to the lots backing up to Vermont Creek. There is a floodplain there and wetlands, and the wetland in the county's minimum 75-foot area buffer from wetlands was made a very little buildable area on the proposed new lots one of them is has an existing farmstead residence on it so since that time the applicants went back and they did soil testing to verify that they could accommodate a septic system on each of the two new lots as well as have a enough adequate space to build a home on that the soils would be suitable for that development they have done that provided a geotechnical report also that verifies based on at least a limited amount of data, the groundwater levels, because it has a shallow depth to groundwater. That report estimated the water levels at roughly 830 feet above sea level and recommended that homes be placed at least three feet above that level, as well as the report also made some recommendations for how to do construction on site to accommodate future homes. and avoid problems with drainage. They had a soil tester also verify that the site is suitable for septic systems, which would require some additional review by state officials, but it looks like it would be workable. So that satisfied our concerns with regard to those lots. I appreciate their due diligence on that. So we're recommending, pardon me, let me back up. Also as a result of their soil investigations, if you recall, they had Initial proposal, I'll show on the screen here, had two lots up in the north end, proposed for RR4 zoning. And in the south was an FP1 ag lot. Based on their soil results, they modified their request to consolidate those lots in the north end to just be one large lot, one home site, and then move the residential, the other lot or the third lot, we'll say, to the south end. So no agricultural lot is proposed at this time. It would be just three residential lots straight forward. They went back and also got town verification that the township was okay with this change.

So we can report that that is...

All resolved at this time. There were some neighbor concerns also at the public hearing that were related to drainage and the amount of development proposed in those locations. So we're recommending approval tonight with one condition being that the there be a lowest floor elevation set at 834 feet above average sea level on their soil geotechnical report. And we have people registered in support of this petition tonight. None are wishing to speak. We have Heidi Kopras, Stephanie Belmas and Ryan Cohen. All right.

All right, committee. The town, let's see, we have this staff recommendation of approval subject to the condition that the lowest floor elevation be set at 834 feet above the average sea level. Would committee member like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve with the stated condition.

Okay. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, so we have a motion by Kroenig and a second by Peterson. Any questions, comments, or discussion before I take a vote? I actually do have a question from staff, just, you know, to be sure. So with that lowest, that floor being above sea level, and especially with that southernmost lot division being mostly wetland, would, if somebody is going to propose like, you know, to build or on that area, if they were to come to you for like a permit or things like that, would it be disclosed? Like kind of the, I mean, how would we, I mean, that's the very minimum, but I mean, would there be would the future resident who might wanna build a house on a very skinny lot be informed that the minimum means minimum, but doesn't mean it's a guarantee or, you know,

Yeah, as part of our review, our system would flag that there's a condition on that rezone approval and we would link to the engineering document that describes that. So we'll be able to provide the applicant with that and encourage them that, you know, while 834 was the minimum at a certain set of time when that groundwater level was evaluated, that further evaluation may provide a better number and their abilities to build up from there. Also use this opportunity to let you know we've had a request to turn the volume up in this room.

Okay, that would be a good idea then. Let's see. Check, check, check.

Better? All right.

No problem. I don't know if I don't know. I used to be considered too loud at one point in my life. So, you know, let's see. All right. So we have, okay. So yes, thank you for answering my question. All right, we have a motion by Kroenig and a second by Peterson. Any other discussion about this petition before we take a vote? All right, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries. right our next petition is rezone petition 12 275 um han irrevocable trust um in the town of vienna

This petition is coming back to the committee from the May 26th public hearing. The petition is proposing to rezone 38.6 acres from farmland preservation zoning to HC heavy commercial in order to locate a truck repair business, Madison Spring, providing spring and suspension repairs for light and heavy duty trucks. I guess much can be said about the proposal, but to try to Summarize here, we had, if you recall at the hearing, we had the town board recommending approval. The only condition was providing wetland delineation, which the applicants have done. They had one done last fall and provided that for the records. And their site plans that were submitted with the petition reflected that delineation as well. This petition was postponed at the May hearing due to public opposition. And to allow the applicants more time to address the concerns that were raised, we had over 70 public comments submitted. The vast majority, if you recall, were expressing concern over the potential for negative impacts to the surrounding wetland area on the site. This is partially on this site and on the adjacent lands is a Vienna pothole wetland that is of some value for recreational birders primarily. and has some ecological value evidenced by the public investment in those lands. That was the subject of the comments at the hearing. Staff had also noted some concerns about it in relation to compatibility with the adopted comprehensive land use plan and the nature of the compatibility of the land use with the adjacent lands, and some other things. The Madison Spring Team has provided a response to those comments. They addressed topics including stormwater management planning, wetland protections, compatibility of the HC zoning that is proposed, indicating they would be willing to have less HC zoning. They were not stuck on this acreage. They indicated that if only the upland portion could be zoned HC, they would be willing to accept that. Stormwater Management Plan, I should note, has preliminary approval from Dane County Land and Water Resources. So those are not concerns on the part of staff. They're working on a developer agreement with the town of Vienna that is connected to the comprehensive plan, which allows commercial development anywhere in the township, but on a case-by-case basis. Developer agreements are identified in the plan as a tool to... evaluate, depending on a particular site and the particular proposal, ways to mitigate potential impacts to either town infrastructure, the surrounding environment, neighboring lands, things like that. They addressed comments on the lighting plan by providing some additional information to clarify things that were not quite legible in the original submittal and we needed some more information on. That resolved our concerns on lighting. As well as hazardous material storage, they included some additional information on what they would have on site as part of their proposed operation. Staff report provides our analysis in response to each of those topics. Like I said, just to get to the point of the report here, staff does have some significant concerns still. The application itself is well done. It contains good detailed information. It accounts for the 75-foot wetland buffer that the county requires from mapped wetlands. There are, it has been a difficult petition to review in terms of the land use plan because land use plans, of course, have many different policies. It's compatible with some. There are others where it's kind of difficult to make a determination because of the nature of the public lands and the wetlands that abut this and the almost unprecedented amount of public comments that we almost never see before this committee. So that was unique about this petition.

Okay.

In addition, we comment in the report about standards or findings that are required to be made when we're rezoning land out of farmland preservation status under section 10.220 of the zoning code. And there is concern over the likelihood of some potential irreversible impacts on the wetland system, although what they're proposing meets the standards in terms of zoning required setbacks and things like that. So we have additional comments from Land and Water Resources that were provided. Their department staff did provide some at the public hearing, if you recall. We also had additional written comments come in after the hearing, and that is informing our staff report update that is provided for tonight's meeting. I want to note, I handed out an email today for exhibits from the applicants. One addresses pesticides and fertilizers, things of that nature used on the site now for agricultural use. The other exhibits pertain to the proposed Madison spring development. I also distributed the latest land and water resources comments, which were in response to the committee's request for more information and comments from staff on the potential for impacts to the habitat of wildlife, because that was a subject of the hearing that we had not commented on prior to that. So is there more to say on this one? We're looking to the committee to really weigh the immense amount of testimony you've heard, that you've received. And in our view, we give significant weight to the Land and Water Resources comments and relationship to the hydrology and the water features in the area. But as you can see, we have a lot of members of the public here, town officials and people wishing to speak on this petition as well. So I will leave it at that for now. We do have Do you want to go one at a time with people wishing to speak? Or how would you like to handle that? They've been informed. It's not a public hearing, but also that if it's your discretion, whether you allow more comments or ask questions of the folks in attendance.

Well, from where I sit, I, if something could be offered that was information that hasn't already been part of the test, you know, testimony, if it's new, rather than the things we've already heard, also, then I would be interested in asking questions of town officials and things like that, as far as reasoning behind the development. But I am interested in what the committee thinks, perhaps. I mean, we had a pretty robust hearing about this already. We did go and see the site. And I am concerned that there are a lot of findings that we already have, findings of fact. And I don't want to have to go with whether it has really very little to do with whether or not we like the business whether we like the people there um one of my main concerns is that case by case basis thing because that is not a uniform unbiased regulation so um does any other committee members have any thoughts to discussing this beyond just the public hearing or the public, the work meeting discussion between us.

I would just chime in, say, you know, I think you're correct. You know, we did have a very robust public input. We got over 70 pages of for and against arguments. And a lot of what this staff report is reflected upon is by the feedback that's been received. So in the interest of making a decision tonight, I think we do have some stakeholders in the room that we could certainly ask questions of that would help inform the committee on our role in this, in making that decision. But I do believe we've had a pretty robust public input process and have allowed participation. I would be my view on in terms of opening up for few further and but I would be opposed to that at this point. So we can operate with the facts that are here and that helped inform the staff report. But no there are town officials and the applicant in the room that I think would be appropriate for committee members to question if if there are questions so leave it to narrow it to questions asked.

Yeah, I think so.

OK. Supervisor writ, do you have? Are you content with that?

Reasoning I am. I would like to make sure that we're available to speak with our land and water staff as well. I can't see who's in the room, OK?

James Broadzell is on the zoom call. Excellent, excellent water resources.

all right so um i guess in order to take this up again we need a motion um motion to allow oscar ask questions of no i mean just i mean this is out on the table unless you want to ask questions first and then make a motion a recommendation or a motion for or against Okay, Robert Stuhl is here.

I guess to be properly before us, we would need a motion.

We need a motion.

So I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So are you saying that we're not going to get to speak, or are you saying that we don't want to ask questions? Because we do feel like we have new information. When we brought our civil engineer that's costing us $1,000 for this meeting tonight, we were able to share and answer questions that were raised and decided.

We could probably ask questions to gain that. We just don't want to open up the floor to have a second hearing, basically, at this point. We need to make findings before we make a good recommendation. So this is not a public hearing at this point. This is a work meeting. If you're not letting us respond to your findings, Point of order, please. I have the floor. The committee has the floor right now. So, and Robert's rule says that, you know, the public hearing is closed at this point. You got it, Michelle. But if we have questions, we will ask you. All right. On the rezone petition 12,275, we have this staff recommendation. placing primary weight on the natural resource protection objectives of the Dane County Comprehensive Plan and specific hydrologic warnings issued by Land and Water Resources Department. And with that, would a committee member like to make a motion?

It would be a motion to deny.

Correct.

Yeah, I'll make the motion to deny.

All right. We have a motion by Kroenig to deny. Do we have a second?

Postler seconds.

All right. We have a second by Postler. All right. Now we have discussion by members of the committee. Okay.

guess my first question would be for the applicants and i would like to hear uh what their engineer the the potential new information would be thank you the applicants would come in

Thank you. My name is Devin Winter, civil engineer on the project. We're just going to talk about new information.

Or can I just go through a... Yeah, I guess just through what I kind of heard, it sounded like there was some new information. So if you could elaborate on anything that this committee has not heard to this point.

Sure. So everything... Everything has always been on the hydraulics of the wetland and everything like that, how we're using, we have the potential to use the wetland as a stormwater basin. Stormwater code is not written that way. We have to adjust stormwater on our site prior to discharge. What that means is that we have to reduce pollutants, We have to address infiltration and we have to address hydrology. Okay. All three of those are being done. As a result of that, we have land and water conditional approval, as well as the DNR has reviewed the plans and they have two minor comments that are easily addressed on the plans. As part of this, Stormwater treatment, we are exceeding what is required from a pollutant requirement of typically it's 80% removal. With this project, we are removing in excess of 90%. One of the things that we're also doing is currently there is farmland. The farmland is being worked slightly into the degree of 30 to 75 feet into what is currently delineated wetland, okay? As part of this project, we have a 75 foot setback, which ultimately reduces that 30 to 75, or 30 to 75 feet of current farming to the wetland line. What we've also done as a project is we have exceeded that by adding a 30 foot no-grade buffer, okay? So what that's gonna do is it's gonna reduce the disturbance, it's gonna reduce the potential of nutrients, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides that are going directly into the wetland, as a result of farming. I'm not against farming whatsoever, it's just what it is in the field currently. Land and Water currently states that one of their goals is to convert adjacent cropland on public land to permanent grassland and prairie cover. By virtue, as part of the project, we are doing that. We are removing farmland It's gonna go to native habitat. That's one of the things that Land and Water has brought up is that the habitat needs to be protected. Well, as part of the project, we are increasing the habitat and more importantly, we are creating an additional buffer from the development to the wetland. So from a stormwater perspective, we've never looked at the wetland complex as a stormwater basin, that we're using it for any code requirement. We are exceeding the code on site. Another thing that was brought up is that there's a lot of birds in the area. What the team has talked about is that we would be willing to work with local community or local groups to potentially build nesting boxes and plant them around the property. That's one of the things that I think would benefit at a low cost to the developer that would create additional avian habitat for the surrounding area. Like I said, from a hydrology perspective, we are meeting, we are fully meeting stormwater on site significantly away from where the wetland currently is. One of the things that they talk about in land and water is that to filter runoff. Well, I'm not against, like I said, I'm not against farming at all, but there's a potential of nutrients and everything to directly run into the adjacent wetlands. There's not native, not natural ground cover on farmland. There is crops six, nine months out of the year. Beyond that, this project is stabilizing the soil. There's going to be a lot better soil conservation. There's going to be significantly less nutrient, which is going to be a major benefit to the wetland complex. And the whole goal of this has, and always has been, for any project, not just this project in particular, but wetlands are protected. We are not touching wetlands, we are not filling wetlands. There's nothing that this project has done to negatively impact the wetlands. So while this project, I don't necessarily agree with Land & Water's evaluation of the hydrology and everything, but we are by virtue meeting what they're trying to do in upland areas as a result of this project. the other thing is that the the applicant um is working with farmers in the area so while this is farmland preservation we are literally working with farmland farm owners to fix their trucks that is one of the the biggest um companies or uh industries that that they work with so farmers are directly are going to benefit from using this uh company Um, so, um, from that perspective, as well as the there's a heavy commercial that is around surrounding this this property. There's, uh, I think, uh, three or four different heavy commercial operations to the east of this. Um, County of Vienna has, in their comprehensive plan, said that the corner of V and Patton Road is a primary corridor for commercial development. This is exactly where that is. Like I said, there's no wetland impacts. We're meeting to the best of our ability. Every issue or any concern that land and water resource has brought up, we will have NOI approval with two minor comments. We have conditional approval from Land and Water Resource. If Land and Water Resource had concerns, why is the project getting approved? We are meeting the code. That's the biggest thing from a zoning perspective, are we meeting the code? And by all virtue, everything that I can find, we are. And if not, exceeding it. So from my perspective, we are meeting the code. I think this is a great project. There's been a lot of time, resources, and effort put into this to help the local community, to help the local farmers, to keep the town of Vienna in the radar and their tax base increasing. based on the heavy commercial properties around this area that it's not off in the middle of a farm field or in the middle of nowhere. There's other properties that are immediately adjacent to this that are out and being heavy commercially. I think this project is a good project, and I think it meets... the requirements of where this ultimately wants to be located based on the code and the town of Vienna and what their vision is for this area.

Perfect. Was there any other new considerations beyond the ones you just outlined that you have something in? I guess I'm just I'm curious just because, you know, I wanted to give that opportunity to address it.

Yes, there were a few things that were emailed over today. I don't know if this thing is working. Today there was a few things that were sent over, one of which was there was a couple of exhibits, and it was noted earlier that they're related to this project, but they're not.

We do have handouts here.

Do you have those pulled up?

Yeah, just pulling them up.

Okay, so the one behind me, I know that at the site visit, I feel like there were individuals or one individual that was stating that there was never manure or fertilizers put onto this piece of property. and the landowner currently is here tonight and was planning to speak, but also had provided me with this list of fertilizers and chemicals that have been used on that property. So therefore, runoff of these chemicals have been going into that wetland directly up until this point, and manure has been spread on the property as well. In addition to that, there were two other exhibits submitted um we just feel that we should be um treated fairly amongst the area and um as uh devin had brought up in regards to the areas surrounding us that do have heavy commercial zone businesses This is an example of where the project is posed on the corner of cat and envy. But then across the street, there's another heavy commercial zone property and we will outline for you what the distance is between the edge of their currently used property and where the water currently exists, which as you can see is exactly the same as one of the measurements that we have on our property.

That's the exact same. If you look, that is all connected.

You can see that there's the stream and it all is, does communicate together. So go ahead.

Yeah, I have a question then. So the claim is that by mitigating the farming of this area and replacing it with this, with the addition of another site, is going to be an improvement for the wetland due to the lack of pesticides, et cetera?

Correct. It would positively impact.

It's a positive impact. Does that weigh in the potential impacts of increased impervious surface and the increased amount of heavy commercial in this area? I mean, does adding one, I mean, based on that, we could be like, well, then we'll add another and then we'll add another because there's already a heavy commercial site here. Can I answer that? Sure.

I think we can talk the same with other projects that are going on currently in this area, one in which they took 60 acres of farmland that is going to be all pavement that is much closer to the trout stream, which I believe you brought up on the site visit. That's going to be, I believe it's a mile closer to that same trout stream that we talked about at that site visit. There is another project that's proposed that's going to be another huge span of concrete. We're not Paving the whole project. We're putting a rock and such down. So the water will be able to get into the ground where these other projects just less than a mile away from us are doing much more area of of pavement and asphalt and then they're taking up much more farmland. We're taking up a 14 acre parcel that I think some of the farmers in this room would tell you that the size of the tractors and such that farm nowadays, to farm a 14 acre parcel is really not cost effective. And so we're taking a piece of farmland that's really not, doesn't have as much use as maybe it did 25 years ago. And we're putting it to use for the farmers. I mean, the other day I had 90% of the trucks that were on our site that we were working on were farm trucks. So, I mean, we are very heavy supported by the agricultural industry.

And I'm not arguing against that piece. I mean, the benefits of your business to our local community is one factor. However, it's up to the committee to decide whether or not that outweighs the ecological impact of the natural resources that we have.

Can I ask why we would be segregated about these other projects that are much larger than ours? Why are we different from these other projects that have already been approved? I mean, you'd have to explain that to me.

A, I would need to know what those projects are. Amazon. This hearing is not about those projects. Sure.

But the hearing is about the way that we are getting segregated differently than these other projects are. I'm not talking about you guys talking about them other projects. I'm talking about my project that is getting segregated differently than these other projects. The project that is directly across the road, that is the same zoning that I'm asking for. And we're doing, if you look at that particular piece across the road and you look at what we are doing to the piece of property that we are on, we are by and large much more protecting the wetlands than any other project there.

When was that project rezoned?

Well, why does it matter?

It does matter.

It was 13 years ago when it was done. Right. I understand that the laws were different.

Okay. This is not going to be an argument between us.

I'm not trying to make an argument. I'm sorry.

I understand.

respectfully we need to kind of stay on target okay if i may yes i think i understand the frustration i truly do um I just want to take the temperature down just a little bit. I think it's ultimately what you're asking us to do is to rezone the property, right? And it's even said in the staff report that I understand what you're trying, the argument that you're making and you're saying like, you will be good stewards, right? Of that land. But when it's rezone, you could build your property. You could be there for, five months, five years, 50 years, if you decide to sell and then someone else comes along and they're not as responsible as you are, we've rezoned it heavy commercial. So the rules change.

I don't want to speak for everybody here, but like for me, it can't rely on the goodwill of the residents there currently.

Okay.

Excuse you. You're out of order.

Right. I'm just, I'm trying to help. Right. And stop me if this isn't helpful, but I just, I think that's, For me, that's where this gets really tough because, again, you could win the lottery tomorrow and disappear, and someone else could come in after you've built this project, and they decide to do something different. And that's what I have to weigh, and that's why it's really tough here for me to...

just answer that question for you.

If the property is built such that all rainwater, if we're talking about your main concern, I'm guessing, is to damaging the wetlands and the water resources nearby. So if the property is built with all of the retention ponds and all of the setbacks that are needed, even if it's zoned heavy commercial, with all that filtration that has gone into it and everything that's gone into the building of it, even if someone were to buy it in five months or five years or 10 years, there shouldn't be contamination. because of the way that it's being constructed and the approvals that we have had to get to be able to get this far.

Could I ask for an example of what you, what would be a different project that may come onto the site that you must have, I would assume. Point of order, Chair.

Yes. I'm kind of confused by what's happening here. I thought that we agreed that we were going to, as a committee, receive new information, but it seems to be a free-for-all argument slash dialogue, whatever vocabulary word you choose to use. And I'm concerned about staying with protocols and committee rules. Thank you.

Can I answer your question regarding the vast pavement?

Yes, please answer that question.

Okay, so stormwater code is written specifically for that reason. So water from a commercial site, industrial site, large residential site that exceeds certain thresholds has to meet a stormwater code perspective. We are going above and beyond by meeting that. Exceeding the 80%, treating 90%, we have infiltration. We are doing everything that we need to do to mitigate the increase in impervious. So while it may look like there is pavement that is there, that is the goal of stormwater. That is the purpose of stormwater, to mitigate the increase in impervious surface.

My question is how does that mitigation replace the impact of this land use in this area for the natural resources? How do all of those things equate to be as good as what they have currently?

So from a stormwater code perspective...

I'm not talking about just stormwater. I'm talking about bird habitats. Nesting boxes do not... For some birds, yes, nesting boxes work. My chickens would love it. But what I'm saying is migratory patterns... Bird ecosystems and wildlife ecosystems are very sensitive to everything there. It's not just about, well, this is not the wetland and this is the wetland. There's not like a wall that's saying, okay, you can pass now and things... you know, the way that we have divided up the state of Wisconsin and even in this area, you know, away from the Savannah Oak Prairie has made a huge impact over the past couple hundred years on our wildlife. I can't tell you the last time I heard a whippoorwill in the wild, for example. So what I want to know is how is what is going to be proposed to be built here going to be as good or better than what is already there.

So what I'll say to that and what I said previously is the entire area that is tillable right now is theoretically disturbed soil that could be farmed every single day of the year. There's no permanent habitat that's within that area. As part of this project, we are expanding the native habitat. We are removing farming from within the wetland. We are providing a 30 foot no-grade buffer that is going to become natural habitat. We are expanding the natural habitat. We are reducing the hydrology to pre-development levels. We are reducing the pollutant runoff that is going to that. Typically, I mean, that's the point of stormwater. So we are increasing the habitat. We are matching pre-development levels for stormwater. We're expanding and we're limiting the pollutants that are in that area. So by virtue of that, bringing it back to pre-development levels, if not making it better by creating more habitat within that area.

Okay, I have a question for staff. How is all of this dependent on this landowner and all the things that they would do as, you know, with a concerted effort to try to maintain you know, the area and to be good stewards of the land and good stewards of the community and the natural resources that can't speak for themselves. How would any of that exist beyond these landowners after this rezone? What would protect this area? If it's dependent on the people is that what would all of these things then be dependent on the people who are here currently?

As I've said before, we regulate land uses, not people that occupy them, right?

The site would continue to be subject to the county stormwater management standards, state approvals and state standards. But the HC zoning by itself does not I mean, if the land is rezoned to HC, then any future landowner could do whatever that HC zoning district allows and subject to those same standards. I guess we've identified in the staff report, this is more of a policy level decision in terms of locating HC zoning on the map. That's where the concern lies more than the specifics of the... That's the big part of it.

There's a disconnect between the understanding of satisfying code written in ordinance and meeting standards and achieving the goals and objectives of policy through the comp plans, whether it's the town's comp plan or the county comprehensive plan. And right now we're at the stage where those policies come into play. Right. Once the zoning is set, the ordinance takes over. And unless we have specific ordinance language, as far as use or actions of people on the land, we wouldn't have anything.

And what is the point of the comprehensive plan?

Well, it's to hope that Dane County is a thriving place for future generations ultimately.

And that involves protecting the land we're on.

you know, it's made up of components to protect various aspects of what make this a place. I have a question for the engineer. Please.

I guess it's a point and then a question. When we're talking about a runoff, I feel like we're talking past each other. I think in some ways you've talked about how, you know, you can reduce the fertilizers and the fungicides, right? And I think In a lot of ways, you're talking about water quality, and I think land and water kind of raise this, and I haven't heard an answer yet. We haven't really talked about water quantity, right? And I understand some of this is a lot of this site is gravel. And again, we can argue theoretics around is gravel impervious or not, but I think you'll agree with me that farmland is... is more pervious than gravel is. And so I'm trying to understand, I guess the questions I'm asking are more about volume and less about quality, because I'm not gonna argue with you and say that you're gonna beat cropland for pollutants, but I'm really sensitive to the runoff volume rate and timing, which Lane and Water has pointed out in multiple places, multiple times, that this pothole is incredibly sensitive. And it's just, having walked the site, again, I appreciate the ability to do that. It's a really sensitive area. And I get that your water basins are deeper than required by statute, but I'm still fearful about the volume. Sure.

So... Thanks for the question. So from a stormwater perspective, there's water quantity, so peak discharge, and there's also water quality. So I'm not going to talk about the water quality because we've already talked about it. So from a code perspective, you have to meet from Dane County. So Dane County requires certain rainfall events to meet pre-development runoff rates, okay? Okay. That is what is normally required from a code perspective. So we are meeting that from the one year all the way up to the 200 year, which is required from Dane County zoning, okay? From a DNR perspective, they regulate the one year and the two year, okay? So one of the comments that we got from DNR staff, which was... not the trickier one of the two but but more um in-depth one is um they are referring that the one and two year um meet uh the pre-development runoff volumes okay which is what you're asking okay so i had a call with dnr staff and they couldn't tell me a number but they said internally they try to keep the pre-development the post-development runoff volume between 80 and 120 percent of the pre-development volume Okay, so one of the changes is that we have looked at doing is reducing the orifice size, which is going to create more ponding or volume within the pond, okay? So we are by virtue for not just the 1, 2, but the 1, 2, 10, whatever the storms are, we are reducing the post-development runoff volume to within 80% to 120% of the pre-development runoff volume. So by virtue, we're decreasing the rate, which means that it's gonna trickle out slower from an erosion standpoint, but from a volume perspective, we are as close to post-volume to pre-volume as possible.

Are you comparing to cropland or restored open space?

Don't quote me because I don't have the stormwater report, but I believe it's the pre-development needs to be back to cropland because that is what is currently on the land. So whether it's meadow or cropland, I think the code requires you to take it back to that, which is what we are, which is how we have conditional approval from Land and Water. Do we want to reduce the volume to 80%? No, because that's going to potentially dry up the wetland, right? Theoretically, do we want to be 100%? Yes. Can we? It's physically impossible. So DNR told me internally they require 80% to 120%, which for all the storm events we are.

Can you agree that a plan can be fully code compliant and still degrade the pothole?

So one of the requirements of Dane County is that there's a stormwater maintenance agreement, okay? So what that does is it requires the landowners to maintain their pond to not construct it and look away, right? So I think it's within every five years or whatever they have to have a, as built and make sure the pond is functioning in accordance with code. That is a recorded document, right? So there is something legally that they're held to from a stormwater perspective, and that's one of the conditions that Land and Water has included in their conditions. I guess I want to push it.

I mean, a plan can be fully code compliant and still degrade the pothole. Agree or disagree?

I don't know if I can answer that question as a fact. I think there's a lot of different variabilities on that. No matter where the project is, things can happen. But there's a stormwater maintenance agreement that we'll handle.

Right. And I think that's ultimately why I'm struggling so much. It's like, I think I want to be fair, right? I mean, it's hard to account for every possibility, right? It's just that the pothole, where this is, it's just such a precarious place. And I, again, I'm not telegraphing how I feel. I'm just... There's a lot going on in that space and that plot, and it's really, this is not an easy decision.

Yeah, I have questions for staff. So like a stormwater basin can manage increased runoff from development, but is it meant to replace natural hydrological ecological functions? I mean, is that like, is it a one for one?

I think that's a good question for James.

Yeah.

Land and water resources. Yes. Oh, I think he just has to unmute himself. Okay.

Yeah. I'm listening in carefully here and trying to gather my thoughts and I want to be clear and concise, um, and, you know, honor the, the committee's crest to not be iterative here. And I guess I would just urge the committee. And I just want to clarify that the comments that were submitted on behalf of the land and water department. And in part are, you know, tied specifically to this proposal, but they're also in a larger, you know, watershed systems wide context. So, you know, a lot of the stuff that's been said on the wildlife habitat piece gets at, you know, there'll be less farmland on the site and there'll be, you know, the buffer will be widened. But a lot of the concerns that we express, and I think we heard, you know, as a common theme through the public comment period on the wildlife piece really comes from these secondary and cumulative impacts. You know, just because, you know, the biota that are using this wetland, somebody has already said this, they don't distinguish lines on the ground or on delineation reports, even if some, you know, more water could be holding back as part of the stormwater features, you know, this natural fluctuation in hydrology and water levels is part of a healthy functioning ecosystem. And I know the applicant has pointed some other projects that, you know, are proposing much larger impervious areas. I just want to remind the committee that the Viano Pothole Wetland Complex is a very, it's a rare resource. Really the only other one like it in Dane County is over kind of west of middle in the Shoveler Sink property, which is also owned and was acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a lot of the same reasons. And, you know, when Dane County acquired this property for folks that have been out on some of the public lands in the county, we have public parks, we have county forests, we have natural resource areas. This is designated as a wildlife area for that reason. So I really want to, you know, kind of put a lot of the weight on the comments and clarify you know it's not just that there's no direct impacts to the wetland and if you're going through you know state regulatory procedures for permits from DNR or the Army Corps they do look at these secondary and cumulative impacts so in the context of you know does this meet or honor the Dane County Comprehensive Plan I just want to clarify to the committee the context that those comments were submitted. And the same holds true for kind of the previous comments and questions about water quantity. You know, historically, how this area operated, the Vienna Pothole Wetland Complex would gather water from 7,000 of the surrounding acres, and it would hold it there for a very, very large storm. As you know, land use and things in the watershed changed, something had to be due to mitigate the flooding on County V. So now less of that water is retained for a shorter period of time. So just again, looking at in the kind of in that cumulative impacts piece. So I will pause with that and if I can answer any more questions for the committee, I just don't want to get too long winded and keep repeating things that ultimately have already been said.

All right, so is it safe to say then that the basin, you know, stormwater controls are intended to mitigate impacts from development but don't eliminate impacts or demonstrate that development benefits wetland and that the engineered basin is not equivalent to preserving the site's wetland functions?

including... Yeah, so I will probably preface this with saying I am not an engineer. I am not the land and water staff that was working with Devin and reviewing that plan. And to Devin's point, there are certain level of assurances in place that that system will be able to function and meet the performance criteria up to a certain size design storm. But as we all know, things happen. If things don't get maintained, they plug, there's always the chance of failure. So You know, in my opinion, things can meet code and ordinance, but there is a certain element of risk that I think whoever writes those policies and comes up with those standards agree that that's feasible and acceptable.

In your opinion, does the proposed plan address, you know, it does address runoff quantity, But does it offset the loss of natural wetland and habitat function associated in this area?

In my professional opinion, I think, you know, one of the largest elements here is that the secondary impact, I'm calling it, you know, habitat fragmentation on the wildlife habitat piece. And I think, you know, I give a lot of respect to the applicant for offering to, you know, do native plantings around the perimeter. put up these nesting box and try to offset that. But there was mention of, you know, one of the county goals in these areas is conversion of farmland to native grassland. You know, that's a whole parcel and a whole conversion in native prairie that's going to be there ultimately in perpetuity. So, you know, without going through, say, the DNR's functional value assessment that they've developed, I'd be hesitant to put a quantitative answer on that. But In my opinion, you know, just increasing the buffer width and doing some native plantings in those areas under current ownership would be hard to offset that larger habitat fragmentation piece.

All right, thank you. Are there any other questions?

I got a couple. Go for it. So kind of change directions a little bit. I got questions. I don't quite know who's going to answer them.

We'll start with asking and we'll go from there.

Kind of like do the truck traffic part on V and Patton Road. How much truck traffic is there currently? Who could answer that?

We do have, yeah, an official. If you want to come up here. Okay, we're going to play musical chairs for a second. Hello. Have you speak into the microphone? Okay.

Gary Anderson of IANA, supervisor. So your question was about truck traffic.

So currently, right now, presently, how much traffic is?

I wouldn't have that exact number, but if you were standing on the property, it's a steady roar of truck traffic down Highway V. You will not hear this business with closed doors on it. There's just a steady roar on highway. We farm land along here also too. You can't get out on the highway at certain times. It's just a steady roar.

I understand there's quarries everywhere.

It's becoming the north belt line is what it's becoming.

Okay. How much extra truck traffic will having this business add to that?

answer that mean. On any given day we might have between both locations. At the most we might have 20 trucks coming in and out of there. Because most of the shop just stuff we do is schedule has done on a schedule so it's only work on so many trucks at one time okay.

The other heavy construction businesses that are in that area I know. There's a that's there's a E80. E80. Yeah, the E80. How much truck traffic does that generate? I would say it's probably similar. Similar type?

The junkyard would be quite a bit more. They probably have the junkyard, they're supposed to come in from the east side, but a large portion of it does come in Patton Road also. And that would be probably double the amount of traffic.

Okay. I guess that's the down that lane.

All right. Chair Dillon? Yes. I can address Supervisor Cronig's question. Yes. I'm seeing on DOT's truck traffic interactive map, 5,300 trips per day on that stretch of Highway V. And that's everything, though, right?

Yeah. Not just trucks, but it's everything.

How does that compare to... Like, I mean, that's kind of an ambiguous number to me unless I know where I'm standing. You know, like, how would that compare to, say, County Highway M? Which I'm more familiar with. That's much stretch. I know. Sorry.

County M would be more passenger vehicles. This is more.

That's computer, yeah. Used to live on P, though, so that was crazy.

And to Gary's point that V is becoming a corridor because of Waunakee being busy, trucks are getting off sooner, taking that way around to get to the west side of Madison. And that's why I think the truck traffic would be higher on V than like something like Coney M.

All right, so is there any other questions from the committee or discussion?

Yeah, I do, but it won't be traffic related.

It'll be something else.

Okay.

Ask away.

So the question is, and I'm not sure who's going to answer this, is there any specific species of birds that use the pothole areas specifically that they can't really use, that they won't go anywhere else?

Well, I don't know. Do you? Yes.

Could you come up to the microphone, please?

Do you have any other questions?

Not right now. I don't.

I will likely have questions. You will? Okay. We can keep on this train of thought. Okay.

Let's talk about, yeah, we'll talk about birds and then get back to you and then.

In the public comment. Oh, James. At the public hearing.

Rod Zeller.

Ornithologist. One doctor explained the rarity of the yellow-headed blackbirds habitat. that is one place that they solely and very few within the county that can be fact checked through Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance or any of the others. Do they use this as a stopover for migration or is this a breeding area? They are nesting. They're nesting here? Yes. We were visited by a whooping crane this spring. And as far as passing through migratory routes, the Eurasian Wigeon from the Arctic had stopped to feed and rest, which is a rarity not only at this pothole, across the states. It's very highly functioning with the waterfall. mostly undisturbed by the heavy traffic on the trucking passing through. They are not decelerating, accelerating, coming, traversing across the wetlands and then exiting. You have your easels, your vibrations, your lighting, your plumes, et cetera. Currently, the traffic from the heavy commercial district, those companies are prohibited from using Patton Road by town order. There is no truck traffic aside from an occasional flatbed pulling into E80 and delivering their steel. And I live there. I know.

I think James Broadzeller has his hand raised, so it would be interesting hearing what he has to say.

Yeah, I just wanted to echo some of the previous input from that last speaker there. The yellow-headed blackbird may be arguably the most iconic bird that utilizes that site for nesting. It's one of the few nesting sites kind of left in my understanding the rest of the state that offers the particular attributes for that bird. And I would just point the committee to the public comments that I believe Rachel just handed out. in advance of this meeting and just clarify that this was written in part, um, by Andy Polyos, who is our natural resources area manager prior to working with Dane County parks. He actually was the, uh, uh, the wildlife supervisor for the south central region, uh, with the department of natural resources. So he has, you know, upwards of two decades of, of experience and understanding with the Vienna pothole system, um, and some of the surrounding wetland areas as well.

Um, So so James if. How sensitive are the yellow headed blackbirds to? Like any other type of so if say we cited a so big solar field in the same area, would that affect the yellow headed blackbird?

Yeah, I'm hesitant to speak to that honestly, just because my is more in hydrology uh and soil science um and botany so i am not a i'm an ornithologist or a wildlife specialist some of these comments are being conveyed at the folks at dane county land and water that fall under the umbrella so i guess i'm not the most knowledgeable to answer that question okay thank you i'm done yes supervisor rhett thank you um i would like to just um

Agree with the last two speakers, you mean staff as well as the member of the public that came. I am definitely not a wildlife specialist, but black-headed, yeah, the yellow-headed blackbirds are definitely quite rare in Dane County. This is an incredibly important nesting area. And the gentleman who spoke also mentioned a whooping crane. Mm-hmm. went to that marshy area and there are only 440 whooping cranes in the wild in the entire world. I mean, that is one of the most iconically endangered birds that we have.

And I don't know if it's an option to hear from any of the other participants that are attending online. I do see some names on there that I think could speak very well to that. So I don't know if that's an option of the committee.

I would like to ask that question. And I don't know, Chair Doolin, how you're going to figure out who can answer. But if there is somebody that is much more of a bird expert that could speak to that, I would love to hear that question answered.

I would be of the same, just because I also want to know, like, we're talking about, well, the wetland itself, but the upland areas and the impact as well. There is a, so we have a Matt Reitz and a Mark Martin. We know.

Matt Reitz is the, he's with former Audubon, South Central Bird Alliance. For bird expertise.

Okay, so Matt Reitz. Let's see. I'm going to allow to talk. If you want to unmute yourself, could you state your name, your qualifications, and could you possibly enlighten us on these gray areas that we are not experts on?

uh i'll can you hear me okay yes okay uh my name is matt reitz i'm the executive director of the southern wisconsin bird alliance formerly madison audubon i am a trained wildlife ecologist i have a master's and a phd in wildlife ecology and conservation mostly studying the ecology of birds um so the county v ponds are really well known among birders as a as a hot spot um according to eBird, which is the website that hosts observations of birds. It is the 14th best hotspot in Dane County for birds with many species being recorded there. And it has also kind of a unique assemblage of birds, including yellow-headed blackbird, which was mentioned, but also things like leased bittern and Virginia rail, these very wetland-sensitive species and In fact, they're found there much more frequently than at a regional scale. I don't need to list off all the birds there, but it's a really important area for both nesting and for stopover habitat for a variety of different wetland-associated and wetland-dependent species. And I can't speak much to the upland areas surrounding it i've been i'm just really here to talk about the wetland itself, but you know, this is part of a larger broader complex that also adds really important ecosystem value to the region so happy to answer more specific questions about that. And perhaps mark Martin might lend some. Information, he is the land manager at our goose pond sanctuary just north of this area.

Excellent. Um, me. Allow Mark Martin to talk. You can unmute yourself and then if you could state your name and your qualifications as well for the record. No.

He's got his hand up.

Yeah, he does. He's allowed to talk. I don't know if he's... I don't know if he's on a... He's not on a phone. He might be on a phone. If you're on a phone, star six? If you're not, I don't know. You are on a muted, so I don't know if We quick promote him to panelists just so that maybe. Oh, wait, I can hear you.

Okay. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. Sorry about that. I figured out what was wrong. I've been the manager at Goose Pond since 79. I'm a certified wildlife biologist. Used to work in waterfall research with DNR. This is a prairie pothole that is what you'd like to, was what you'd see. A lot of the birds out there, if you went, we're in South Dakota right now, we're talking about other birds like ruddy ducks that nest over water, only nest in a handful of places in Wisconsin. Common gallinules, and Matt already mentioned a couple other ones, but it has a wide range of prairie species, waterfowl, and you mentioned the yellow-headed blackbird. They just don't feed in the wetlands. If that was corn land, like in spring, they would come and they feed in the uplands that are cropland. And ideally that would be, what's lacking here is nesting cover. The mallards, teal, feed it or nest in the uplands and we don't have many uplands out there for it to provide good nesting habitat. But nesting habitat is critical and it's going to have in like sedge rents that are nesting uplands, but there's sedge runs that are found close to wetlands. So it's a very attractive spot. And when you have, I forget how many, 3,000 people have stopped and looked at birds out there from the hotspot and reported them. It's a spot, as somebody mentioned, it's comparable to Shoveler's Sink. And really this prairie wetland is really rare in Dane County. I don't know if you have any other questions, but it's a super spot for prairie and wetland birds.

Okay. Does anybody on the committee have any more questions for our bird people? Thank you for weighing in.

Okay, thanks.

And if I may state for the upland habitat that I have 15 to 20 acres is a partial on that of that wetland of the 51 acre property of Oaks and Meadows. I am certified by the National Wildlife Federation and I represent Dane County in the DMAT program of habitat restoration.

Thank you for adding that record. Right, so the issue before the committee is not whether or not the property may be developed or whether this particular land use, but it's whether this particular land use at this intensity and scale is compatible with protecting the wetland, its hydrological functions and wildlife habitat that it supports. And that is my main concern. Is there any other questions or discussions or statements the committee needs to make before we vote?

I did have a few questions for the town.

Absolutely.

And particularly the Planning Commission. I don't know whoever would be best equipped to answer that.

Yep.

Sure.

The clerk knows everything, right? Yeah. Well, thank you for being here.

All right. I'm the town clerk.

Okay. So, obviously, a lot of the questions today have been related to site selection and, you know, whether it's compatible with the sites nearby and much debate on a lot of those criteria. So, I guess my question is, from a town perspective, what... Well, I'll just state first. So the majority of the township is farmland preservation, which poses challenges to converting things to development for a lot of different reasons.

Yeah, Vienna has the strictest zoning laws in all southern Wisconsin.

Yep, 100%. So with that context, I'm curious what criteria does the town apply in that case-by-case review of a site for whether it would be suitable for commercial development?

We did that after the comprehensive plan was prolonged for a very long time, as everyone should be familiar at the county as to the reason for that. And when we got to this point, we talked about our commercial development. We're also challenged with the fact that our previous development has always been along the interstate, and that was removed by annexation from the village of DeForest. So we decided if we could, start our commercial business outside of the Village of DeForest ETZ zone, which brings us out to Patton, that might be a good place to start. And for that reason, we decided that for everyone's purpose and to get the comprehensive plan approved and moved forward, So we could do some development. We went a case by case. We would like to have seen that corridor is because Madison sand and gravel is right there. And E80 is right there. And New Myers is right there. I think that's why originally in the application, they went heavy commercial as the zoning. That doesn't have to be heavy commercial. It's not a heavy commercial industry. It's a springs repair for trucks, which limited commercial would work. But the problem we were having is to come to a consensus of where the commercial development should be moved. And we don't really have a concise because we know right across the street is the substation Alliant owns, and that is always going to create a lot of draw. They've come to us three other times, and they will continue to come at that substation access to the high wires. So Patton will... have development just on the north side of this area. And that's the case-by-case purpose.

Gotcha. So I guess to summarize, just based on, we just had the kind of the map of all the ETZs, since you're surrounded pretty well. So apologies for that reality of... of the way the growth is encircling.

There was three main requirements in our comprehensive plan. We wanted to stay right on that truck corridor, keep the truck traffic off the local roads, be on blemished or poor farmlands, reclaim gravel pits, wasteland basically, and connecting to other commercial areas already which it was contiguous with the other commercial area and we also have commercial across the road with the substation so that was the three things we were looking at and then we were going to go case by case off of that perfect okay um so along a similar line um and this is

I guess just more or less to try to see how some concerns that are also outlined in the plan were addressed. So this is maybe more process wise when when the plan commission was hearing it. So apologies for the time time war, but chapter 14 in the Vienna comp plan has the cultural resources inventory and it has the guidelines for community design and there are. basically three things when reviewing development proposals that the town should consider, which is avoid disturbances of land with a history of agriculture. Sounds challenging in a farmland preservation community, but it's in there.

This is an isolated spot, so it doesn't do that.

Yep. Avoid disturbance of floodplains, wetlands, and steep slopes. And then the third one is minimize number and length of driveways, which I don't know that... that applies in this particular case. But I guess with regard to those kind of the first two, and you spoke a little to the first one with the history of agriculture, what considerations kind of went into this specific site and in addressing those kind of guidelines for development?

So it won't hinder any other agriculture operations by far. It just doesn't connect to anything else is the main thing.

I was going to say, we were out on the site yesterday, and you can't see where the cactails are. And the pothole is... a mile plus on the other side off of a different area. So the consideration here is that whole corridor is already commercial, and it was just that one 10-acre spot that would suit a building that has half their business is delivery of springs, and the other half is working with everyone that's here tonight, which are mostly farmers and landowners in the township.

The building, the business, they talk about Vianna Pothole. They are not in the pothole. They're adjacent to it, yes. And with a buffer area in between so that that's why our plan commission had 0 issues so it is so basically that the criteria was kind of just the follow the the code the the the the code requirements for not building in the wetland.

It just happened to be somewhat near with a buffer in between gotcha when we asked our engineer and their engineer but all their notes together to make sure that we respected the wetland, they came back and showed clear evidence that this would not disturb the wetlands as existing. If you really think about some of the other area right in that, there's a mineral extraction that is creating massive amounts of noise and the blasting that takes place. We get called and we have to alert the area. That's not disturbing any of the habitat. And I got to believe that's much more evasive than air conditioned operation that's just going to be having cars come in and go out. It's not dealing with painting, body work. It's nothing of that. All right.

I think that was all of my questions for the town. I don't know if anybody else, I guess Yield, if anyone else has.

I think you covered it.

I do have some questions for staff then kind of along those same lines if I could.

It's a good place to build. Thank you very much for sharing.

As someone that's farmed along there for years and years too, I have yet in scout crops and stuff, I have yet to stumble across a nesting bird in row crops. Killed deer would be the only one, but they nest in farmyards in every place. So I do believe in my heart that these guys will add to nesting capacity because we know they're not nesting in row crop farms.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. So similar line for staff. I guess whoever wants it. With virtually all the town and farmland preservation, I know much of our talk in this specific parcel is related to the adjacent wetland complex. Is there a appropriate spot where a rezoned heavy commercial could work in the town of Vienna? Or would that be something that would essentially be precluded by the farmland preservation? Sounds like Todd maybe. Yes.

I was just going to say that our planner

Oh, yes. Who better?

Yeah.

So, I mean, the answer is theoretically yes. Right. In the report, you know, we note that. So we have a number of plans, right? We've got the town's comprehensive plan. We've got a county comprehensive plan. And we have a farmland preservation plan. That's something that the state requires us to have in order for our participation and farmers to be eligible for, you know, tax credits. And, you know, I think the issue is this case by case. I mean, I think you're seeing it right now. Right. Where you've got reasonable people making reasonable arguments. Coming to different conclusions or standpoints. Right. I think, you know, there's been I think. With regard to prior developments, whether in Vienna or elsewhere, it's not so much necessarily the zoning category, although good points were raised about the potential for, hey, you're a good operator, your proposal is good, but there's a litany of other uses that could be established there over the next however many decades, because as we've seen, you know, once zoning has changed, it essentially stays that indefinitely. And here you've got You know, as we're hearing, an irreplaceable, very special natural resource and, you know, colliding with the town's objectives to find a spot. I mean, I think this map shows a good, you know, when you look at those areas, there are limited options for them to site new commercial development. Um, I think part of the issue we have with these kind of case by case decisions, again, it's playing out right now that, um, You know, you'll have arguments made on one side, arguments made on the other. In the development of their plan, I think this was kind of baked into the cake. They knew that this proposal was gonna be forthcoming. And they thought, well, we'll fashion this. There's sort of an understanding at that level. Well, once it hits Dane County and our public hearing, the notification process, you've got a number of other stakeholders that are gonna be showing up and have opinions. So that is the slippery slope of having these sort of case by case situations. You know, if you look to some of the other towns we have that also participate in farmland preservation, but have actually designated like this is where we're going to do it. Things typically go not without. you know, challenges, but typically go a lot more smoothly. I'll use Cottage Grove as an example. Then we're parsing out, you know, okay, what's this development going to look like? How, you know, so they're subject to the same standards and criteria and so forth. But that designation on a map that tells the, you know, everybody, this is what's going to happen in this location. You know, I'm not sure if during your consideration of the town's plan amendment that this was well known, certainly to the committee at the time. Perhaps it was raised that there was at least an understanding that something would be forthcoming. But again, that's before a public hearing is held on the development proposal itself. So I think Hans alluded to this earlier, right? This is you've got, you know, there's a code thing and you've got, in this case, a plan thing. And then it works both ways. Right. That adoption of the plan isn't committing necessarily to anything. It's laying out the kind of rules of the road. And that plan is going to include, as we point out, and as I think you alluded to, a number of not always internally consistent objectives. Right. You've got you could see it in this fashion where you turn the page and you're going to see something that reads the other way. So, you know, I don't envy your opinion. position in a sense, given the difficult decision in front of you. But yeah, there certainly are areas where commercial may be appropriate. I think in the view of staff, what you're hearing is this is an extremely challenging site, just period. There's no way to parse it out. We can hear from folks that think one way, and we've got experts and others that feel the other way. So again, no easy answers here. I think, yes, it's possible. If we were to choose, hey, would it be an ideal site for this development? It wouldn't be led with the concerns that I think you heard the town officials say, which I totally understand were hemmed in by our neighbor, this Goliath that will just take the tax base away from us and has not been operating in good faith. not always going to lead to the best, you know, your limited options then as a result. And again, I think that's what, unfortunately, we're seeing play out here.

Okay. A follow-up question on that was, does a lack of a designated future land use for commercial on the map, and case-by-case only instead of designating a commercial, a specific in-the-plan commercial corridor, does that... I mean, it certainly adds to the challenges of the case by case because you don't really have any guidance beyond the specific site. But is that something that an amendment to this plan could potentially avoid a future? And I don't want to stray from our current topic, but I guess my point in this question is, would it be advisable if we're going to do case by case to throw some parameters into the comp plan for commercial development?

You know, I think that would be helpful. You know, again, I think the issue here is, you know, you heard the argument, right? This is a business that provides services to area farmers, you know, and others, you know, but they've got support from that constituency, right? It's a farmland preservation area. So very strong argument to be made that this is a site or excuse me, a business that is appropriate to a rural location, provided it's got good transportation access, which, again, you heard from their arguments. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is those could be laid out in very fine detail. And I think it would be helpful. And we may still end up in a look in a spot like this. Right. That there's. we can come up with the best policies as possible. Now, it may have helped inform the committees, you know, and I think everyone who's got to be subject to it, right, the landowners and so on as we're going through it. And unfortunately, as they were developing the plan, some things happened with a different proposal that ended up, I think, influencing and detracting from their ability to really revisit this issue. So it was just a... Something I think worth revisiting in light of this experience, as well as, again, just understanding how the tail end of their process played out with an entity that's not in this room.

Thank you for that.

I think that is for my questions. Any further discussion?

I would just say, Madam Chair, so this is my district where this property occurs, and I have heard a lot of feedback on both sides of the coin. And this is a really challenging decision for a township that has incorporated communities on all sides. This is necessary tax base. You know, it serves agricultural clientele. It meets a lot of facets of the comp plan. However, at the end of the day, the question here is about zoning and the specific piece of land we're on. So while I understand that side of things, and I can appreciate the tax base and appreciate the business impact in an agricultural community that absolutely needs a business like this, the question before us right now is whether this land use is appropriate for something that's currently farmland preservation take into heavy commercial and then how those impacts affect the resource and the ecological uh assets around there and this has been a very very tough one to think through and and i appreciate all the the feedback and testimony we've gotten tonight um you know i i struggle to go against our town officials because you know they've certainly had public hearings they've you know certainly um have heard from this from a lot of stakeholders as well on both sides. But at the county level, we have some other chapters that we have to implement that aren't necessarily just pertinent to the comp plan. And for me, you know, Local control is important, but we cannot have that at the expense of some of these other ecological protections or, you know, if the site isn't right, it would be irresponsible for us to move forward with that zoning. So, in that regard, you know, I think. We've identified some weaknesses in where we may have future petitions that that could be challenging for similar reasons. But again, tonight, it comes down to the site that it's on. And with the site that it's on, with the impact to the neighboring landowners, I just I would have to agree with staff's assessment that a denial is appropriate here.

Thank you, Supervisor postler. Any further discussion by the committee? All right, I think unless there's objection, I'd like to call the question.

I have a question, Chair, clarifying question. Yes, go for it. Because the committee is, it is not common for something to come up for denial. Could you please reiterate how an I and a nay vote work? with this particular circumstance?

Yes. So we would be recommending denial. So we're recommending that the county board, when it comes before the county board, that they deny this position. So a no would mean that this rezone petition is denied, correct? So a vote of yay means no rezone.

Support of denial.

Support of denial. How many double negatives can we have in this sentence?

I just wanted to clarify, yeah, I supports denial and no wants it to go through. Okay.

Before you call the question, I would like to make a motion to accept the documents that were received today into the official record.

right um there's a motion by postler is there a second second the second by chronic um if there's no objections i'd like to have that um yeah good call um passed unanimously um to accept that those additional documents those findings all right motion carries so that will stay in the record all right so on the motion to deny All in favor of denial?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. All right. Motion passes unanimously. Since we have taken action, this will be placed on the 716 County Board agenda?

Correct.

Correct. Okay. So it will be on that public hearing on Thursday. All right, our next item, rezone petition 12,283, applicant G.V. Blackberry, LLC.

Chair, I'm sorry. Yes. Vocabulary-wise, you said that it's a public hearing on Thursday, and it's not. It's a county board regular meeting.

Oh, sorry. Yeah.

I just don't want people to have the expectation. People are allowed to speak, of course, but it's not a public hearing.

Thank you for that clarification, Supervisor.

Thank you, and sorry. No, you're good.

All right, so rezone petition. All right, we are conducting an official action here. So if people could file out of the room to speak. All right, rezone petition 12,283, applicant GV Blackberry LLC in the town of Black Earth. Are you ready for this?

Yes. I'll give this up and returning from our June 23rd public hearing. It was postponed at that time due to received opposition and comments during the hearing specific to site suitability for residential development. Since that time, we've reached out to the applicant with suggestions for providing feedback on how to All those concerns could be mitigated. They provided a response showing a previous layout of the previous potential buyer for one of the lots and how they would lay out a site. We pushed them a little further to understand if they would provide building envelopes and we talked to the town clerk about that being a concept and it seemed like a feasible way forward to kind of ease some of the neighborhood concerns ultimately the applicant responded that they weren't interested in doing that and they felt that there were enough protections for the large lots to be developed in ways that wouldn't impact slopes and some of the other concerns that the neighbors had brought up. So we're taking all of that in. If the DLR sees it fit to approve this petition, we're recommending that approval be with uh two conditions one that the csm uh designate building envelopes on each lot prohibiting development on lands with slopes over 15 and on the map in the packet could be the dark shaded areas Okay. And then there was also an issue with a remnant parcel on the east side of Blackberry, small triangle there. The applicants have agreed that that would be dedicated as part of the public right-of-way to resolve that issue.

Okay.

We have registrations here. We have Elliot Butler registering in opposition, Renee Hayden registering in opposition, and Tommy Van Es, not indicating, but with the applicant, I'm sure he's available to answer questions if there's any.

Okay. All right, so what we have in front of us, Is the staff recommendation based on working with the applicant and also concerns? The recommendation that if we approve that we consider conditions, we add conditions to restrict the buildable areas over 15 to areas over 15% grade on the CSM and dedicating the remnant land across the road as town road right of way. So restricting buildable areas, meaning that anything over a 15% grade is not a buildable area?

Correct.

Okay.

With that, would a committee member like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve with the two stated conditions.

All right, we have a motion to approve by Kroenig with the two stated conditions. Do we have a second?

Passer seconds.

All right, we have a second by Passler. Any questions, comments, or discussion about this petition before we take a vote?

Yeah, I guess I do. So to get this kind of clarified, so you approached the petitioner about providing building envelopes, and they refused. Is that correct?

I don't know that they refused their response to that. Anytime a petition goes to a work meeting, we reach out to try to address those concerns and come back with something that we could support. And one way we felt that we could get there would be developing building envelope restrictions on the lots. It was the applicant's position that at least one of the lots is 11 acres. The other, I believe, is... that there were ample areas on each of those lots that a future owner of those properties could determine the most suitable location. Okay. And I didn't want to proceed with restricting that or potential sale of property and limiting a future owner of that.

Okay. So somebody who would essentially buy the property and want to build on it, they would have to provide the building envelope.

So it would be part of the land division process to record that on the CSM to show that. The mechanism for changing that would be to come back before this body to have somebody who's actually looking to develop a specific development, share that with the committee for approval. Okay.

That has been the practice of the ZLR committee in the past as well. So we'd be continuing that as a fairly typical way to address this type of concern. Okay. In light of the town plans policy about the 15% slopes.

All right. Yes.

I guess I'm looking through the materials and there seems to be some disagreement as to what a steep slope is. And I'm trying to, I guess, from a staff perspective, help you understand, like, is this by definition a steep slope? Is it not? To me, it sounds like the building envelope is the compromise here. Like, we just kind of have to sidestep the whole, is it a steep slope or not? So I guess I'll give you two options. You can either say, yes, it is a steep slope or it's not, or yes, David, the building envelope is the compromise so that we don't have to answer if it's a steep slope or not.

I think we have a clear mapping. I know it's hard to see on there, but we have a gradient map showing groups of grades, yellow being from 0% to 12% grade. Then we have a middle class from 12% to 20% and then 20% and greater.

So what constitutes a steep slope then? 12 to less than 20 or 20?

In this particular case, we're calling out the 15%. So that middle ground between the lower orange and the darker brown. So you can kind of follow the ridge lines along there. A land surveyor would be able to delineate that exact line based on the topography of the slopes.

Okay. I guess I'm asking a jargon question, like what is considered a steep slope?

In the various town-to-town based on town-specific slopes.

Yeah, what does town Black Earth consider a steep slope?

The town of Black Earth policy that... Regarded this, I believe it was 15%, and that's where we chose it.

Yeah, their plan states discourage new housing development in areas of agricultural land, steep and erosive slopes and ridgetops, but then they also specify development siting standards policy that maximum allowable slope for building sites is 15%.

Okay.

That tells us what this counts for. That helps me.

I think I'm probably putting more weight on some of the testimony that's in the packet where Peter... Sorry if I murdered your last name. Peter, who's been a member of the Town of Black Earth Plan Commission for more than 20 years, sent in an email that talks about what is and is not a steep slope. But I think from what I'm gathering, Hans, it's like the building envelope is the way I'm going to frame it, and I want you to validate it. That's kind of the compromise here. Regardless of what a steep slope is.

And a way to take the policy and put it into something that can be enforced. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you.

you chair all right any other questions all right so what we have in front of us is a um motion to approve with the two conditions um restricting that buildable area um from building on anything 15% or more and dedicating the remnant land across the road as town road right-of-way. There's no further discussion. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously. Our next petition is... CUP 2707, applicant Jane Becker and Brett Miller in the town of Albion.

Yes, the petition is back before the committee from the June 23rd public hearing. This is for a short-term rental use or also known as transient or tourist lodging for an existing home. This one was postponed. at the time because we needed town action on the proposal. And since that hearing, we have received the town recommendation. Town board is recommending approval They had no specific conditions on this one. Just saw fit to approve it. The town of Albion does have a licensing ordinance for short-term rentals, so they use that to implement any particular policies that the town has for this type of land use. For our purposes, we're looking at the eight standards in our zoning ordinance for conditional use permits, and that's what is outlined in the staff report. Staff feels that... The applicants in this case have provided substantial evidence to address the eight CUP standards and mitigate potential concerns of this land use of the home. This includes that the owners would continue residing on the property and self-managing the rental use. This is also reflected in the town's approval with no conditions. That is evidence that the town also felt it met the eight standards. So our recommendation tonight is that the committee, if you need additional information, you could ask for that, but I would request that you make findings of fact of your own as to whether it meets the eight standards. Actually, seven of the eight standards actually apply in this case, not being farmland preservation. We recommend approval with 18 total conditions, and those are just intended to reflect that this is short-term rental use that's specific to what was being requested. And that would enable clarity in the future if there were questions about how that unit could be utilized. All right. We don't have anybody registered for this item for the work meeting, I don't think, unless we have a paper.

OK. All right. So what we have in front of us is the staff recommendation that if you know, that the committee members, if they make findings of fact as to whether or not the proposal meets the COP standards listed above and that recommend approval with 18 conditions, if so. So with that, would a committee member like to bring forth a motion?

Yeah, so I'll make a motion to approve based on findings of fact that addition meets the standards of conditional use permits with the 18 conditions.

all right we have a motion by cronic um to approve with the 18 conditions um we have a second by peterson um any questions comments discussion about this petition before we take a vote if not all in favor say aye aye motion passes unanimously thank you very much our next petition is CUP 2709, Applicant, BMO Living Trust, Peter Miller in the town of Cottage Grove.

This is back before us from the June 23rd hearing where we postponed due to opposition. Mostly neighborhood concerns, and I think we heard a lot of concerns at that time that there's a lot of conflict in that neighborhood and some neighbors that generally hopefully don't get along with each other. And that's injected itself into our land use approval process that we have before us. We've tried very hard to take an objective look at the actual situation. Encourage the applicant to try to respond to those following the public hearing. They submitted a response that's in your packet, addressing the steps that they've taken to try to mitigate some of those, including installing fencing and providing additional landscaping around there. which they've already started on. They provided a number of photos that show various perspectives of the neighborhood and whatnot. So, staff looking at it from a strictly land use perspective and the ultimate request of approving this would allow sanitary fixtures in a building that's going to be built regardless. In looking at the original application and the applicant response, we feel that the standards for that use have been satisfied and we've tried to address concerns through proposed conditions that would at least mitigate or of calm some of the neighborhood issues particularly related to those uses so in addition to the 12 standards we outline conditions 13 to 21 a lot of people specific to the standards for a limited family business but then we add some specifically addressing what the commercial use what the limited commercial use of the residential accessory building is and what it is not and types of vehicles being stored on the property, being limited to those accessory to the principal residential use. There certainly is some gray area in enforcement of these, but it's one of those things that And I think we deal with on a day-to-day basis of determining when that threshold has been crossed. And it's very similar to the nature of the limited family district that acknowledges that sometimes businesses grow to a point where they're no longer appropriate in a limited capacity and either need to expand to a general commercial property or relocate to somewhere that permits more intensive uses. And then finally, that the conditional use permit expires on the sale of the property. Or the business to an unrelated third party.

Okay.

We have Peter and Rachel Miller registered in support.

Okay.

And here to answer questions if the committee has them. Thank you. What was the number of conditions? The total with the standards is 21.

All right. All right. What we have in front of us is the staff recommendation. Okay. Okay, we have a couple things. Let's see, we had... Yeah, there was some supplemental information. We can decide whether or not we want to accept that official record.

Right, I should have mentioned that one of the neighbors who was registered in opposition at the hearing did take the opportunity to provide supplemental information. That would be David Kanoki, who provided those in this afternoon's email from Rachel.

Mm-hmm.

It would be at the purview of the committee if you want to accept that as additional testimony to the record.

Yeah, I'll make the motion to move the additional information into the record.

I'll second that.

All right. Move the motion in a second. If there's no objections, I'd like to have... Yes?

I do have some questions.

Okay. Let's discuss it.

Thank you. I do have questions for the Millers, too.

Oh, this is just for the adding.

Oh, sorry. Adding the, I will have questions. Sorry. Yep. Okay. Confused. Sorry. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Okay. So germane to the, okay. So on the addition of the, yeah. Information to the record. Is there any objections to have that recorded as passing unanimously? Okay.

I jumped the gun. Sorry.

All right. Let's try this again. Gosh.

Thank you for your patience tonight. you may or may not know we you know your neighbor clearly sent us some some information and he did ask that i asked some questions um i'm curious about when i look at the town action um the town specifically the cup from the town of cottage grove notes that there is no outdoor storage of business materials equipment or vehicles um care to comment on that is that is will that be a struggle will that be difficult does that represent a hardship for you guys um it's

Well, when the town asked what equipment we had, I said, I got a dump trailer. I got a Bobcat. Well, I use a Bobcat to pull the driveway. I use a Bobcat to do work around our house. And I use the dump trailer to get mulch. We got, you know, I buy a whole pallet of mulch. And that's kind of the difference between me and Dave is we do a lot of our own stuff. So I buy a pallet of mulch and my pallet sits there and he doesn't like the look of that. He doesn't like the look of my plastic bags. He hires a company. He's a pharmacist, retired. They come and do the work and then they leave. And so that was the issue that that's been kind of stemming from that. He doesn't like that. And it's like, well, I'm a blue-collar guy. I have, you know, I have an extra two-by-four that my son builds stuff with. He doesn't like looking at that. You know, he wants to be by himself. And so that's been kind of the issue and been trying to portray to him, like, you know, this is our property and, you know, I understand that you have opinions, but we also have a right to live on our property and it's not just dictated to whatever you want at whatever time. And so that's been kind of the issue where, you know, we've had some kind of discussion on that. And so, see, I... majority, like the reason that we're looking to put the building up is Wisconsin winters. You know, you get snow and you get wear and tear. I got a log split outside for how many years? It's faded. It's rusty. It's like, I like to put that stuff inside. And that was our goal was to be able to put that inside. You know, the, you know, I have a utility truck that I use personally. I haul our boat with it. We've got a rock lake. I use that like, so my goal is to put that inside. I don't want that outside. We have a box truck with a lift gate that, that, um i'll i'll drive home you know and then so i drive that and uh um and so that will be inside clearly you know there's no use for that to be outside why would i have that and uh the the doors that we're building are going to accommodate that um and so yeah i i don't see anything outside I don't have a reason to have it outside. All the work that we're doing for our real estate company is on site of the real estate. We're not doing any work there. We're just storing. Well, my hope is to be able to have a little bit of storage. As I said earlier, I'm a licensed HVAC contractor, licensed general contractor. I can go buy furnaces from First Supply, scratch and dent ones. If I buy three, I get one free sort of deal. So there are deals like that where I'd like to stock up and have the space to do it. We have a warehouse in Oregon. It's just kind of inconvenient, you know. We're not going to be fabricating cabinets or anything there. I didn't get delivered a site. I delivered anything there. It doesn't make sense, but just to stock up on things. And by the time you look at the space, it was 2,400 square feet. By the time you put a pontoon boat in there and a Bobcat and a dump trailer, my truck, there really isn't much space. There really isn't going to be – this isn't going to be a warehouse. And so – That's our stance on it. And, you know, since the meeting and the objections, you know, we've done extensively. We've spent $20,000 on 360 feet of privacy fence and, you know, over 100 privacy trees that we put in to kind of give them the privacy that, you know, seemed like they were wanting from us and continuing. Our neighbor already had a large fence. We just continued it. We just backed up their fence and then continued that. So...

again i think hans kind of outlined it i mean there's a lot of animosity right and i think uh clearly i'm in a mood to try to take the temperature down in the room today not just this conversation but a lot of them and just find an amicable you know reality here a way forward right and i think it's um I think everybody's trying to – there's a lot of – like I said, there's a lot of animosity. So it's – I'm clearly – I'm in support of this. I just wish it didn't have to be this hard, I guess, between neighbors. So I emphasize kind of with everybody's situation here because it's just – I just want to go along to get along, right? And it's unfortunate that there's had to be this much animosity. And I'm not pointing fingers or blaming anybody. It's just – It's tough to sit on this side and wade through that stuff because, again, I empathize. But your neighbor, Dave, was very adamant. He wants to see less trucks, trailers. And, again, I can empathize, too, with a small business. So I can see both sides of the conversation. But go ahead.

I think that there's a really – big difference between what is our personal use? Like we've had people come help us. I mean, for the past two weeks, we stopped everything in our life, all rental properties to put up this fence from two different neighbors to block the entire view. We have spent a significant amount of money that we did not intend to spend on that we should be building a shed right now. We thought it was going to go in in the fall. like, to address his concerns. And he was concerned about the Bobcats. We just purchased a new Bobcat. You know what? He went on there the first time he got it, and he graded the driveway so we didn't have potholes.

I get it, right? Totally understood. But I think it's ultimately, again, the point I'm trying to make is that this turned out to be harder for everybody than it had to be, right? Us included, right? I think that, you know, moving forward, I just, it You know, he asked me to ask the question. I asked it into the record. You've satisfied my concerns, so thank you. Sure.

All right. Thank you very much. Anybody have any questions? Yes.

Jerry Pollack question. So if there's 21 conditions, you know, that's quite a bit more than a lot of places. Are you... Are you in agreement with the 21 conditions? Do you feel that you can do those?

Yeah.

Okay. I'm good.

Any other discussion on this? All right. Thank you very much for your time. Okay. So what we have in front of us is... motion in a second um to approve with 21 conditions correct okay don't have a motion on the petition yet oh we don't nope right okay we're asking questions okay back up i'm just yeah i want to interrupt that no please um so do we have a motion i'll make a motion to approve the conditional use permit with the 21 included um

Conditions.

Okay.

As written. You need the magic words.

Yeah, you need to. Did you make findings of fact that it supports the eight standards for approval?

That's a new one for me.

Okay.

Sorry. I'll defer.

I can do it. I've got a lot of practice.

A lot more than I have. Yeah.

So I'll make a motion to approve based on findings of fact that the petition meets the standards of conditional use permits with the 21 conditions.

All right. We have a motion by Croning, second by Peterson to approve with the 21 conditions. Is there any other discussion or amongst the committee before we take a vote? All right, if not, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. All right, I think I lost my agenda. I buried it. There we go. There's a lot of paper tonight. Let's see, we have, yeah, okay, Platts and certified survey maps.

Yeah, the first one is a two-lot proposal in the town of Pleasant Springs for a landowner. Last name is Comstock. And the existing lot is a little over six-tenths of an acre, zoned single-family residential. The key thing to note here is it will not be served by a septic system. It will be served by the Kiganza Sanitary District, so no septic. There are no sensitive environmental features, but since this is a proposal where they're creating a lot and there's no reasonable petition associated with the land division, I always kick the application to our planners for review with regards to land use policies, comp plan stuff. And so at this point, I think... kick it off to Majeed to kind of provide an overview with the land use policies.

Excellent. It's late. I'm going to keep this brief and we have people been waiting here a long time to talk. So, you know, this one's slightly, I would say problematic from the staff perspective. The town policy is a case by case policy, and I run into this all the time. Love those. And in this instance, The town board sought that it was that it was suitable to approve this pending a change to their comprehensive plan, which is a bit unusual and not something that we can honestly really administer in this fashion. If there were a rezoning associated with it, we can impose a deed restriction and that would accomplish that objective. They've been informed that essentially they're on the hook to enforce their condition. And they understand that, I believe. So, you know, it's hard for me to say, oh, yeah, this one's completely consistent with the comprehensive plan. I will say that this is not a farmland preservation issue. This isn't an area that's developed properly. It's an existing subdivision on public sewer. I mean, if it makes sense to develop anywhere, it's probably within this area. But doing so can be tricky, as you can imagine. If you've got an established neighborhood, somebody now suddenly is building right next door to you, it may come as a surprise. So, you know, I've encouraged them to kind of iron out how they want their policies to work on infill development. I think they've gotten the memo. It meets our minimum requirements. You could argue both sides of the policy question, which is, you know, the minimum lot size they reference is the old zoning minimum lot size. And then in 2019, when we updated it, it went from it's now down to 8000 square feet for sewered lots again. They approved it. I am not going to stand in the way of this one, I guess, is what this amounts to. And they're apparently on the path towards ironing out their policies. It's just we haven't seen them yet.

Okay. So we...

So I'm going to recommend that you approve it with no conditions. The town will enforce their condition. Well, the town can choose whether or not to impose it.

I'll touch on that. So I do have in my report seven conditions with regards to... recommending approval subject to the seven conditions i am choosing to leave out what pleasant springs did with regards to requiring a deed restriction just from the standpoint that it's difficult for us to enforce and so We'll leave that up to them on how they want to enforce that. But if the committee chooses to approve the two-lot CSM, I am laying out the seven conditions, and I would share this with the applicant as well as the surveyor. And really, the only technical comment that I have on the map is I just want the governing setback lines to be removed from the map because setbacks... do have the ability to change over time, and I would hate to see somebody spend the money to redo their certified server map because setbacks are different in 20, 30 years or something. So it's just a little technical comment.

Okay. So has this been presented to the applicant?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

It's late.

Okay. So is the official recommendation then to propose or the reviewed, prepared the following? So the seven conditions approve, you know.

Staff recommends approval of the two lot CSM subject to the seven conditions in my report. Gotcha.

All right. So with that, would a committee member like to bring forth a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve with the seven conditions.

All right. We have a motion by Kronig to approve with the seven conditions. Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

All right. It's a second by Postler. Is there any further discussion about this petition before we take a vote?

Yes. Quick question. So just order of operations here. So the comp plan has not been approved, will be approved, like... This feels like cart before the horse to me.

It is a little bit. Again, because of the way the policies are worded in the current plan, it's not entirely internally consistent. They have approved prior situations similar to this. but they were above the 15,000 square foot. That's sort of the critical issue here is the case by case is fine, but they established, hey, we're gonna follow the district standards from a code that no longer exists. And so you've got some folks on their plan commission and board that are like, oh, well, we just move forward to the new, which is half of that size. And I'm there going, it would be good to dot that I because you're in an existing neighborhood and folks might be under certain impression.

I'm supportive, but I'm also like, this is highly unusual because it's like... I get that you can do, I mean, we have cups for a reason like that. You can do conditionals all the time. Right. But the fact that they're. Their comp plan from 2017 says we will only do this and then they break their own rules continuously on a case by case basis. I get under it, but it's just like. It just feels highly irregular. You set your own rules, follow your own rules. If you don't like that, change the rules. And now, again, I'll support it.

It's very transparent governance.

And you can see that play out because I included the minutes to their meeting. So you can kind of see that playing out where it was denied first. And then it sounds like the town chairman made an amendment with regards to this deed restriction prohibiting residential development until the plan gets updated. Yeah.

So, OK, in defense of that particular township, they are usually very by the book. And it's just that they're disagreeing on what the book says. Hopefully there's agreement on what it will say.

Yeah, it just these are the things that these cause problems. in the long run. So it's just, again, and I'll get off the soapbox here, but I am supportive, but I don't support it.

Join me on the soapbox because I've been standing on it trying to.

I don't like it, but I'll support it. And from what I understand, the existing house to the right is not going to be touched. And it's the way that when that house was constructed, it leaves just enough room of an envelope to the west to allow for another small home with a separate driveway. So.

We've discussed this internally. We've seen this in other towns and plans, right, where the comprehensive plan references zoning district or zoning ordinance particular standards. Well, that gets goofy when the zoning code might get changed or we just had the overhaul. But amending the town's land use plan is a long, complicated process typically. Yeah. So they can't just change that very quickly. Sure. But she's working on all that, right?

All right, so with all your talents.

Yeah, and I do want to thank Majeed on preparing a good report that kind of lays out everything involved, both sides. So that really does help.

Yeah.

With the housing crisis, I think any creative way, albeit messy and a little tricky is... Yeah, I guess we're going to get messy.

We have a lot of townships and villages and yeah.

Thank you, staff, for all you do.

Yes, we appreciate you. And that said, we have a motion and a second to approve with seven conditions. Any further discussion about this petition? All right. Before we take a vote, all in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries.

The next one. similar fashion where they have an existing lot and they're creating a second lot. The current zoning is RR2, which the minimum lot size is two acres. And currently the lot is about 8.7 acres. And so with the land use policies for the town of Verona, this could be divided, I think, two more times, from what I understand, as long as each lot is two acres. Bridget did reach out to the town with regards to making sure that this was consistent with their policies, and she got confirmation of that. And so this one's a little simpler. I have recommending approval with seven conditions.

All right. So what we have in front of us is staff's recommendation of approval with seven conditions. With that, would a committee member like to bring forth a motion?

Make a motion to approve the CSM with the seven conditions.

right we have a motion by postler to approve um this seven conditions and we have a second by peterson is there any questions comments or discussion before we take a vote um yeah i guess i kind of have a question for dan uh so you said it could be split three more times uh two more times as long as each lot is that's being proposed is a minimum of two acres and so um The new lot that's being created is exactly 2.0 acres. The remnant portion of the lot is a little over 6.5 acres. So theoretically, and Brigid does touch on this, I believe in her memo, that there is the possibility of two more splits. And we talked about this just five minutes ago. As long as the proposed lots have road frontage, So there are some nuances with, yes, you have the acreage to create lots, but do you have the road frontage or are you doing shared access easements? And those are the things that get complicated over time. But on this one here, it's a pretty simple proposal.

So any proposed ones down the road will have frontage and...

Hopefully. Okay. If there is another division of this 6.68 acres, it would come back through the committee.

Sure.

Unless they were to change their zoning for something and we'd have a rezone petition in front of us.

All right. Any other questions or discussions? All right, now we have a motion and a second to approve with seven conditions. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously. All right, our next item is item H, 2026.08.07, amending chapter 10 of the Dane County Code of Ordinances, removing certain conditional uses in agricultural and rural zoning districts. And let's see. So we're presenting this OA to us for initial discussion and questions. So the draft proposed OA can be further refined and scheduled for public hearing. And we have a couple speakers.

registering in case there's questions. We have Robert Proctor and Renee Laver. And as Michelle said, this was introduced by Supervisor Hustler at a recent county board meeting. So internally, we discussed the best path forward for an ordinance like this that staff hadn't had much internal time to work on and wanted to get some input from the committee. So brought it to a work meeting as opposed to schedule it directly for a public hearing, which would start a clock for ordinance amendments being sent out to the town and We have some initial information from Majeed as well as Todd.

As well, my concerns about this is unintended consequences of things that sound really good, but may or may not be. So I would like to iron some of that out before we cross the downing rule during this. Dane County Board meeting. So, Majeed.

Sure. Well, I think, you know, you're aware of this and, you know, some of the folks in this room that worked on this, at least the concept of it, are aware as well. And I think the primary one among those would be, you know, we have a number of, obviously, Dan could probably tell us the exact number of mineral extraction sites that we have currently active in Dane County that are permitted under a conditional use in one of the zoning categories and um i think the concern is that if those and many of them are going to have time limitations on them and when they you know perhaps they're coming in for the next phase of their operation they would have to run two gauntlets they would need to change the zoning and then request a conditional use permit So, point forward for new operations, I think there's support for requiring the zoning change. There are a number of reasons for that, and ultimately it will strengthen both the town and the county's decision-making authority in that regard. But for those existing sites, I think we're looking for a possible solution that would allow them to, in effect, be grandfathered as conditional uses. those districts not sort of in perpetuity but that they would only need to apply for a conditional use permit we need to explore that concept and as a hopefully artful way to address the issue with Corp Council and I don't think we've gotten anything back from them yet on that idea but that's the direction we're looking at for again for existing permitted sites to have a shorter distance to get their you know next say extension of an existence um yeah so any okay so that's something we're well aware of i think there's support from um the towns on that and um another thing that had been discussed is uh so the dis the uses that are being removed from the ag districts and again one of the big things i want to be clear on this is that One of the criticisms we've heard is that these are really substantial land uses that aren't necessarily always compatible with agriculture. Could they in 30, 40, 50 plus years be returned to agricultural use? Of course. But in the moment, they're not. So getting them into a district that is more reflective of the actual land use was something of interest. So we have what's called rural industrial zoning category that was established in part for that very purpose in the 2019 code update. And You know, it's been, I would say, underutilized. I think we have maybe less than 20. Certainly, I want to say it's like 13 to 15 RI zone parcels in the county. In any case, that district could be a landing place for these conditional uses. It would be an option for a new quarry to rezone into. or for a new solar installation. But one of the other thoughts, because RI does allow a number of other conditional uses that might potentially be objectionable, is to create a single use zoning category for mineral extraction. We are aware that some counties take that approach. Very clear then what the intended use is within that district. So that's another thing that's being explored. I don't think there's any objection to that. I think that would also likely be supported, but it would add to the amount of, well, certainly the number of articles in this ordinance amendment before it goes to public hearing. So those are the things we're working on. And I think, you know, this having a kick at it in advance, even at 9 p.m. after a long meeting. So I'll leave it there. Happy to answer any questions you may have and

um do you have a question todd has apparently something to offer sorry please and you know majeed said it all very nicely i just wanted to share too that um First, we appreciate our collaboration with the Towns Association. We have been in conversations with them for a long time, and this is actually a concept that has been around for a number of years following Act 67 at the state level. So it's something that we've known is kind of out there. I think there's a very good opportunity to work together on something. there are we are beginning to be contacted by members of in particular the mineral extraction industry and we do have mister proctor here tonight uh... And I wanted to share a phone call that I received from our county highway commissioner, Clement Abongwa. And he's been contacted by industries related to the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and I believe the Wisconsin Asphalt Providers Association, if I got those association names correctly, expressing concerns to him from a transportation perspective about issues if a proposal like this would in any way impede access to whether it be aggregate or the associated processing like asphalt and concrete that might be the concern being that if it's the location or siting of those uses were made more difficult. So that's something that we want to balance with this. And the concern that we've heard for many years with aggregate is a necessary product for a growing entity like Dane County. We're growing by more people than anywhere else in the state each year. So it's about balance and trying to find compatibility between uses and how they're cited. And we have many good aggregate producers, very responsible producers, and it can be done successfully. But as we approach this, this ordinance amendment and the subjective of our towns, I think there is a win-win-win opportunity as we talk through some of these issues. But I did assure the highway commissioner that I would raise those concerns that have been brought to him. And I believe Mr. Proctor is here as well to represent some similar perspective. But as staff, we're certainly committed to working with the towns and our supervisors and Supervisor Postler on this amendment.

Yeah, one of the things I would ask is how would this affect like, I know sometimes if like a non-conforming quarry, if they don't rock the boat and try to do anything different, they just can stay that way and fly under the radar. Would this be kind of prohibitive of them trying to come in and become a conforming quarry or rezone? You know what I mean? Like would that prevent, you know, that sort of thing?

Yeah, the diminishing assets, that whole grandfather non-conforming registered 1969 stuff was so complicated for so many years when it comes to, you know, trying to... gauge development in the rural areas of the county, because for so many years, there was this underlying status that nobody really knew about it. And we worked so hard for so many years to undo that and make it more public with our GIS mapping. We now require the deed notice to be recorded that puts everything on notice. So when the landowner comes out into the country and says, this is my dream spot to build, everybody has an understanding that there is a potential for a grandfathered registered site, even though it looks like a cornfield. And so that is the thing by, you know, working so hard. I can't remember what year that was to be done with that. What's grandfathered, what's not land use conflicts with with neighbors out in the rural areas. I think for the most part, it's resolved itself. And that's the beautiful thing. And there are some basic rules that the grandfather sites have to adhere to. And so, you know, are we going to be doing this all over again with an existing conditional use permit site? I just don't know how that plays out. I really don't.

And that's certainly something that we've tapped into Corporation Council to get some better understanding of are we setting ourselves up for a new wave of non-conforming sites and what would the industry lobby for in those situations like they did that got us into that situation years ago that took us decades to figure out a way to regulate land use fairly. And I think that's... what we try to do when we regulate these land uses and as you pointed out you know let's make sure that we you know understand what the repercussions of such a change would be before we even introduce that change right yes yeah so i do really appreciate this i think it's

I appreciate you bringing this forward. I think what's interesting is it really puts home rule back in the town's hands in a lot of ways. I am curious about... And I'm just asking questions. I'm not trying to poke holes in anything. I'm curious about the solar situation, right? Doesn't the PSC over a certain megawatt... So, like, is that, if I'm reading this right, like, we tried to, like, remove that entirely, but it's kind of like a null point, right, for anything over 100?

Yeah, that would still be subject to state rules, and it'd be out of our hands in terms of zoning. Right. My understanding.

Under 100 is subject to county zoning. Right.

Right.

And I, again, and maybe I'm in the weeds here, but, you know, and it is getting late, but I just think that, is that something worth pointing out, or? like, and I know corporation council hates to put things that are flowery or try to like clarify something. It just, it's just the facts, ma'am. Right. But I just, it's, it, I always think about the political side of things and the policy of, like, what does this represent? Like, you give the veil of, oh, now towns can approve regardless of the size, right? Because Cottage Grove has a very large solar farm, right? And there was definitely some opposition to that. And with these changes, it could represent – again, I don't know. I'm asking questions, so don't take this for gospel, but it's like – it could represent to the public like, oh, we get full control regardless of the size now, but like anything over 100 in PSC trumps everybody, right? So like, I'm just, that's the question I'm asking is like, is that something you want to account for? David, it's late. We need to go home.

and we probably do need to get, go ahead. I'm just gonna say, so what you're not seeing in this amendment is if you were to look at say the FP 35 district under permitted uses, there's mirroring provisions. One that says essentially these uses, including solar, that basically are authorized to be, in other words, we have a provision that speaks to that very issue. It's not very artfully worded, but the gist of it is very clear that our ordinance is trumped by other state or federal law. So something can be placed there, and we're just saying, okay, great, it's a permitted use. So Kashkanang solar, for example, over 100 megabytes, go through the PSC process, we would consider that a permitted use. Okay. And is that in chapter just for my own? It's in chapter 10. Yeah, it is. It's literally in the provision above each. So we have ordinances, you know, district permitted, then conditional, and that's under the permitted. Cool. Thank you.

Imagine it's like part of staff or something we could look into for this. If there's questions on solar or potential impacts, we might look at industry trends in terms of site of size of sites. Because we have heard I think recently that medium or smaller scale sites are going to be more likely to be promoted or proposed? So yeah, we do see some of that.

You know, I helped staff at the county's data center committee. And today, that very question came up about this, you know, not that this is going to take place here in Dane County, but the cumulative impact of, say, a large data center proposal that needs energy demand, and they're looking for solar. And so now a big solar project, what is the impact on our farmland preservation goals on our other you know, planning objectives. So, you know, there's a lot to unpack there. But at the end of the day, as Todd indicated, this is something that, you know, has been bandied about for now almost 10 years. So the finer points and getting that stuff right, I think is certainly worth the effort. And, you know, we'll, we'll be trying to get that accomplished here in the next several weeks.

Okay. Um, Yeah, because we want to avoid creating more problems than we're solving in the process.

I mean, that's, you know, for everybody.

I would be interested in hearing from Mr. Proctor about, you know, I'd like to issue from, and I'd like to hear from, you know, Towns Association as well about, you know, concerns and potentially, you know, benefits, costs, you know,

Yep. So I'm Robert Proctor. I'm a land use attorney. I'm here for the aggregate producers of Wisconsin. And I understand where this is coming from. And it's the idea of local control. And that's not always the issue. But this is certainly not intended to create more aggregate production in Dane County. The issue, though, is the use of aggregate in Dane County isn't going to go down. And this becomes an affordability issue. The average home in Dane County uses 250 to 400 tons of aggregate. The average one mile two lane road. 12 to 18,000 tons, one mile four lane, 60 to 100,000 tons. As you make the aggregate come in from a longer distance, it's gonna cost a lot more and it's a lot more trucking to keep on it. So you talk about bringing it in from 50 miles, you've just doubled the cost of that one mile road for people in Dane County. You also talk about earlier about housing and housing affordability. You have the entire Dane County housing strategy and the less available aggregate in Dane County, as you know, the fastest growing county in the state, the more expensive, probably maybe one of the most extensive expensive parts about a house that's going to occur. So you've got the first issue is affordability, which dies the death of a thousand cuts. It really does. And you're growing so fast in Dane County that this is one of those unintended consequences where you say, why is it more expenses to build in Dane County than most places in the state? And as to aggregate, I already tell you, you're already the most restrictive county. I do aggregate all over the state, and it's already harder to do aggregate production in Dane County than anywhere else. So it's not as if you're not taking care of the residents. And it's not that things can't be done better. I think a great point that was up before was the transparency and knowing where things are and how they're going to work. But if you're going to make all of any new aggregate get a rezoning, that's not so that we can get more aggregate and make housing and road construction cheaper. Also, it would, I think, eliminate the asphalt and concrete production sites so that you would have the temporary ones, which will probably be a huge deal for the DOT, for the county, for anybody. having to pay for roads and have it done. The next issue is the carbon footprint gets way worse. As you bring all of these trucks that have to come from outside of the county to bring all of the aggregate into the county that's going to be used, which is just the fastest growing county, that is a carbon footprint issue. That is a climate choice. These aggregate sites are not environmental problems. This is sand and gravel and backhoes pulling it out. And this is the unintended consequence of more trucks traveling farther, using more gas, driving on the roads, and more environmental impact. And then the last thing is going to be the legal challenge. anytime you take a property that's being used and then you re then you change the zoning to say it can no longer be used it's a legal non-conforming use the first answer in the memorandum that says that at the end of the conditional use permit they would have to go and rezone go to rezoning and get a conditional use permit is just not consistent with the law if that was true you would be seeing it happen a lot more that type of changes to zoning so that's another thing that needs to be cleaned up and another thing you're going to run into is vested rights because As soon as this gets introduced and ready to go, you'll start seeing everybody put a shovel in the ground in order to expand their pits as they're allowed to do under. And so I guess my more thing is there is a parade of horribles out there, but there's a chance potentially hopefully for a win-win-win. I think that Dane County really needs an aggregate strategy. I understand that people don't like living next to it, and I understand and get that the towns don't like losing control, And I understand, but I also understand people want affordable houses, that streets are expensive, and that the aggregate's going to get used. So there's got to be a path that preserves, that somehow balances that. And as Todd talked about, gets everybody to a win-win-win, as opposed to just kind of passing an ordinance that just kind of doesn't really address all of the substance there. Kind of more like a, you know, so... I'm happy to answer any questions.

Robert, do you think that, I mean, this is a process change, not a ban. Do you, I mean, obviously extraction is still allowed. It just runs through a rezone plus a cup instead of a cup alone. obviously there's, you know, it's like an application, a fee, a risk, a talented note. I mean, does that, do you really think that will, and I'm not, we can debate what would happen because it actually has to happen. But I'm just curious for your perspective, like, do you, do you really think, and I don't have an opinion on this, do you really think it would move the price that much?

I think that, and it was said before aggregate is, the existing sites only have so much aggregate. And so if I do think, I don't want to speak for the authors, but I think the, I don't know about the intent, but I do believe that the outcome will be that you won't see as many sites. I mean, as far as just being good for the environment or affordability, I feel like that trains a little bit left. In Dane County, because and I don't see new sites being approved in the rezoning process. Certainly not significant. So if you're going to have the fastest growing county. And you're going to use the most aggregate. and you're going to be the hardest county to, or maybe the most difficult to get an aggregate approved, then it's got to come, it's going to come.

It's going to come from somewhere, right?

It's absolutely going to come from somewhere, and it's going to come from outside of the county.

Just a quick follow-up.

Yeah, go ahead.

We're already the hardest place to do new aggregate anyways. Yeah. And again, I'm just asking questions. I don't have an opinion on this, right? But I enjoy the conversation with you anyways. But it's like, has the train already left the station? Like, is it already like...

Well, I don't think it has. I think there's a real discussion to be had to be like, okay, what are the town's concerns about where they're being cited? What are people's concerns about where they're being cited? And how are we going to make sure we meet our aggregate demand so Dane County is not more expensive than every place else? And so that's where you'd like to see it. There's lots of ways. create barriers. You just change your comp plan to not allow for it anywhere. I mean, like this isn't, I really think there's an opportunity here and it's not just asking Corp Council how to draft the godfathering for, to avoid conditional use lawsuits. There's like, how do we keep housing affordable? How do we not create an economic problem with, because I mean, we all know that farmland preservation that created a ring of suburbs around Dane County and people driving in, you know, there's always these unintended, like just saying, well, we'll just kick it to the rest of the counties to create the aggregate and we'll bring it in. I don't think that's the answer anybody wants. I think what the towns want, and I don't want to speak for them is a transparent process. process where their concerns are addressed. And I don't think anybody would object to that. And so I'm just saying that if you just pass it without thinking it through, I think it's going to be another barrier to production. And that will just be another one of those cuts that when people say, why is it so unaffordable? And there's also, and I really feel about the environmental issue. I think that's just not, the amount of stuff that gets trucked here should not be underestimated on the carbon footprint. And I'm sure that nobody supports, everybody wants to see that better. I'm not saying, so that's another unintended issue.

Truck traffic also causes damages to the roads that we need aggregate so we can repair the roads and then we have this diminishing returns piece.

We'd really like to see a win-win-win. I can sometimes sound bashing. I don't mean to sound that way. What we really would like to see is a win-win-win that goes beyond just how do we deal with non-conforming uses, as opposed to how do we deal with the real issue of aggregate production and being able to satisfy the need

couple questions one i would be interested and i don't know if everybody else this is an opportunity to create something that goes more smooth because these are the things that hang us up i mean i would like to prevent some of the mess that we've had to deal with with um worries and and you know um and the impact on the town and the impact on the townships themselves sometimes and they're you know i mean we've had elections turnover as a result and i think this is a real opportunity to find a way to retool how this works so that it's smoother. I don't, you know, I'm assuming I don't, I can't speak to what your motivations are, but I'm assuming it's a manner of tightening up the process. So it, there are boundaries that are clear and transparent, et cetera, that avoid some of the back and forth arguments about what the definition of this is and what the definition of that is, or at least Knowing, speaking with you personally, that's how I see this tapped.

Yep.

Correct. Okay. I guess I do have a question for Naye about the township's, you know, motivation behind the process and intentions as well. Because I want to know, you know, this is in your district and I... You know, what's the goal?

Sure. So Renee Lauber, the executive director of the Dane County Towns Association, and I have Jim Maple with me from the town of Deerfield.

Planning Commission.

Yes. So our goal, this all started when the Towns Association supported OA 23-2024, which was It's pretty recent. It was 2025 before it got going. And we basically... As you know, for CUPs, now the towns are advisory. So that was a big deal. And when you're talking local control, which is basically our goal here for the towns that are still in Dane County zoning. And so we followed up that support of that OA with a survey to our towns and then followed that up with creating a working group. And they use that survey as guidance. And they decided that the focus would be on recommendations limiting industrial conditional uses in agricultural zoning districts. So that is more than mineral extraction. This is about local control. It's not about mineral extraction. This is about what happened from Act 67 with the whole conditional use permit process, which made it a quasi-judicial instead of more of a legislative act when you're going for the COPs. So this is what some other counties have been doing in just kind of going back or trying to go back to before Act 67, basically. And that's kind of where we started. As Majid had said, when we were looking at this... And since that memo went out, which is a little bit old at this point, it was revised based on town feedback that we got from the... We sent it out to all the towns and then it was revised again just... Last week, I think I had communicated with Supervisor Posler that, you know, impact on large tracts of land, having a single-use zoning category is something we would totally support, and also the... for existing mineral extraction uses. We have no desire to shut them down, anything like that. We are looking to the future for land use decisions for towns. We are not looking to go back. And so that's where the idea of some type of grandfathering in our intent is just looking to the future and local control. Do you have anything you wanted to add to that?

No. And I think the... non-metallic metal extraction companies are just fantastic. And you're absolutely right. We have to have it. We have to have it for all the asphalt on the roads. As we're redoing the roads, I see all of this going. But some of these things that are conditional use permits have nothing to do with agriculture. And that's what we're looking at. How do you pull them out? And there's so many things that we have to work at. If you have a zoning just for that business, it would be a permitted use. There wouldn't be conditional uses anymore. So if there's a way that we could make it easier to accomplish these things with just a zoning change, those are all things that we have to talk about and we have to look at. We're not trying to inhibit anybody. We're just trying to get these things that are truly not agricultural things

out of those zoning and that that's what sparked this hall so if we were talking that's something that clicks for me so if like there was a rezone that pretty much covered that particular conditional use permit would that would that help bring down the cost I mean, if you didn't have to do two actions, you know what I mean?

If it didn't require a conditional use. Right, right. Otherwise, it's adding a layer of government and procedure and expenses inherently, I would argue. Right. On some level.

Not that that's not necessarily... $500 that it's adding to the process when you... At least that last time I checked.

I guess I'm speaking to not only the application fees, which I think are a drop in the bucket, but speaking as a former consultant and now in a longtime government employee position, the experience just at Dane County with the uses like asphalt, even temporary plants or quarries, like we have seen some of our most contentious meetings, right? Petition carrying forward to multiple county meetings, I'm sure multiple town meetings, all of those involving consultants and things like that, that adds up to a significant. It's just a significant effort for everybody involved from the applicants to towns, landowners to staff, everybody touches these things. So I appreciate that there's a good conversation about what might this look like and what could the potential effects be.

Would it be a benefit to us to bring in, like, Dane County Highway and to, like, schedule a work meeting that would bring more people in to have kind of, as well as Corp Council, because, you know... kind of come in and you know really build something together and dedicate a meeting for that so that you know because people want to come to the table and be heard about this i mean absolutely and i had i can't name how many times there's dane county towns association meetings and i'm supposed to be at three other committee meetings that you know so i'd love to go to all of them but i can't i can't be four people um i've tried but um would that be something we could entertain just, just to kind of like, you know, not blow this up, but maybe think outside the box a little bit on how we approach this particular issue. So we could build something that, um, works for everybody and has clear definitions. So people, you know, just because something smells bad, doesn't mean it's toxic. You know, um, it just because something sounds good, doesn't mean it's great for everybody. So, um, I don't know if that would be a... Yeah.

If I could just speak to kind of my intent of this, because obviously I partnered with the Talents Association on a lot of the, kind of the... you know, their work group essentially came up with the recommendations. But why I support this and why I think it's great is obviously the local control piece is something that is a challenge for our local plan commissions. And, you know, actually earlier tonight, I voted against my town in my own district because sometimes comp plans aren't incredibly clear. And I do agree there's probably a better way we could look at this and try to see, you On a future use map, where are those mineral sites? I mean, you can use lidar to figure out where all the gold is buried and if we can identify that and have that on a planning document, that's going to be something that I think is going to make it easier to know what those future land uses are also protect the farmland. Give the local control aspect of it. So I'm very open to changing anything. I threw this away through the process basically to start the discussion. And I'd be happy to hear all industries, all interested parties I've heard from. A few folks in the concrete industry regarding this, too. They have a few concerns about the perishability of the product and with regard to the location of batch plants. And I think that that is certainly a fair call out. I guess just for the sake of understanding my intent here is I do want to emphasize the local control and helping the towns do that while also protecting farmland and also just smart growth. Dane County is growing unbelievably fast. We need this material. And if we don't have a better way other than just Well, there it is. I guess now we'll, we'll go through a conditional use permit and, and see what happens. Um, cause that's also not a super clean process either. So, um, I guess moral of the story, those are kind of the things why I was willing to sign on and, um, and get the ball started on this, but I'm very open to hearing all sides of, uh, all sides of the equation and, um, and working together to, to find something that works for everybody. So, uh,

Oh, so I did have a question. So in the OA, you list several things that are non-agriculture you'd like to have pulled out of. Would you be amenable to us just basically taking mineral extraction and working that process first before we do the other stuff as well?

Certainly, especially when we figure out how to, quote, grandfather the existing companies in so they don't have to do anything more than what they were looking towards. But the other thing is the townships need to be looking ahead, and not only are they identifying areas that could be future commercial development, but should be looking at areas that could be future industrial development. designate and find these areas so it helps the industry be able to find some of those. And if that's passed in their plan, their 10-year plan, that assists in making this all happen. So there's a lot of ramifications that have to be looked at here. The reason I say that is I'm the one that works on that plan.

I mean, I kind of agree with you. Unfortunately, Dane County is probably eventually going to move away from being predominantly rural and being more predominantly urban. But, you know, if we do it smart, it will work out better than if we just... We're still very agricultural, so don't even...

I just really want to kind of go back to this is more about the CUP process. This is more about how towns have become advisory to the CUP process since April of 2025. And this is more about that. This is not... a focus on mineral extraction or anything like that. This is about that process, and this is about local control and putting towns back in on that process instead of, you know, where they are right now.

I have just one observation that this idea of like, oh, let's bring people. There's a word for that. It's called a committee. And I don't know that we have the capacity to staff a committee at this point in time. Under the circumstances, there have been prior mineral extraction committees, I think. And I'm not suggesting that there isn't a win, win, win. But at the end of the day. This is a political issue, right? You've got towns that want to control their destiny. You've got aggregate that, you know, nature placed in certain areas. And we've got development that's occurred as a result of, you know, folks building and investing, you know, and we see this play out. I mean, there's a reason why. these meetings go long and that there are people parading in here because they live there. They've made those investments. So I'm not, I just want to caution that.

I understand.

What we're going to do here is.

If we could get it to stick to the facts, you know, like Kong, you know, like things rather than feelings. I mean. A presentation.

We have discussed in the past, like that, that our CUP standards in chapter 10 are kind of, and sometimes it's, despite the best efforts to write them and the fact that they're similar to most other ordinances, they can be kind of subjective, right? So people are, maybe there is no way to avoid that, right? There will be arguments inherently, but when people get up and say, well, this will affect my property values or dispatch plan is going to ruin the whole neighborhood. But then you have to balance that with the fact that we need these things and we're growing and that's a good thing. Right. Yeah, that's a tall order, and I would agree that a very political one affecting many people as far as how do you write an objective standard that would enable better decision-making on these land uses. It would help us. We've discussed it many times as staff.

I know from a committee point of view, we would like to hear back from Corp Council on, you know, grandfathering in and kind of see where that goes and what the issues are.

And I think from my standpoint, I'd like to hear about, you know, if like, you know, dedicated districts for these types of uses, you know, would it be limited to size and scale? And again, where does the state of Wisconsin come in anyways? Because I want all of that out there. Like, I don't want, you know, I think people get mad at us because the DNR does things and I'm like, I'm sorry, but, you know, like... You know, this is the county, but we're still subject to, you know, we have to follow laws too. So I feel like I need more information before I could make a decision on this. So whatever we can do to facilitate getting that information in front of us. So a presentation would be great, you know, and if it could involve, you know, some of the things like, you know, citing these sites, you know, a presentation on where these conditional use permits go sideways fast. And if we could look at that, I think it's more than, I think this deserves more than just a sweeping, well, we're going to do this. And then in five, you know, we changed, chapter, you know, we changed it in 2025, and now we have other problems. So we don't want to overcorrect so that we create more problems. Because that's where people lose faith in their government. So we want to put a, like, a meeting on the schedule, like, for a future meeting that has light agenda to, like, discuss this for a light agenda. Yeah, sorry, don't laugh too hard. This only had a few things on the agenda. Yes.

I think this was a great discussion. We heard a lot of perspectives and maybe what could be helpful is, is if we as staff get together, we stay in communication with the various parties.

You guys are the experts. Thank you, Todd. Would that be okay with? That would be, yeah, I mean, that's what we expected. Okay.

Okay, good, yay.

We wanted to prove tonight.

No, we were not thinking about action tonight.

But no, this like raised a lot of questions.

You know, we've got a long way to go to make this work.

And there are tools out there, especially within our ordinances, that just aren't utilized.

So we should probably creatively look at those things.

For example, a landowner operator has the ability to register a site, even though they're not opening anything up, they're not asking for a permit, but they can record this document with the Register of Deeds.

it basically is registering a potential marketable deposit and it is a planning tool it's in chapter 74 and it's been there for 26 years yeah and i wouldn't have granted i live in the village of mazo so there's not gonna be a quarry in my backyard but you know my chickens might object all right they need grit too They do. They really do. Oh, no. Okay. So is there any further discussion that we need to have? So we're going to settle on having planning and development, do that planning and development part, and tell us what we need to do next. Thank you, everybody, for this discussion. And thank you for bringing this to us. Thank you. Okay.

Is there anything else on the agenda? I lost it again.

Okay. We have Jerry's moment. So somebody want to channel a Jerry here? Motion to adjourn?

I got it.

All right.

Fossler moves to adjourn.

Is there any objection to adjourning? If there's not, I'm going to say we're adjourned. And I'd like to thank everybody here tonight because you guys are awesome.