[0:41] Well, welcome to the community to develop a committee, March 21st edition. We'll start out by introducing ourselves and who we represent.

[0:53] Sean Anderson District 2 represent part of St. Joseph Township and part of Somerset Town.

[1:01] Ryan Sterling district 13 and represent part of the city of Nürtsman.

[1:08] Jerry Van Zollman, represent district 18 and that's pretty much a village of Baldwin and a little bit out north about to the primary area.

[1:18] Scott Conor represent for district 11, which is most of St. Perry township, a sliver of New York City.

[1:27] Richmond area and the village of Starbury.

[1:33] My name is Dan Hanson and I'm district 12 and I'll represent the rest of

[1:37] the Richmond.

[1:41] I'm Jason Sheesett, Community Development Director,

[1:47] Ken Wint, County Administrator.

[1:50] John Hilger's planner, Community Development Department.

[1:55] Julie Peterson, Community Development Department.

[1:59] All right.

[2:00] The first on our agenda is approval for the minutes of Thursday, February 15.

[2:06] Does anybody have any questions, comments or concerns?

[2:10] Then let's just let those stand as approved.

[2:14] And we'll move right into our public hearing, opening public hearing for...

[2:20] Oh, yeah, okay, public comment.

[2:22] Is there anybody in the audience?

[2:24] Well, sure.

[2:31] I'm going to guess, let me just guess it's Kim Dupri.

[2:35] Very good. Kim Dupri, Marina and St. Karimina Soda.

[2:39] But I do extensive work with the folks over here concerning water quality.

[2:43] I just wanted to give you a quick update from what I was here last month.

[2:46] Emerald Sky Dairy, we got confirmation from both county and DNR that they have been purchased by the

[2:57] And so anyway, they have a Ridge Breeze dairy down in Pierce County that is currently permitted with a Vanguard renewables digester.

[3:08] And so I went to bring tonight the folks that I've been working with in Wapaqa, Wisconsin.

[3:14] They've done a lot of digging one of them's a Ph.D. researcher.

[3:17] And she came up with their non-compliance, their violations in Massachusetts and Vermont.

[3:25] We've got 52 of them in the last three years.

[3:29] And some of these are very concerning, because they're like hydrogen sulfide,

[3:33] being an excess of 500 parts per million, which can kill humans very quickly.

[3:40] That happened about four times.

[3:41] There was some very close calls around the 400 mark.

[3:44] So, I just wanted to bring this to your attention, because Emerald Skydairy does have a bio-gas

[3:51] Lotment in their permit

[3:53] From 2001. So I want you to be aware of this. Maybe get out of head of it. It might be a good idea

[4:01] And then I'll just give you a quick update about Lynn Township in Wapaka. I wouldn't spoke there if they're public hearing of every 28th

[4:09] The township denied the Dialgestor there in Lintownship in Wapaka County.

[4:15] They base that off of the truck traffic.

[4:16] It was going to generate the herd size of the dairy.

[4:20] The zoning changes were going to be intensive industrial.

[4:25] And they have other parts in the township that are zoned for that.

[4:29] And didn't feel that putting an island in the middle of the township

[4:32] would be a good idea long term.

[4:34] That was their rationale because they have the utilities and stuff set up in other parts of the township for that's types of

[4:42] facilities

[4:43] They were worried about the pipeline standards

[4:44] They were worried about the flaring off of the gas that doesn't get shipped out

[4:49] They were very very very concerned about the first responder stuff because a lot of these stacks are a lot higher than what the ladders are for the fire trucks

[4:58] So they were very concerned about that as well

[5:02] And again, they didn't want anything in the middle of the township, so they denied that I guess because they're under county zoning, this might go before their whole county board.

[5:11] So they're, it's not over quite yet, but I just want to give you that update, that's what's going on.

[5:16] And that bank, our company is the same one that is the same, we're working with the breeze group that might end up at Emeralds.

[5:23] So that's my update. I'll let you know when we know more, thanks.

[5:29] Thank you, Kevin, is there anybody else in the audience that would like to speak for

[5:32] public comment?

[5:35] All right.

[5:36] Then let's start this public hearing concerning rezoning in the town of

[5:40] Ogali for Ericsson.

[5:51] Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members.

[5:53] The public hearing tonight is for a rezoning application by the Bruce and

[5:57] Jane Ericsson living trust.

[5:59] This is in the town of Ogali.

[6:00] It's a 47 acre parcel.

[6:02] We'll get to a location map in just a minute.

[6:04] So, the current zoning is egg one agricultural, the applicant is seeking an R2 residential zoning district.

[6:16] The application specifies that the intention is to obtain the R2 zoning designation for this 47-acre parcel,

[6:24] which would align it with other properties that the trust owns along 30th Avenue just to the southeast of the subject parcel.

[6:31] As a reminder for committee members, the current egg one zoning district allows

[6:36] egg or cultural uses in limited residential development with the density of one

[6:41] dwelling unit per 40 acres. Under the R2 zoning district, most egg or cultural

[6:47] uses would be allowed, except major livestock facilities, egg entertainment, and

[6:53] biopower and manure processing uses. The R2 zoning district would allow major

[6:58] subdivisions, which an intolerable galley would be two acre lot minimums. It is not the intention

[7:05] of the applicant to do any development at this time. Again, it is to align this parcel with

[7:11] other parcels that are owned by the trust.

[7:19] Next, just taking a look at some of the general location

[7:22] maps,

[7:25] a 47 acre parcel outline in blue at the tip of the arrow, like south of Coney Inn and south

[7:31] the I-94 in the town of O'Galea, and then zooming in just a little bit farther, you'll see

[7:38] 200, sorry about that.

[7:43] You'll see 230th Avenue along the west side of the parcel. The

[7:48] general area is comprised of farm areas, which are cropped. You'll see scattered woodland

[7:54] areas. You'll see some intermittent streams that kind of bicec the property, and then we have

[7:59] livestock facility, just to the southwest, along 230th Avenue.

[8:06] General features the property taken a quick look at the zoning map.

[8:10] You'll see in the town of O'Galley the do support a number of different zoning districts.

[8:14] We'll talk about in just a minute with the comprehensive plan.

[8:17] But the subject parcel outlined in blue is currently zone A1, surrounded by various zoning

[8:23] districts, agricultural zoning districts, and the R1 and R2 categories.

[8:31] Next we take a look at the tonalogale comprehensive plan.

[8:34] In accordance with state statute, rezoning requirements or rezoning applications must

[8:39] be consistent with state statute.

[8:42] So take a look at the tonalogale future land use map from their comprehensive plan.

[8:47] You'll see the subject property outlined in red.

[8:50] Again, this is from the Tonovogale plan.

[8:53] You'll see the areas in white would support egg 1 and egg 2 zoning districts along with residential, the R1 and R2 districts.

[9:03] The Tonovogale, while they do support agricultural activity in their town, they also support the ability for owners to subdivide their property for residential development.

[9:13] The town also supports the C2 zoning district in this white area, and again that would be a zoning that would allow egg entertainment uses, not the subject of this rezoning application.

[9:27] Tonovogale, future land use summary, a couple policies they reference from their comprehensive

[9:32] plan is to create a balance between residential and commercial growth along with their

[9:37] egg production and also promoting economic growth but retain the real character of the

[9:42] town. Next, we take a quick look at the county comprehensive plan. County policy has been

[9:49] to match and reflect the comprehensive plans of the local tones.

[9:55] So for this reason, the county comprehensive plan

[9:59] designates this property as a mixed rural agriculture.

[10:03] You can see from this designation that includes farmland,

[10:06] scattered open lands, wooded areas, egg-related uses, cottage industries,

[10:11] and limited low-density residential.

[10:14] So from that aspect, the county future land use map would also be

[10:19] system with the rezoning application, the designation in the county

[10:24] complaint would support A1, A2, R1 or R2 residential. Next we'll take a

[10:30] quick look at the natural resource map. The map on the screen shows that

[10:35] the property is included with an environmental courtyard along the south

[10:39] and east edge. And as mentioned earlier, that corresponds to some

[10:43] intermittent streams that run through the property that are more active

[10:47] after heavier precipitation events.

[10:53] You'll see from the diagram up above part of the property

[10:56] to the southeast is within a shore land overlay district, which is regulated by the county.

[11:01] These are areas within 1,000 feet of a navigable water, shown by this pond in the very

[11:08] lower corner within 1,000 feet. The property is also included within a floodplain overlay district,

[11:16] which kind of follows one of the intermittent streams. The county does have regulations

[11:21] that oversees short development in the shore land, they're regulated by chapter 16 and that

[11:28] establishes setbacks and pervious area limits, land disturbance and buffer vegetation requirements,

[11:34] if and when this property would ever get developed. Chapter 18 floodplain outlines the use of

[11:40] property having to comply with elevated structure requirements and limits on grading and filling.

[11:48] Next, we take a look at productive farmland.

[11:51] You'll see that some of the property does indicate soils that are considered a prime

[11:55] agriculture, but if you look at the remainder of the property, we have some areas of steep

[12:00] slopes in the middle and also some areas of gravel and sand deposits.

[12:05] So while some of this property is considered a prime agriculture, about half of it, does not

[12:10] meet that requirement based on our soil mapping layers.

[12:15] Next, we take a look at the agency review of the tonal lagale reviewed this request at their February 12th, 2024 meeting and the tone board recommended approval of the rezoning application.

[12:29] Following that, we have our technical review findings outlining one through four referencing tone policies and the request not being in conflict with the county resource management plan or chapter 15 zoning.

[12:43] We also say having to be consistent with the comprehensive plans of both the tone and the

[12:49] county.

[12:50] Again, we talked about natural resource, management plan, zoning ordinance, another

[12:55] criteria is that the tone is not disapproved the request and that the rezoning and use is

[13:01] consistent with the complaint that does not result in spot zoning, which it does not.

[13:08] Next, take a look at the staff recommendation and findings based on our review and the

[13:14] consideration of the request, we would recommend approval of the rezoning of the 47 acres

[13:19] to the R2 district based on the technical review findings. Number two, the future land use plan maps

[13:26] of both the town and county compliance support the rezoning request that the town board is recommended

[13:33] approval of the request and that the proposed use is consistent with and can comply with chapter

[13:39] 15 zoning. And then with all requests coming out of the egg districts, we have to reference

[13:46] in our findings a number of answers to questions about the land being better suited for

[13:54] a use not allowed in the farmland preservation district. That the rezoning is consistent with

[13:58] the applicable comprehensive plan. That the rezoning is substantially consistent with the

[14:09] repair, limit agricultural uses surrounding this parcel of land, which it will not.

[14:18] As of 430 today, we have not received any public comments from the public notice that

[14:25] was sent to a budding owners and published in the local paper.

[14:29] That concludes the overview of this request.

[14:33] Next John, I'll ask if there's anybody from the public who'd like to comment, either in

[14:39] favor or opposed to this rezoning.

[14:47] All right, seeing none is a committee have any questions for John.

[14:53] I will close the public hearing and move into business item number one.

[14:59] And at this time.

[15:00] I would look for a motion.

[15:07] I make a motion that we grant this rezoning. The Bruce Erson.

[15:13] Very good. Is there a second? There's a second. Now is there any discussion?

[15:21] Seeing none. Let's put her to a vote.

[15:31] All of

[15:31] So, a presentation from Washington County, Minnesota,

[15:38] Land of Water, June, come on up there and introduce yourself.

[15:46] Thank you.

[15:48] Good afternoon, county supervisors.

[15:50] I'm June Mathowitz, resident of New Richmond.

[15:54] Here to present to you today an overview of a working model of a land and water legacy program.

[15:59] I know that I'm not here representing Washington County,

[16:02] but they have seen this presentation and they're fine with me,

[16:06] getting this presentation to tonight. I did work with the program for the last 10 years.

[16:10] So I am intimately familiar with the details and the operations of all of it and I really

[16:15] think that there are quite a number of people that would be in support of doing this kind

[16:20] of thing here. It is really good long-term planning and we know that it's really difficult to

[16:25] do long-term planning sometimes in local government, but this really helps move it along. It

[16:30] also helps generate the enthusiasm and bring the support forward for protection of water resources,

[16:37] especially in the county.

[16:41] As residents insist more of the advantage of the water they drink and the valued natural

[16:45] features in the county, including the nationally treasured sinkri river.

[16:49] This model is offered as an important planning and implementation opportunity that also

[16:56] provides a practical, flexible, and functional approach to water protection.

[16:59] This program can be seamlessly replicated, adapted, and incorporated into the county's work here.

[17:05] It is an attractive program around which everyone can unite and rally, because what it will do for

[17:10] is it's good for residents and the environment as it is for business.

[17:14] For the next few minutes, we'll provide a brief overview of neighboring Washington County's land and water legacy program as the potential model.

[17:23] The Land of Water Legacy Program is a highly valued program by residents there.

[17:28] Additionally, every project funded has done so with the unanimous county board support,

[17:33] and the elected who supported our popular with residents.

[17:36] We'll also share how this work connects with Washington County's comprehensive plan,

[17:40] how a personal land becomes eligible for the program, the important role of data and mapping,

[17:44] what the acquisition process looks like, but the ongoing commitment for a county is,

[17:49] the important role partnerships plan, the success of the program,

[17:52] and the resulting impact of this 20-year program.

[17:57] So brief overview, Washington County partners

[18:00] with landowners and organizations to purchase land

[18:03] and interest in land to keep it in its natural state.

[18:06] The land of water legacy programs started

[18:08] with a small win of state grant funds

[18:10] that put into motion a handful of successful projects.

[18:14] Soon residents were asking for more

[18:15] and then passing a voter-led ballot referendum

[18:17] by an easy majority, more than 60% of voters in favor.

[18:20] authorizing the county board to bond up to $20 million to protect land and interest in land.

[18:27] The results are concrete, measurable, and visible.

[18:31] With that $20 million now nearly spent, 47 projects on 1575 acres have been protected

[18:36] with partners investing more than $28 million in the county.

[18:41] So it draws an enormous amount of money into Washington County as well from outside sources.

[18:51] We highlight that this work is integrated into the county's 2040 comprehensive plan with

[18:56] goal policy and objectives language focused on protection, restoration and enhancement

[19:00] of high quality natural areas.

[19:06] Then in water like you see, we want to briefly highlight program eligibility criteria for

[19:11] a project or parcel.

[19:12] The first five bullets that you see here reflect language from the voter ballot referendum.

[19:17] You can see the themes, water, water, water, wetlands, trees, woodlands, parks, trails, open space, and public access.

[19:27] The letter bullet highlight additional criteria later established by the county board to provide further program direction.

[19:34] This includes prioritizing projects on the top 10 areas, priority areas map, projects that are adjacent to water, or other protected lands.

[19:44] projects requested by a city or township, projects serving multiple purposes and allowing

[19:50] public access, and projects leveraging additional dollars from other sources.

[19:57] Nothing plays a critical role in grounds decision making in data, which is lens the program

[20:03] of high degree of credibility with residents.

[20:06] The map on the right is the original land and water legacy program top 10 priority areas map,

[20:11] used until last year.

[20:13] The yellow areas inside the red circles are the 10 highest priority areas,

[20:18] parcels within these 10 areas, and along the rivers receive the highest priority ranking.

[20:24] We rank every project and focus projects and funding on the highest quality areas and features.

[20:31] The top 10 priority areas map is intended to be a guide and provide focus,

[20:36] but the county board ultimately decides if any given parcel becomes protected.

[20:40] The map on the left is the currently used map upgraded with the latest nature related data and adopted in December of 2023, so just

[20:48] most recently. You can see that this upgrade creates a connected corridor between the top 10 priority areas,

[20:55] and visually links them with the St. Croix in Mississippi rivers, which will run along the entire eastern and southern boundaries of Washington County.

[21:02] And not only connects these areas, but it recognizes that the buffer areas are also important.

[21:07] In summary, it is this key map that helps focus efforts in guide county decision making

[21:12] to ensure some of the most irreplaceable and highest quality features are protected.

[21:20] Just briefly, the mechanics behind a land acquisition project or the general flow of work completed

[21:27] once it comes into the county generally looks like this.

[21:30] Projects are initially, usually initiated by a landowner directly calling the county, or being referred by a conservation organization.

[21:39] The county only works with willing sellers. The county does very little to know outreach.

[21:44] Beyond its web page for this program, staff conduct research, create maps, review the site, complete assessments, and rank projects.

[21:53] The county board is then given an introductory presentation about the project and signals to proceed with the appraisal and surveying.

[21:59] A project typically receives two to four reviews by the board.

[22:04] Project or conservation easement terms are then worked out with a landowner, staff, seek

[22:08] a financial partner, or right grant proposals to provide project funding matches, and then

[22:14] the remaining due diligence is completed in closing occurs.

[22:17] In terms of internal structure at Washington County, the program and staff dedicated to the

[22:22] program work out of the Office of Administration and convene a project management team,

[22:27] with representatives of the public works and finance departments on a regular or as needed basis.

[22:36] Washington County's practice is to contribute 30 to 50 percent of a project assessed

[22:40] value source from referendum bonds and the county seeks the remainder in matching funds from

[22:46] partners. Cities are one of our most frequent partners as we support them in building the green spaces

[22:51] and connecting corridors that residents identify with livable, walkable, high quality and desirable living.

[22:57] We also do a fair number of conservation easements, so another of the program's most frequent

[23:01] partners is the Minnesota land trust.

[23:04] State funds are typically involved in every project.

[23:08] The bottom square is a list of the different partners the county has had over the now 23

[23:12] year life of the protection efforts.

[23:15] We note that there are funding mechanisms other than a referendum that could be used to start

[23:19] this work.

[23:20] Washington County's starting point was an initial small part of funds of state grant funds,

[23:25] not a referendum, seeking a feasibility report of your funding options may prove helpful to you

[23:32] as a board in discussing how to financially structure a program.

[23:38] In terms of ongoing commitments, once projects are complete, the ongoing commitment

[23:42] involves conducting site visits, restoring and enhancing a property's natural features,

[23:47] and assuring no violations of the protective terms occur.

[23:54] In summary, here again, are the numbers

[23:56] highlighting demonstrable results from 20 years

[23:59] plus of implementing a collective vision.

[24:03] These are solid numbers, but visiting the projects

[24:05] makes even more compelling case.

[24:07] A simple internet search for Washington County

[24:09] Land and Water Legacy Program will get you to a short video,

[24:12] showcasing some of the projects completed,

[24:14] or you could simply drive across the river

[24:16] to nearby projects and see them for yourselves.

[24:18] You would do well to start with the eyeball property

[24:20] in downtown, a northern downtown still water.

[24:24] The Conservation Area next to Lakeside Park in Bayport.

[24:28] Oxbow trails at Bellwind Conservancy in Afton or Law Lake Park in Woodbury.

[24:34] There's also a link to the webpage in a short video about the program on the next slide.

[24:38] Starting is of course everything.

[24:40] As an initial step, you may hear want to consider just setting up a program as a way to encourage people to donate natural areas to the county.

[24:47] I have met many landowners who want to pass on what they have had the privilege of enjoying to others,

[24:52] but they do need assurance that it will stay that way.

[24:56] Developing a program name and a simple well-designed web page that communicates the vision,

[25:00] eligibility, priority areas, and process may help inspire that sort of generous action and build trust with residents.

[25:08] A second phase could be to seek some state funding or matching funds from other sources to undertake a few projects,

[25:13] so everyone can understand the mechanics of how a project and the program would work.

[25:17] The point here being that there is a very, there is flexibility around how this work emerges.

[25:22] The important piece again is starting.

[25:25] So thank you for taking the time to consider this today.

[25:28] I forewarn you, you may find this work to be really fun in one of the more,

[25:31] if not most satisfying like a CZU could leave as a county board supervisor.

[25:36] I'm happy to take questions if there are some, or you may feel free to contact me with any questions as your time allows.

[25:43] You may obtain my email information from staff.

[25:46] Thank you so much.

[25:48] Do we have questions for June?

[25:54] We may have.

[25:55] And by email we can contact you, is that right?

[25:58] I deeply appreciate you taking the time to come in and see us today.

[26:01] It was fascinating.

[26:02] Thank you.

[26:02] You're welcome.

[26:02] Thanks for your time.

[26:05] Very good.

[26:05] We're going to move on to a presentation by Alicia.

[26:09] Environmental Education.

[26:21] Good morning.

[26:22] It's not morning.

[26:23] Good afternoon.

[26:24] Good evening.

[26:25] I'm Alicia Miller.

[26:26] I work in land and water conservation.

[26:29] We got our name back and very excited about that.

[26:33] I've been during this now for 20 years and Dan and Dan, Dan, Dan, I need new class.

[26:45] And Jason asked me to come in and present to you today about what I do because you were at the area contest,

[26:53] for the speech, a poster contest, and you're very interested.

[26:55] And so I have it said I would come in and let you know kind of what I do.

[27:01] So the education program that we have now in Sacred County is very unique in the county system.

[27:06] Of the 72 counties in Wisconsin.

[27:08] I think we were the first and maybe now there are two counties that actually have an educator on staff,

[27:14] who's not just staff doing education programs, but actually an educator to do that.

[27:18] And so as I go around the county and meet other counties like,

[27:22] this is your full-time job.

[27:23] like, well, it's part-time. But yes, it's my job. I don't do something else first. I started in 2003,

[27:29] but the program actually started in 2001 with Ruth Stern. And prior to that, there was no staff

[27:35] dedicated to that. It was just, people would come in and ask, and staff could, they would fill it in.

[27:41] So when I started in 2003, to just kind of give you an overview, we had about 2,625 contacts that year

[27:49] with different students or adults in those programs.

[27:53] We had 11 presentations that were requested.

[27:57] 14 streaming college workshops.

[27:59] So you notice we get the kids in the stream.

[28:01] We do some water testing in the stream.

[28:03] Trying to as much hands on as possible.

[28:05] 10 field days, which is essentially just still outside,

[28:09] but not in the water.

[28:11] Also, the conservation speaking contest

[28:13] and the conservation poster contest.

[28:15] That I'll talk about a little bit later here.

[28:19] In contrast, in 2023, we had 4,700 and 71 contacts.

[28:26] This is down, though, on an average, we have 5,100,

[28:29] but we're still trying to get back up from COVID.

[28:32] On COVID happen, it cut out our contacts

[28:34] at getting into the schools.

[28:36] So in 2003, we had 11 presentation requests.

[28:41] I had 65 last year.

[28:44] Six field days, a career day, the conservation

[28:46] and speaking of poster contests,

[28:48] Wisconsin and Byrathon,

[28:50] Halloween at Homestead,

[28:51] we've added adult programming,

[28:53] like snowshoeing the conservation partner meetings,

[28:56] parade and natives, gardening,

[28:59] master naturalist classes to help

[29:02] have volunteers at these field days

[29:03] where we get the kids out and we get hands on

[29:06] and let's try and find out about things.

[29:10] We also, with these educational field days,

[29:12] don't just work with schools,

[29:13] but work with youth organizations,

[29:14] like the scouts or with non-traditional classes.

[29:20] This is on the left as a classroom Hudson,

[29:22] and they say, can you get us out?

[29:24] I'm like, sure, you're running on the water,

[29:25] and that'd be fantastic.

[29:27] And so that was a day that we got to get these kids out

[29:29] who'd never been on that kind of stuff before.

[29:31] So that was pretty, pretty amazing.

[29:35] The classroom presentations,

[29:37] because on the only one you can do this,

[29:38] I can't get all the schools out into field days.

[29:40] So we can't do all these field days,

[29:42] But I can come to your classroom.

[29:45] And so I come in and we do.

[29:47] So the one on the left is stormwater pollution.

[29:50] So we talk about marna from agriculture,

[29:53] from construction, from industry, from golf courses,

[29:56] from sewage treatments, from homes and roads.

[30:02] I'm the right we're doing some soil testing, testing for pH and fast-first and nitrogen.

[30:10] We do programs

[30:11] on, again, stormwater. So, instead of on the left instead of having the display, this is when

[30:16] where it's a story we're reading, the kids come up and they pour their pollution into the bucket

[30:20] and they see it good dirty. They think that's really cool. We have a groundwater model, so we talk

[30:25] about groundwater and soils.

[30:29] We also corroborate with the community.

[30:33] So this was a school that came in and asked and said,

[30:36] I see you're teaching by rain gardens.

[30:39] Can you come work with our students?

[30:41] They had an after school garden clubs to help them.

[30:43] This is a rain garden that was at Hudson, middle school.

[30:46] It's not there anymore, because unfortunately,

[30:48] that's where they put the extension on on the building.

[30:51] But 10 years ago, it was a pretty awesome rain garden.

[30:54] It was a rain garden, a perennial garden,

[30:56] but she learned it was so cool.

[30:58] The kids loved to go out there.

[30:59] We do a environmental community events.

[31:03] So this was my, my now, she's 16 now, Vera.

[31:09] She's a, my friends daughter, but we did a STEM day

[31:13] at a school, we do Earth Fest, we've done River Fest,

[31:16] we've done Earth Day programs in the past.

[31:19] We work with the community.

[31:21] So this was just that water out of the FIPS.

[31:23] They wanted to had this education program,

[31:25] but they wanted an art part, art side of it,

[31:27] but they also wanted the science side of it.

[31:29] So I came and helped with the science,

[31:31] and then they didn't art projects.

[31:32] So you probably have seen this in Hudson, downtown.

[31:36] I don't know what wrote it's on them.

[31:41] Now down by the library, but up the hill of it,

[31:43] in that area, we've done library presentations.

[31:47] This was a model that, again,

[31:48] that in various gate models,

[31:50] but I dolled it up so we could leave it on the rack

[31:54] and people could walk by and read it

[31:56] they had as they could. Wisconsin land and water in my month of education. So as a county,

[32:04] there is a county, a group of counties, and we are part of the Wisconsin land and water

[32:09] in my month of education group. So this is all the land and water, soil and water conservation

[32:12] boards, and we have a conservation poster contest, a conservation speech contest. We help

[32:18] provide the Wisconsin environment and conservation camp. So these three posters up here were

[32:24] postures from this year, from the conservation poster contest, and it's divided into different

[32:29] grades, but we have here on the far left is a Let's Sister Floran from River, our sorry,

[32:36] from Hudson High School, and 10th through 12th grade group. And so if you took first

[32:40] at our contest, then they go into the area contest for their compete against eight other

[32:45] counties to took third at that contest. The winner of the area goes onto state, the winner

[32:51] the state actually goes up to the national contest and the national contest. You wouldn't

[32:55] like $100 or something. So that's kind of cool.

[32:58] On the top on the right is our second grader. She's from Evelyn Kupal from both side elementary

[33:05] school and she took second at the area contest. And then on the bottom there is Corbin Halvers

[33:11] and from Rufall's public monastery who also came in second at area. So these were our first

[33:17] in St. Greg County, but they took a second at the area.

[33:21] We have a conservation speech contest, and the speeches can be about any environmental

[33:25] topic, and so again, we have three different age groups on the left, where are elementary,

[33:31] so fifth and sixth graders, and then there's a seventh or eighth grade group, and then

[33:36] there's a nine through 12th grade group.

[33:38] And so this is where we actually had a senior examiner, he's in the senior group, but he's

[33:41] a sophomore.

[33:42] a human state. So he took first at our contest. He took first at area and he just won

[33:49] state. So that was pretty, I was pretty excited about that. I thought he was going to

[33:53] let's take. So that's Carter's duty. He's from New Richmond High School. And then in the elementary

[34:01] division, second on the left is Veda. She came in first at ours and she came in second at

[34:07] area contest.

[34:11] Another program that Wisconsin then

[34:13] and water does that we help to support it was the Wisconsin and

[34:16] Byrathon. It's the state's ultimate middle and high school

[34:20] environmental science challenge, where teams of five high school or

[34:23] middle school students participate in hands-on outdoor field challenges

[34:26] designed by natural resource professionals and educators.

[34:30] So they compete in forestry, on the bottom there that's

[34:34] aquatics, on the bottom of the left here are the right that's

[34:38] wildlife, the top of soils, and in the center is a current issue. So before the competition,

[34:47] they know what the current issue is, and they have to do the research and put it together

[34:50] with this presentation. And then the day out there, they actually get to go and do all these

[34:53] different stations. And they're all hands-on, so they're pretty cool. And we've Wisconsin.

[34:58] Wisconsin, St. Craig County has had a team participate each year from 2015 to 2019. And then again,

[35:05] and COVID things stopped.

[35:07] We've got new teachers, so we have to build a backup again.

[35:10] But this year's competition is April 19th, 2024,

[35:13] and it's always held at the Wisconsin Lions Camp

[35:16] and Roshal, Wisconsin.

[35:19] And then finally, we have our conservation camps.

[35:22] There's a middle school camp and a high school

[35:24] conservation camp.

[35:26] And so conservation professionals across the state

[35:29] come and they help their shepherds

[35:32] or their leaders of the different stations

[35:34] at the different things.

[35:35] There's just a canoe trip in this very center there that was a fire building competition all the kids are broken the teams and the first one to burn through the string one

[35:44] So that was pretty pretty intense pretty exciting for the high school one they do some things with shooting sports sometimes

[35:52] there's usually

[35:54] a conservation project so often they've done like

[35:58] invasive removal or they've done put shorter than restoration so they're getting an author to kind of do hands-on work to try

[36:05] learn about conservation progression and then finally the last thing I'll

[36:10] talk about today is that to do this work we have staff that can help but not as

[36:16] much as as you can see we have lots of people requesting things from us so I am

[36:21] partnering St. Rick County's partnering with Carpenter Nature Center and Willa

[36:26] River and Knickenick State Parks to run the St. Cray Valley Wisconsin Master

[36:30] Nationalist Program and so what that is is that those

[36:33] the Council Master Naturalist Program is similar to the

[36:36] Wisconsin or to master gardeners and that you go because

[36:40] an education and then after you had the education every year

[36:43] you do volunteer hours to help keep you current.

[36:47] But instead of learning just about gardens, we learned about all sorts

[36:50] of things naturalists related.

[36:53] And then at once they've gone through this 40-hour program,

[36:56] they are master naturalists and they could help volunteer

[36:59] and so we have them help at conservation field days.

[37:02] doing education. We've had them help with doing stewardship projects, so invasive removal,

[37:10] and we've had them help with, I always read the third one.

[37:19] So service leadership and life long learning air, what they come out with, so

[37:24] those are three things that we talk about. The master interest. This is our 2021 class,

[37:34] graduate graduating class, but we've done this since 2018, so this actually next Saturday

[37:40] starts our first class for the upcoming group, so thank you.

[37:45] Thanks so much for coming, anybody have any questions?

[37:48] Land and water program, education, excellent presentation.

[37:52] Mr. Chair, if I could add, we had our five-year WAN and water management plan review a few

[38:00] And one of the main things that set St. Craig County apart from other counties within the state is our outreach and education and the programming that we should does with our area of youth.

[38:11] And as she brought up, I think there's only two counties that are doing this in the state.

[38:16] But all those 50 100 contacts are within St. Craig County are very close to St. Craig County.

[38:23] So it is a huge impact and it is very vocal.

[38:25] Well,

[38:28] I know when I have contact with people like Mike Reiter and Buck Mallock and other people

[38:36] who work in nationalist community that everybody is always impressed with education efforts

[38:42] that are done here.

[38:44] And I know that they provide a source of knowledge, does a scholarship and they choose from

[38:51] that pool.

[38:51] So your work isn't always appreciated and we're proud of you.

[38:59] So thanks for your time.

[39:01] All right, we've got a meeting to conduct here.

[39:05] Let's get on to resolution approving text amendments

[39:08] to the town of Hudson Zoning.

[39:12] John.

[39:15] Mr. Chair and committee members, the town of Hudson

[39:17] is seeking County approval of some zoning text amendments

[39:21] Under state statute in Wisconsin, even counties with their own zoning ordinance are required to secure county board approval.

[39:32] In this particular case, the tone of Hudson is adding language to their sign ordinance for their industrial zoning district.

[39:40] Within your packet, you were provided copies

[39:46] of those standards.

[39:47] we have reviewed those standards. We don't see anything, you know, out of the ordinary or

[39:53] concerning with those standards. The other thing we did review is to ensure that the tone

[39:58] followed the proper public hearing notification. We were provided minutes from their plan

[40:04] commission and tone board meeting where they did approve those amendments. And so what we put

[40:10] together for your consideration tonight is a resolution that would ratify what the tone of

[40:17] related to their industrial zoning district sign provisions.

[40:25] Any questions?

[40:28] What? Just summarize. What are they adding? Are they in terms of signs?

[40:33] Actually, what they did is that when they last codified their zoning ordinance, they did not include

[40:39] industrial zoning district sign provisions. So they're actually adding in what they had in the

[40:46] 8,000 and really it just establishes square footage requirements for free standing signs,

[40:53] they're illuminated signs, if there's a multi-tenant building, they establish standards for

[40:59] those types of facilities. So again, they're just getting back to where they were. They

[41:05] talk about monument, signage requirements, the width and the height and the square footage

[41:10] of those. Again, nothing either the ordinary or unusual that we we looked at.

[41:19] So it's not going to be like Las Vegas out there.

[41:21] No.

[41:22] We'll not.

[41:25] All right. This could be to have any questions.

[41:29] Does anybody have a motion?

[41:33] We need to approve.

[41:34] I'll do a motion no proof.

[41:36] All right.

[41:37] We have a second.

[41:39] All right.

[41:41] Any other further discussion?

[41:43] All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We'll move on to business.

[41:52] Aye. Thank you. Number five. Thank you, John. Jason. Phase one, options.

[41:58] Eckert Bluffland Park developer. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. So at the last meeting, we talked about some options with the various trails.

[42:07] one was the northern part of the Eckert Blufflands Park. That was kind of ruled out

[42:14] immediately. We just due to the cost and the challenges with the terrain on site.

[42:19] Then we talked about the access here, which is in the black lines. The green lines are the park boundaries.

[42:27] Then if you remember the white lines here, those were the low cost alternative to get some trails out there.

[42:34] This is originally planned to be an ADH rail in the master plan,

[42:40] so it would be a paved trail, but our conversation at the last meeting was that this would

[42:44] be just be a gravel trail if the committee decided to pursue it.

[42:49] However, it would be prepped with a good enough base and stuff and with that it would

[42:54] allow for future pavement of a portion or all of it at some point.

[43:00] The committee also asked us to communicate with the St. Craig County Highway Department about their willingness and ability to design and install the park entrance here, which we have done.

[43:17] And I believe supervisor Anderson brought up about having a couple swing bridges and supervisor

[43:24] Conor also brought up about possibly having the Department of Army potentially help with the construction.

[43:31] So we've got a couple swing bridges and this will be a bigger phase of phase one,

[43:37] which would be the yellow lines in addition to the white lines.

[43:42] The black line here is the existing road going down to the Eckert cabin and the red line here that is River Heights Trail going into the park.

[43:54] So we don't have exact cost estimates for this.

[44:00] Last Thursday night I went to the town of St. Joel Tom board meeting to give them an update because before the prior meeting in February here.

[44:10] here and that Teresa Johnson had brought up and that they had not been approachable of vacating

[44:16] this northern chunk of highway or old highway 35 and so I went there kind of explained

[44:23] the process. The town informed me that they would like to have a memo of understanding with

[44:30] the county or an MOU for it to basically explain who's going to pay for what as far as like to

[44:38] move of old highway 35, which is our understanding that the colony would do that. Then they

[44:45] would have some cost for publication of a public hearing notice and to have their council review,

[44:52] the documents, the draft the documents for the actual vacation of this road, which

[45:00] We can probably do that. As we kept on talking, the original master plan had a call to sack, bought in this area right here on the map.

[45:09] And so they asked about that, and who's going to build that? And I'm like, well, I'm like a first taken in blocking off the road.

[45:15] We're going to have to build that call to sack.

[45:17] So that was all fine. But then there was also a conversation that they would like the county then to pay from the call to sack down to the town line,

[45:29] which the town of Hudson and town of St. Joe wine here is right at the horizontal line here.

[45:35] And so this whole road from New Highway 35 up to the Coltasac is about 1,800 feet.

[45:42] You know, so even paving this portion here from the Coltasac down to the town line,

[45:47] of course, it's going to require significant cost and improvements in order to do this access

[45:54] if the town is going to take and require the county to do this in order for that.

[46:01] So that's why we didn't get really far into the depth as far as what the cost estimates are

[46:07] going to be. We've got some other options that we could consider. We have not approached the town

[46:13] of Hudson yet and so the town of Hudson comes in from the south here. This is a very bad access point

[46:21] on new highway 35. There's been a couple of accidents there. But do we look at trying to bring

[46:27] this road out and maybe even extend itself a little bit to come up so that's more square

[46:33] to the new highway 35. If we did that, we probably have a lot less fill in this area and then

[46:43] maybe we would only pay a portion up to the park if we wanted to. So that's an option to consider.

[46:52] Talking with Robby too, there's some things that would have to be, you know, done as far as title searching, you know, to see what the history is behind old Highway 35.

[47:03] Or, supervisor Anderson, maybe we just overshot this a little bit, because you had originally asked about just trying to create some trails out there.

[47:15] But we were really concerned about the safety of people being able to get into the park as I guess why we brought this whole access issue.

[47:23] And so maybe we used the existing road going into the park, maybe we developed some of the trails.

[47:30] And we see how much use and how much demand there is for the area.

[47:35] And then we come back and we approach the access point in that time to see what our parking needs and what our access needs.

[47:44] really are if you'd want to do that. So but for sure you know and that there was

[47:51] kind of a $2 million number folded around at the last meeting it can definitely

[47:56] be done for that amount. We would simply build what we could and we could take

[48:05] in to get a better number refined to the kip budget process if you wanted to go

[48:10] I realized that we got a couple of months to do that, so that would give us time to go out and approach the town of Hudson here and move forward.

[48:19] But the highway department is definitely committed in helping with the trails and with the accesses.

[48:25] If we did go with the original access going up here, it may make sense to build everything in the black lines from a ball here north.

[48:34] So that would include the main parking lot entrance just because of the highway departments moved in.

[48:40] They got their big equipment there.

[48:42] It would make sense to take and create all of our storm water facilities at that same point.

[48:48] So that we're only disturbing an area at once.

[48:50] And then we could leave that gravel until we had the funds available to pave or improve it.

[48:57] But

[49:00] I guess what I'm looking for is whether the committee wants to move forward with just trails or if you're still on board with trying to create a better access into the park and what we can do there, how to proceed.

[49:19] A couple questions currently that red line is the existing access.

[49:26] Correct.

[49:26] The red line is the existing road going through here and it goes up to serve those.

[49:33] The original master plan had been removed from both the curve and the road to old highway 35.

[49:43] However, there's a pretty well-documented easement for the existing road that was actually

[49:50] surveyed and then there was a one rod and with on each side of that surveyed line for

[49:56] the road.

[49:58] So the county would have to negotiate easements and that to take and move this if you're

[50:03] going to go up to the north.

[50:04] So that's where we would suggest leaving this road as is.

[50:10] And but that there isn't anything stopping us from being able to use it because the colony owns the underlying land.

[50:16] And we do have a current parking area.

[50:20] It's very primitive.

[50:21] It's more like what you'd see a DNR field parking area.

[50:25] I'll bolt right in this area.

[50:27] That would be very easily expanded into the bigger parking area if we wanted to do the white trail there.

[50:35] There's also a very small amount of parking right up here off on the curve, but it's basically

[50:40] a wide spot on the curve, but there could be extra parking provided up in here pretty easily

[50:46] too for this high ground and one require a lot of fill.

[50:51] This one of my questions is if the red line is kind of where the existing is, and we're

[50:57] being asked to provide basically an entire new road for the town,

[51:06] would it be worthwhile pursuing

[51:11] looking at options for access to just totally eliminate using any of that area and purchase

[51:21] a right away to get over to 35, that's at a more suitable location somewhere in there.

[51:29] You've got a pretty large expansive area.

[51:31] I don't know the terrain or anything or how the costs would be, but if you're purchasing

[51:38] the right away, our road costs would go down substantially if it wasn't going all the way

[51:45] to the north east corner and it may be more cost conservative for the county to be able

[51:58] to just cut through and not have to purchase all bills all these new roads.

[52:04] So the issue that we would have is this is all town of St. Joe Road from my malls here all

[52:11] up so anytime that we're going to cross that portion of the road I'm sure the talent is going to

[52:17] still want that MOU for it now there is the possibility that we could talk to a property owner

[52:23] appear and maybe have the road entrance extend farther north however we don't know if there

[52:30] would be enough separation out on new highway 35 between the old highway 35 access and our new

[52:36] access to whether or not they would allow that. So, but that would be another opportunity that we could explore.

[52:46] I could jump into, I think the question we have for you is, where's the priority?

[52:53] So with the first dollars that we're going to spend, you want us to start on trails.

[52:56] Do you want us to start on the access to the park, which one is the priority for you?

[53:01] There's several different ideas that we can look through talking to St. Joe recently.

[53:06] the trying to get as much out of it as they can get out of it, which, you know, I don't blame

[53:10] them, I would have done the same thing. But being on the other side of the table, we want to

[53:14] give them as little as possible. So the question then is, where's the priorities? Is it, is it

[53:20] roads in access, parking lots? Is it the trails? Where do you want to spend the first dollar?

[53:31] I think you have to do an access point for sure, and then trail option beyond that.

[53:39] But the towns that have access through the, that is in the township of St. Joe, correct?

[53:49] Yeah.

[53:49] So was there any discussion on that access road to them?

[53:56] Or is that technically a private drive through there off of old 35?

[54:01] So that road here, the town was concerned about us removing the portion from the curve here,

[54:08] the old highway 35. So they were pretty, you know, uneasy, I guess, in that once they heard

[54:15] in that that we were going to leave that B because I think a bunch of their people in that

[54:21] that are back on the river there had expressed concerns about that portion of the road being removed.

[54:27] And we would just sign it very clearly so that everybody knew as a private drive and that our

[54:32] park users wouldn't use it to or from the park. We've had those residents in a couple of different

[54:38] times, they've always wanted that world left the way it is that's their access back to their

[54:43] houses and the park entrance to be a separate entrance. So ideally there's two entrances

[54:49] there, one for the park users and one for the private residences.

[54:54] Yeah, supervisor Bansomir.

[54:57] Well, and that's what I was thinking. I think it would make sense. Why don't we first

[55:00] well talk to the town of Hudson instead of the town of St. Joel, if we can come into that

[55:04] corner and leave that road and maybe connect with the farther in, but let them have that section

[55:11] of road which is kind of a scenic section of the road if we have ever driven in there.

[55:15] But maybe we come from the corner and go straight around so we can still connect with the

[55:20] trail to the cabin, the trail to our white trails and just let us say in Joe, do what they

[55:26] want to do, because it's a shorter distance from the town of Hudson and we own what's inside

[55:34] green lines so we could easily snap into that corner without a whole lot of issue.

[55:39] So you would say something Jerry about coming in at the corner here maybe coming over here

[55:44] hitting the edge of the prairie or something so that there wasn't a lot of tree removal

[55:49] cost and then kind of tying up to the parking lot. Something on that concept maybe I'm not

[55:54] exactly right. I agree with Ryan that we have to have an access point otherwise whatever

[56:01] build on the other side of the wall as useless. So you have to have an access point. So we have

[56:04] to start there. Okay, so that's the first question I have for you is where you want us to start.

[56:09] So we'll work through the different ideas. They'll come up with something on that.

[56:13] So I guess my understanding of this is we could like still have access through the road that's already

[56:20] there, right? It's not like, it's, yeah, it's not like you would have to walk there if we

[56:27] nothing with the access immediately. I understand the obvious visual concerns as far as when

[56:35] you're trying to get back on the highway. There's some safety issues with either of the two old

[56:41] 35 access points but that's one of the other things that Jason I have talked about. Maybe we could

[56:46] just fix the intersections and not redo the whole road. The safety concerns have come up both

[56:54] If I'm correct me if I'm wrong, but the highway commissioner and the sheriff have expressed safety concerns with the traffic

[57:03] If we increase the traffic, I could either one of those junctions, but the north one is the less dangerous, the southern one is the more dangerous

[57:12] Probably it is right now, and the issue with both access is that you're coming up, grade like this, so you don't really see much either way on that for what's on the new highway 35

[57:23] and instead of coming in at a 90-degree corner where it's easy to see right and left

[57:29] you're coming in at 30-degree or 45-degree angle. You know in that so there's a lot

[57:35] of blind spots and there's a lot of sight concerns because it is on a slow curve there.

[57:42] I actually prefer the south entrance rather than the north entrance. I think yeah I think

[57:47] the south entrance would be easier to square off it looks like and we'd be doing a lot

[57:54] less with roads than as far as cutting them off or putting it in called the sacks or

[57:58] whatnot.

[58:03] Yeah I guess putting in a better access without doing trails to me seems I mean

[58:13] maybe you limit how much of the trails you do but without doing any just seems kind of doesn't

[58:19] so much of a purpose, I suppose, in my mind.

[58:22] Yes, what we've talked about was, you know,

[58:24] trying to do like a million dollars a year,

[58:26] but the first year may be doing 2 million,

[58:28] so we would do access and then one of the first easiest trails.

[58:34] So the second question I have for you is 2 million dollars

[58:39] is going to require a bond issue.

[58:41] I have a bond issue because the highway shop

[58:43] is going to be next year anyways.

[58:45] So it'd be easy enough to add 2 million on to that,

[58:47] But if I add a part project on the bond issue,

[58:51] am I going to get 15 county board supervisors to approve it?

[59:02] The only way to know is stride.

[59:06] I mean, I guess you can always push the part project

[59:14] down to the bond issue.

[59:17] And if someone doesn't want to bond $2.5 million

[59:20] or $2 million for a part project,

[59:23] they want to do $1.5 million.

[59:25] all of a deal with my family dollars and my strals, I guess, is what it is.

[59:32] I guess our thought process, you know, and that, what the access, we don't know of any grant funds

[59:37] that are available to build in that access. There might be, you know, some grant funds for building

[59:42] a parking lot down the road, but there might be, well, there might be, there would be significant

[59:48] cost savings by having our county highway department do the work. And if they're already there,

[59:53] They're probably going to end up having to find a barrel site caused by for fill and that if they go with that

[1:00:00] Or throughout, probably not as much on the south end, you know, but it just makes sense in that with that when they're engaged in that project that they kind of knock out the big infrastructure and then after that, we can apply for grants for the trails, we can do a lot of stuff just underneath our natural park budget, you know, for trail development and stuff out there and we can apply for grants for shower buildings and stuff, but there's just no grant money to get that access into there and have it be safe.

[1:00:28] Supervisor Shirley.

[1:00:31] So, can if we don't have it on the next year's, the next 2025 or 206 bond issue.

[1:00:39] So, I'm anticipating bond issues in 2025 and 2027.

[1:00:43] So, the bond issues in 25 would be primarily it's the Hudson Highway Shop,

[1:00:49] reconstructing that or building a new one.

[1:00:51] And then in 2027, we'd be looking at a jail expansion project,

[1:00:55] which would be substantial.

[1:00:59] In my opinion, I think that if the public safety referendum fails,

[1:01:06] we're going to have a hard time passing that in 2025. I think you'd be better off pushing that

[1:01:10] off to 2027 unfortunately, but I think that, like I said, I don't know that we would have a vote.

[1:01:19] Well, when the public safety referendum is approved then, you think it'll be fine?

[1:01:28] I think we need to, I think we need to, I think we need to just try it,

[1:01:34] because I think

[1:01:34] it would be a bit of discussion of the committee of the whole.

[1:01:41] Okay then.

[1:01:42] Okay.

[1:01:43] But I could be some guidance in that.

[1:01:45] I'll reach out to the town of Hudson, may contact with them.

[1:01:49] I'll talk with Greg Hague and Roby a little bit more about that self-access kind of what

[1:01:55] it's going to really take to make that a feasible project.

[1:01:59] And we'll look at those options and then hopefully we can have some better numbers for the April committee of the whole.

[1:02:08] Good. Any other conversation or questions?

[1:02:12] No, we're going to move on then.

[1:02:15] Thank you.

[1:02:16] The next.

[1:02:18] Next we're going to talk about email notification process and Jason, you might as well.

[1:02:22] All right.

[1:02:23] All right, so supervisor Conor had brought it up a few months ago now about notifying property owners when there's any zoning district change that may affect one of their properties or the uses of their properties.

[1:02:39] And so when we would talk about email list and that the county doesn't purchase email list like some of these other suppliers or vendors might do so that they just spam you with a bunch of junk mail.

[1:02:49] However, we do have a nice sign up for people that are concerned.

[1:02:56] It's called Notify Me. It's right here on a county website, very top.

[1:03:01] And so if I click on this, there's a couple different ones out there already.

[1:03:09] We've got two newsletters that are out there.

[1:03:13] And so people can take and enter their email address here.

[1:03:18] They go through just a couple quick processes, and then they can either get an email or a text message, and that with that

[1:03:27] News whatever it might be. So we could put public hearing notices out here, or we could take and have

[1:03:35] Ordnance amendments like chapter 13 or chapter 15. Hey, check all this proposed ordnance, and if you're

[1:03:48] ability to unsubscribe and that from this which is kind of the big deal is that we just can't buy that whole email list because then people don't have the ability to unsubscribe from it

[1:03:58] So this is an existing service that we could do we would just set it up with Adam and that whenever we have anything significant like ordinance amendments or any big towns owning changes

[1:04:13] we could put them in here, then anybody has on that list would take and be automatically sent to text or an email letting them know.

[1:04:23] So I'm kind of showing you what it looks like.

[1:04:27] So here with the Recycling Newsletter, we've went online.

[1:04:33] So this newsletter just went on, sorry, March 20th.

[1:04:37] If I go back, March 20th, 2024 at 10 a.m., so this is our new recycling news letter that's

[1:04:46] electronic.

[1:04:48] And so if you're assigned up for this one, you get this one.

[1:04:51] But if you're not concerned about recycling and you're concerned about the veterans office,

[1:04:56] you can subscribe to the veterans one and not get the recycling stuff.

[1:05:01] So you're able to select the content that you want to receive.

[1:05:06] So, if we created something in this portal, and that would kind of satisfy what you're wanting to do,

[1:05:13] supervisor Conor?

[1:05:17] I think it's a grand idea, but I don't think that that's going to put us where we want to be for what the problem is,

[1:05:26] because we're making an assumption that everybody's going to sign up for it in the county,

[1:05:31] and that they're all going to know that this even exists.

[1:05:34] I don't believe that you probably have the entire county that's signed up for the recycling one right now.

[1:05:42] I have, and I appreciate it, and it's a really good tool.

[1:05:47] And I think it's no matter what, I think that's a really good idea to move ahead with that,

[1:05:54] to be able to have those notifications out there, the more transparency, the better.

[1:05:59] But I still don't think it resolves the issue and you have large groups of people that have zoning changes brought on to them without having any idea that it's even going on.

[1:06:18] Because then again, you're making an assumption that everybody in the county knows to sign up for this.

[1:06:25] Yeah, supervisor Anderson?

[1:06:27] Just to echo, I guess, supervisor Connor was saying it.

[1:06:31] It really doesn't solve the problem by itself.

[1:06:35] And I don't even know that it would exactly...

[1:06:39] Trying to combine them, we're like, if you're on this one,

[1:06:42] we don't need to send you a mailers.

[1:06:44] I guess, fair, either, because...

[1:06:47] Adric, people sell them by house all the time, right?

[1:06:50] So, I definitely agree that it's worth doing.

[1:06:53] And I just don't know that it would prevent or preclude or should preclude us from sending

[1:06:58] out the mail notifications also.

[1:07:02] That's one of the problems you hit right on and that with having a email list is people

[1:07:07] are buying and selling properties all the time.

[1:07:09] So that's the positive thing about something like this is if they unsubscribe themselves, they're

[1:07:15] kind of managing that database for us and it's not like staff has to go through and keep

[1:07:19] it up to date.

[1:07:21] I like the system and how it works, if I've been on different ones for a long time, but are we able or legally able to have a separate flyer or something that goes with or property tax statements to property owners?

[1:07:48] Is that something we can put in there?

[1:07:50] You're going to have a tax bill, stuff her added to the tax bills, yes, if we go with all the tax bills.

[1:07:58] So I see this working well if we use it as a PR project and have like a QR code or something on it that it goes out or it's on more things that we're trying to build this list.

[1:08:13] And it's going to be a secondary notification because not everybody's going to get it and we all realize that, but the more that you can bolster it, the better it is.

[1:08:24] I think it's going to take a time for this to build, but I think in the future you will see this is where we'll be.

[1:08:30] And that's why we have to push onward until then I guess we'll have to do what we have to do, but I think this is very important.

[1:08:40] Anybody else?

[1:08:41] Then I'm going to jump in.

[1:08:47] This doesn't preclude a postcard notification if there's a dramatic rezoning.

[1:08:54] We can always add a postcard if something comes up, this really big, or will affect a pocket,

[1:09:04] you get a big area and then there's one hot zone that, whoa, those people are really going

[1:09:09] to get slammed.

[1:09:10] And we could, you know, as a committee, look at that and say, hey, we should send those folks.

[1:09:14] You know, there's not a reason that the committee can't make a policy short term one time,

[1:09:19] you know, hey, let's send them, you know, and the staff can always bring that up.

[1:09:23] Look at this, guys, you should, you should consider doing this and the staff can do that on their own too.

[1:09:27] They have the, that's an operational decision and a tweener.

[1:09:31] So I, I'm going to offer my opinion, I'm going to agree with you guys that maybe electronically,

[1:09:37] send out a notification in the tax statement, but you guys are here in that, right?

[1:09:45] And just continue to tell people, this is a great opportunity for you to stay in contact

[1:09:50] with your county through the tax statement, a paper noticed that you can be in contact electronically.

[1:10:00] So bring the Neanderthals to the monitoring, it's a great idea.

[1:10:04] I would need that, so do you need it, you don't need a vote on this just a kind of a little bit of conversation, right?

[1:10:13] Yeah, we're just sharing it with you.

[1:10:14] It might take on it as this is a great extra feature, but it's not replacing any legal notice requirements.

[1:10:21] Okay, this is above and beyond.

[1:10:23] All that being the case, we're going to move on to the next business item.

[1:10:27] Consideration of amendments to the 2024 community development fee schedule and JSON will take over here.

[1:10:36] So, I'm finding it here. There's

[1:10:43] just a couple of changes that we would like to do because we've found them after you guys approved the fee schedule as fall.

[1:10:53] What's that?

[1:10:55] Oh, sorry.

[1:11:00] So the changes here are in red.

[1:11:03] And so currently when somebody comes to our office

[1:11:05] and applies for a permit,

[1:11:08] and that we have to be taken collect their fee,

[1:11:10] be a checker credit card,

[1:11:12] and unfortunately we were charged

[1:11:14] that credit card processing fee right up front.

[1:11:18] And I'd like to tell you that it's a 2% charge,

[1:11:21] or it's a 3% charge,

[1:11:22] The reality is it bounces anywhere from 1% in 3 quarters all the way up to 3 and a half percent and that depending on the amount

[1:11:29] And so plus we have our time and that for doing the refund finance

[1:11:35] So we'd like to just take an insert, so that's very transparent, very clear up front that if you pay for

[1:11:42] Permit or something and you change your mind, of course if it's on our end or if there's nothing needed then we're going to refund the full amount

[1:11:49] But if it's on their end, like they don't want to move forward with the project anymore,

[1:11:54] they would be required to pay that 5% of the original permit fee amount, just so that we're not losing.

[1:12:01] So it really doesn't sound like a lot, but on a $400 permit, it's about $20 a pop.

[1:12:07] You know, that there were losing every time.

[1:12:09] So yeah, a lot of it, when we're where kind of comes in is and part stuff too, but we've got a separate cancellation fee, you know, but I mean, there is quite a few cancellations going back and forth because people changing their plans. So okay,

[1:12:30] the next fee is in regards to our sanitary program, and we don't have this in the original fee schedule, because since then we've obtained agent status through the state and

[1:12:43] And what agent status means is that now in-house, the Coney can review mounds at grades, pressurized

[1:12:51] system, stuff that would normally require state-of-proof plans, peer, and so people will

[1:12:57] be able to apply to the Coney and have a kind of a one-stop shopping experience because they

[1:13:03] can get their plan review and they can get their sanitary permit, all in one shot.

[1:13:08] Right now, the state is running what two to three weeks, I'm getting their review done.

[1:13:12] And then if they submitted to us, we'd have that extra 2 to 3 weeks.

[1:13:16] We should be able to shave off 2 to 3 weeks for that.

[1:13:20] We set the fee here at $400.

[1:13:22] Normally the state plan review fee is $250.

[1:13:27] However, if you want an expedited review, it's $400.

[1:13:30] So that's kind of where we had thought.

[1:13:32] And as far as staff time, that's where we really figured that we're going to have in it for our staff.

[1:13:38] Now, this is only for normal single family houses up to 1,000 gallons per day, which is basically

[1:13:46] a six-bedroom house.

[1:13:48] Any commercial systems would still require a state of plan approval.

[1:13:53] I just don't feel like we've got the staff capacity or the desire to get into some of those

[1:13:58] more complicated systems because they require a lot of on-site, you know, a time-dolicing

[1:14:03] duplex pumps, it's quite a commitment to take and jump into that world. Whereas these generally

[1:14:10] they're very standardized, the same plumber puts in the same three-bedroom mound that's

[1:14:15] a six by 75 foot mound, and that uses those same plans over so there's a lot of easy permitting

[1:14:25] process that can be done with this.

[1:14:30] And then the last changes were with the parks, and

[1:14:36] We had a little oversight with the wording, the Vista Prairie was originally set up as a group

[1:14:47] camp, and that's how we promoted it, but we've also got whispering Oaks, which is the

[1:14:53] land that's kind of south of there, and that's also our group camping area, and so it didn't

[1:14:58] make sense to take.

[1:15:00] And have one called group camping and the other one not. So it made a lot of sense just to take a make of a rate for group campground. We still kept the 501C3 rate in there at half the amount. And we should be good there. So we are also making improvements to the, the vista prairie campground by extending the pads so that they can figure units in there and putting in water.

[1:15:28] And we're using that because right now in the past year or so it hasn't been filling up.

[1:15:34] So we're trying to get more individual users out there too, just to use that part of the park.

[1:15:43] So I'll need as a consensus from the committee that you're okay with these fees.

[1:15:47] Kevin, gravy, would be the one helping us out with the sanitary plan reviews.

[1:15:54] So that should be a positive thing. Yeah, supervisor Shirley.

[1:15:57] just a quick question on the septic review. Is that is the state forwarding all of

[1:16:05] those or does the homeowner have the option to send to the state or send it to the

[1:16:09] company? They have the option to do either one. Okay. So there's a large number of

[1:16:15] moms and aunt grades within the county and so if we did take on all of them, that would

[1:16:21] be quite a time commitment from staff and we probably don't have the ability to do

[1:16:25] that but there's a lot of times in that where maybe it is an emergency install and they're

[1:16:30] willing to pay the 100 and a half more to get it done right away. That's what it's really

[1:16:35] designed for. Okay, so at this time we have any further questions or I would entertain a motion

[1:16:42] to accept these changes. I'll make a motion mix up the fee. Let's get some changes.

[1:16:47] Alright, moving to second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Let's move on to business item. Number eight.

[1:16:58] Discussion on amenix eight correct County chapter 15 zoning ordinance. This will be John Hillgers.

[1:17:14] So this next item was raised by the committee. I think it was about two or three meetings ago.

[1:17:19] We had talked about some of our egg entertainment standards.

[1:17:22] And this kind of stems back to a rezoning request we had last summer if you recall in the

[1:17:27] Tone of Kinakinic.

[1:17:29] We kind of updated the committee back then about what the standards were for egg entertainment

[1:17:34] but at that time we didn't pursue any amendments.

[1:17:37] We didn't really get the direction to do so.

[1:17:40] So we're kind of bringing it back at the request of the committee from a couple meetings ago.

[1:17:45] In the meantime, our staff has also met with local town officials about some common zoning

[1:17:51] violations and some other items, such as the use of saw mills, different contract or storage

[1:17:58] yards.

[1:17:59] So if we're talking about a zoning amendment to egg entertainment, we'd also like to

[1:18:04] keep this in context that maybe we can revisit some of these other categories and standards.

[1:18:10] But as a refresher for the committee, with respect to our egg entertainment uses, we'll just

[1:18:17] talk about the authority and standards,

[1:18:22] right now the county has two agricultural zoning districts

[1:18:24] egg one and egg two. Both of these zoning districts need the criteria for the state farm

[1:18:30] land preservation zoning districts under the farm land preservation Wisconsin statutes.

[1:18:36] And this allows participating tones to allow their residents to claim that income tax

[1:18:41] rebate on their tax farms.

[1:18:43] And right now, we have, I believe,

[1:18:45] that seven participating tones that are in that program.

[1:18:50] The farmland preservation zoning districts

[1:18:52] must be approved and certified by DadCAP.

[1:18:55] And again, landowners are able to participate

[1:18:58] by claiming tax credits on their income taxes.

[1:19:02] Now, being in this program,

[1:19:04] the county is required to allow specific uses

[1:19:08] under statute 9144 either as permitted or conditional uses. So we have the list of

[1:19:15] egg uses, farm residences, and then I highlighted in yellow the category that we believe

[1:19:20] the egg entertainment standards fall under. Accessory uses are allowed including any activity

[1:19:27] or business that is an integral part of an egg use, or a business whether or not as associated

[1:19:34] with an egg use or not that is conducted by the owner of the farm and employees no more than

[1:19:39] four full-time employees and does not impair the current egg uses and then the list goes on

[1:19:45] to list other varying uses. Below you see a map of our participating towns, everything with a cross-hatch,

[1:19:54] our participants in the farmland preservation program.

[1:20:02] We'll quickly as these provisions were adopted

[1:20:05] back in 2012, the Coney defined egg entertainment under four broad categories. These are

[1:20:12] foreign-based enterprises or businesses that combine the elements of egg entertainment and

[1:20:17] tourism. They include outdoor recreation, educational experiences, entertainment and hospitality

[1:20:25] services, and then under each yellow category we kind of provide some examples that are within

[1:20:31] code, I won't go into detail, but the hospitality services fall under the wettings overnight

[1:20:41] farm and ranch stays.

[1:20:45] Under our current categories, and again, we did not change the standards

[1:20:49] when we went and revisited the zoning code in 2019 through our comprehensive revision. So the

[1:20:56] standards I'm going to read off are the standards that have been in place since 2012. And the egg

[1:21:01] One in eight two districts, the egg entertainment is allowed as a permitted use if you do not exceed 15 calendar days per year.

[1:21:10] So if you stay under 15, there's no conditional use permit review or standard of review.

[1:21:17] Again, if activities exceed 15 calendar days, a conditional use permit is required.

[1:21:23] Regardless of the number of days, whether you're at 15 or below that, any activity exceeding

[1:21:31] 100 persons during a 24 hour period has to submit an event plan through our staff that has

[1:21:38] then reviewed a land use permit is issued to address parking days and hours of operation,

[1:21:43] an ingressy gross sanitation science solid waste management. That event plan is then filed with

[1:21:49] the tone clerk emergency responders and the local fire district.

[1:21:57] Again, as I mentioned,

[1:21:58] these standards have been in place since 2012. They were not amended during the

[1:22:02] composition of 2017 to 2019. Interestingly, one of the themes we heard during our 2019

[1:22:09] comprehensive zone in revision is that the county shouldn't able egg entertainment uses

[1:22:15] in moral locations. So we had to create a zoning district outside of the egg one and egg two

[1:22:22] districts so we created the commercial C2 district which is very specific in that it allows

[1:22:28] egg entertainment uses outside of the egg districts.

[1:22:34] This zoning must be consistent with the local

[1:22:40] has reviewed and approved two rezoning applications that have been filed for the C2 zoning districts.

[1:22:48] One was in the Tone of Kinne-Kinne-Kinne-Kinne-Kinne, and the other one was in the Tone of

[1:22:50] Silent.

[1:22:53] So really based on our view of statute and our view of the code, there are a number of

[1:22:58] things that the committee could modify should you so choose, and that would be the number of events

[1:23:04] that would trigger a conditionally-use permit requirement. Now, I think we had that discussion

[1:23:08] during that rezoning application with Kinnikenic, the question was why is it 15 events that would

[1:23:15] have to occur before the CUP is triggered? Again, that was the threshold that was established back in 2012.

[1:23:22] The other thing the committee could do is modify the event plan requirements. The one thing we

[1:23:28] believe that is not possible is that it would not be possible to remove the egg entertainment uses

[1:23:34] as it meets the intent of the statutes, as we described earlier, as far as what a property owner

[1:23:39] is allowed to do under farmland preservation. Unless we as the county no longer wanted to

[1:23:45] participate in that program, but based on the number of tone ships that participate, there are quite

[1:23:51] a few benefactors under the farmland preservation plan program. So again, the committee can go back and

[1:23:59] revisit the standards, you know, to determine the number of events that would trigger a CUP

[1:24:04] We can modify the event plan requirements, but basically that is the extent of what we feel you could modify.

[1:24:16] All right.

[1:24:17] So who wants to go first?

[1:24:22] I don't think we should change anything.

[1:24:32] That's my time.

[1:24:42] As far as the A2, a question in the 15-day limit, I think it depends more on what they're actually

[1:24:56] doing and considering a cultural entertainment, there's such a wide variety if you're talking

[1:25:03] about weddings or barndances, it's one thing, but if they're talking about something more hospitality

[1:25:09] your educational and you're really going to make them do a conditional use permit if they're

[1:25:14] doing education for kids in the farm. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

[1:25:19] So I don't know

[1:25:20] how to separate that out, but that's my one common at least on the egg too stuff.

[1:25:29] Well, I agree with Mr. Shirley that the 15-day thing I think is quite exorbitant because

[1:25:36] as someone brought up at one of our deals that we're dealing with, that's every weekend

[1:25:42] of the summer, and the people who don't want these next to them should have some time

[1:25:49] off from that.

[1:25:50] The neighborhood should have some time off of that.

[1:25:52] So I think we do have to change that part, for sure.

[1:25:55] I think that's too aggressive.

[1:26:01] I also think that one thing that we've left out is hearing the neighbors, and I'm not sure

[1:26:07] exactly how to do that.

[1:26:08] But those people who live next to them that want no part of this, but are told they can't

[1:26:17] do anything.

[1:26:18] We don't make any changes on that.

[1:26:19] That's something also that we need to address.

[1:26:22] They have as much right to not have that in their neighborhood as the person who wants to

[1:26:26] put it in has to have that in their neighborhood.

[1:26:28] So maybe one of the things, if we cut that 15 days down to 7, anything over that they

[1:26:38] Right.

[1:26:39] I think that would satisfy a lot of people.

[1:26:42] But then I think we all have to come up with some plan for listening to the area that

[1:26:47] they're able to.

[1:26:54] Another thought on that would be, especially in some of those that we've looked at this

[1:26:58] last year, if we have somebody looking at moving to an egg to zoning, that's a budding,

[1:27:06] an R2 or an R1, trying to define where those egg tos are and I'm not exactly sure what

[1:27:13] answer is at this moment but you know some of those the zoning for the egg

[1:27:20] two makes more sense in a surrounded by egg than it does surrounded by an hour

[1:27:25] one or an hour or

[1:27:37] two yeah listening everything or what he's bringing in and

[1:27:41] all and they're making good points that maybe there's some things that we need

[1:27:48] address before we move forward.

[1:27:52] My thought is that

[1:27:56] you guys are both right.

[1:27:58] But the thing is, the zoning part is zoning.

[1:28:02] There's a lot of things that zoning is for,

[1:28:04] but part of it is to make sure that your rights are,

[1:28:07] you have the right to enjoy your property in the manner that you

[1:28:12] expected to when you purchased it.

[1:28:15] So the people who live around the property,

[1:28:17] expected to enjoy the property a certain way, and now somebody buys the property in the middle of all that and decided to have a party.

[1:28:27] But only if you resultant for me, and so so now, I think it's personally, and this is why I'm glad that Jerry wanted to have this conversation.

[1:28:39] And the conditional use permitting process is a way to put that under a microscope.

[1:28:51] And then this committee doesn't do it quickly, and not that we would do it quickly, but

[1:28:57] it gives the conditional use permitting process, right?

[1:29:01] The BOA will really focus on that.

[1:29:04] And there are quasi-judicial board and they have an opportunity to go through a quasi-judicial process,

[1:29:12] something that we don't.

[1:29:14] And I think we've reduced the number of days.

[1:29:20] That this 15 days we bring it down like Jerry's suggestion of seven.

[1:29:24] And if it's a mild use, you know, they're going to have educational functions or whatever.

[1:29:29] They shouldn't have any problem whatsoever.

[1:29:31] And if it's out in the country and they're having weddings, they shouldn't have any problem whatsoever, or if it's in the middle of a somewhat residential area

[1:29:38] Then it needs to have some more scrutiny, but it's not for us to say because it'll be a conditional use. It's not this committee's previous at that point and that I think it's a good compromise

[1:29:46] It's my opinion. I guess I could get I guess I could get talked into 12 seven scenes

[1:29:52] Like one a month seven scenes of stream

[1:30:01] I think it should be less than that because I think the people around all the stuff that's going

[1:30:06] on deserve more time off that they deserve as much as much time off as the other people deserve

[1:30:12] on. Why would you say one or there? Here's the other thing that if I can put up what John

[1:30:19] has on the screen there on the right side, third one down, if an activity exceeds 100 people during

[1:30:25] a 24-hour period. Well, let's take the guy with the winery down and Kenny Connect, he's not

[1:30:29] going to know that he's going to have 100 people there before the 100 people there, so he's not

[1:30:35] going to do that, is he? And so we have to look at that also and keep that in mind as we

[1:30:43] have to make this decision because that's an after-the-fact thing. I'm not exactly certain

[1:30:49] how to do that one, but that is something that needs to be considered also. Thank you.

[1:30:55] Mr. Chair, can I throw in two cents, so what I'm hearing from you guys is that you'd like

[1:31:01] to have a process that had good due process and your conditional use permit is your way

[1:31:07] to do that. Unfortunately there is fees on that for that permitting process, but then you

[1:31:14] can look at each situation where supervisor Hanson was mentioning here individually. I think

[1:31:19] the event plan, that is supposed to be prior or before the event is happening because we're

[1:31:26] trying to really notify our EMS and our vocal fire departments and stuff, hey, you've

[1:31:33] got an event going on there. So I'll leave it up to you guys, but I'm getting the idea that

[1:31:40] you're open to opening this up and at least having further conversation about reducing the

[1:31:46] number of days. The 15 days is completely arbitrary. You guys can make it one, you know, you

[1:31:52] can make it two, whatever, and that you see fit for that type of use.

[1:32:03] I guess if we could maybe be a little more specific to on what doesn't require a conditional

[1:32:10] use permit or maybe has that a different number for certain things, like if it's strictly

[1:32:18] Farmline and Preservation Education, maybe you're limited to 30 days before you need a CUP or 20 before you need a CUP, and then if it's, you know, events, I guess.

[1:32:30] Non-educational events of any kind.

[1:32:34] We could discuss the law.

[1:32:35] I hope you don't mind. Chair is going to jump in conversation.

[1:32:39] Noise, I think, is the issue.

[1:32:41] So you're thinking like a matrix of the different uses, and then within the matrix we have different thresholds that would trip the CUP requirement.

[1:32:51] Yeah.

[1:32:53] I think we just need further definition of what for one.

[1:33:01] I think everybody knows I'm not a huge fan of CUPs anyway, but what trips that in there.

[1:33:06] And then a secondary, maybe a process of how staff would look at the placement of AIG2 in relation to what's around it.

[1:33:19] You know, we always have the question of spot zoning and whatever.

[1:33:23] But maybe we look into that a little bit more detailed of what's around there.

[1:33:28] And a lot of that falls back on the comprehensive plans.

[1:33:31] They have a future land use and we rely on that heavily to make our recommendations.

[1:33:35] So, you know, that is a big factor we look at now.

[1:33:39] The other thing I'd like to maybe just share with the committee.

[1:33:42] The number of inquiries we've gotten for egg entertainment uses have dropped considerably.

[1:33:48] Since last fall there was a new state while that was implemented.

[1:33:51] That puts more of the burden on the property owner to secure liquor licenses.

[1:33:57] That went into effect I believe in November of last year.

[1:34:01] And that would require anybody owning property where they want to do wedding burns with alcohol sales.

[1:34:07] If you're going to have five or more of those events per year, the property owner is responsible for getting.

[1:34:12] Not only the liquor license, but the insurance that goes with that.

[1:34:16] So I had one call from a current egg entertainment wedding burn operator.

[1:34:21] And they said that's just been a serious challenge for them.

[1:34:24] the initial license fee is a $10,000 fee and a yearly renewal fee and then I didn't get a number on the insurance, but it seemed based on my conversation that was a significant expense.

[1:34:39] So once that law passed, we are myself in the zoning staff noticed a reduction in the number of inquiries. I think that's kind of a hindrance.

[1:34:51] Part of the discussion is property owner rights and if you're changing zoning and it's not

[1:34:59] truly spot zoning but if you're changing zoning for one piece of property is near

[1:35:04] other property and it's going to affect if either perception and that's always hard to maintain

[1:35:11] manage, but the or in reality, the way that those people really enjoy or use their property,

[1:35:23] then whose rights are more our responsibility to the serve.

[1:35:33] And that becomes a question.

[1:35:35] And is it our obligation to resale in that property in the law of the way that we've written

[1:35:40] And it says, yes, we have to reason on the property because it's 15 days.

[1:35:45] So that becomes the challenge for me and why do I think we should consider reducing that

[1:35:52] is so that we have more of an opportunity to look at that and not be painting ourselves

[1:35:58] into the corner.

[1:36:00] So, Jerry.

[1:36:02] The question for John, John, that liquor licensing does that include BIOB events or not?

[1:36:08] are people still free to bring whatever alcohol they want on onto the site onto the premises.

[1:36:14] You know? I'm not sure about that. I'd have to get slicker sales. It's liquor sales. It's selling

[1:36:20] of alcohol.

[1:36:30] So let's talk, let's just, I'm still not sure what we're asking John for. What do

[1:36:35] we want to see and what we consider as a committee. And again, we're looking at an external

[1:36:40] we might be a different group of people here, so should we ask them to just wait until next

[1:36:44] term and revisit this?

[1:36:47] I mean, I'm betting most of this committee, if not all, we'll be here again, just based

[1:36:54] on the fact that the nomination forms have turned in, I guess, put that way.

[1:37:05] I don't think we'd be jumping the gun at all to, I guess, the kind of gig guidance now,

[1:37:13] just based on realities, let's be prudent about it, I'm open, I said, I can be open

[1:37:23] to reducing, I guess, events, I don't, I don't think I'd be comfortable with as little

[1:37:29] is 7,

[1:37:32] that's more palatable, but cutting it in more than half is kind of seems after the

[1:37:37] fact seems a little bit improved into me and then but yeah I like the matrix idea for stuff

[1:37:48] that would be easily proved by bother making them pay to go through a conditional use pyramid.

[1:37:56] John has been taking notes up there I would have quite comprehensively so I think that we're

[1:38:00] talking about this, not why don't we allow the staff to do some work on this and see what

[1:38:05] they can come up with and come back at another meeting.

[1:38:08] Yes, we may not all be here, but we may all be here doing.

[1:38:11] And even if we're not all here, we have to keep moving on this.

[1:38:15] The world doesn't stop if we are here.

[1:38:18] Thank you.

[1:38:20] Mr. Chair, if I could just ask the question, in the cover memo, we talk about some of the

[1:38:24] their zoning issues that have been brought up by various tone officials and then some of

[1:38:31] the encounters our staff has had regarding some of these other uses and Jason maybe

[1:38:35] you can put some context to this but we've had some issues with some else mixed uses.

[1:38:41] I believe in some of the Amish settlements part of the county contract or storage yards,

[1:38:47] phone-based businesses?

[1:38:51] I guess so I can provide some context here. In the last six

[1:38:57] months that I've been here we've had a lot of common violations that keep

[1:39:02] recurring. It just doesn't seem like our ordinance fits in and so while it's

[1:39:07] not our job to take and create policy it is our job to let you know when our

[1:39:11] policies really don't align with a large portion of the community or you know

[1:39:17] communities that were seeing repeated violations for.

[1:39:20] And so about three weeks ago, we met with

[1:39:23] town officials from the town of Baldwin,

[1:39:25] Oguelie, Springfield, and Katie.

[1:39:29] And those officials brought to our attention

[1:39:31] several violations that the Amish have with

[1:39:35] some else small general stores for basically their people,

[1:39:40] but also open to the public.

[1:39:42] And also the Amish community,

[1:39:45] Generally they have two different dwellings, you know, on that on that their property and so

[1:39:51] There becomes a lot of issues and basically all three of those standards don't comply with our current ordinance

[1:39:57] Now normally if it was just one property owner or one violation, you know, and that you probably don't have a problem with your ordinance

[1:40:06] So but when we got a whole bunch of them and that just seemed like it was very repetitive

[1:40:10] So we asked the towns, you know, and that what are we going to do to take and get some oversight and the

[1:40:17] towns were supportive of zoning ordinance amendment. I'm just going to use saw mills for an example

[1:40:24] where they would be able to have some conditions in some oversight because

[1:40:30] this fall or winter has been really unique, you know, in that our roadbands went on very early,

[1:40:37] But they had some semi-traffic on their town roads, bringing in walks to the saw mills, and that didn't sit very well with the towns.

[1:40:47] So we could go with this past Monday, Mike Wozniak, our land use administrator myself went on to Freeman Miller's property, and that is in the town of Galilee,

[1:40:56] and he had a general store and he had a saw mill that our office shut down, and also another dwelling on the property.

[1:41:05] He was one of our violation sites.

[1:41:07] And we basically waited out on the table and we were like,

[1:41:10] hey, you know, that our tunnel officials are really pushing.

[1:41:14] And we've got an ordinance and we're going to enforce the ordinance.

[1:41:19] But there's other issues when it comes to the building

[1:41:21] coincide that the Amish are having as well.

[1:41:24] And so I'm like, your whole community,

[1:41:26] we want to work with you as much as possible.

[1:41:29] But yet we've got our ordinances

[1:41:30] and we need to take and work with our talents too.

[1:41:33] So, had a good hour and a half long conversation, basically at the end of the conversation,

[1:41:39] he's like, well, let me talk to some of the other members in our community and we'll see about

[1:41:44] if we can get everybody together, building court officials included, town officials included

[1:41:49] in one spot and meet about this.

[1:41:52] And so, he did call me on Monday, and that I didn't answer, but so there's a little communication

[1:42:00] challenges there but he did relate that he talked to the bishop and some other

[1:42:06] founding fathers and they are willing to sit on and meet. I think there's

[1:42:11] potentially a good way to comply. I'm like we're not going to pitch this at the

[1:42:16] county and the towns if you guys are going to continue to take and violate. We

[1:42:20] need to have a two-way partnership here and make sure that you guys are willing

[1:42:24] to comply but if there's some common ground where we have a CUP that maybe has

[1:42:28] truck traffic conditions and sawdust maintenance or management conditions to it maybe there is a win-win.

[1:42:36] For like a sawmill right now that's only allowed with a conditionally used in the industrial

[1:42:41] this is owning. So you can see that a town is not going to want to take and have an i1 in the middle of

[1:42:48] their town just because of a sawmill. So basically prohibits it from being able to be done.

[1:42:54] Contractor storage yard, we currently have that defined as only outside storage, but yet we've

[1:43:00] got a lot of contractors in that that are trying to put their equipment inside and that

[1:43:04] when they're at home, which I think, you know, doesn't have nearly the impact as outside

[1:43:09] storage would be, you know, but they don't really fit our ordinance either, so we're always

[1:43:14] having a hard time trying to fit them in common sense, it seems like, hey, if you can put

[1:43:19] inside, out of sight, out of mind. That's a better thing. So that would be potentially

[1:43:25] travel trailers. We could maybe refine our provisions that what we allow, what we

[1:43:32] don't allow, and then home base businesses, there's a lot of requirements in there about

[1:43:38] how much of the home base business could be used for that particular type of use. So I don't know

[1:43:44] what the committee's take is, but if we're going to open it up for egg, and that for the

[1:43:49] So, we're biting barns and stuff, it might make sense to open up for the chapter 15.

[1:44:01] Yeah, just, yeah, but for opening it, let's get it all in one shot.

[1:44:08] I agree.

[1:44:09] I mean, I have a laundry list of issues that we have with chapter 15 from our last go around

[1:44:15] on there.

[1:44:16] But, yeah, we need to take a closer look at it once or twice.

[1:44:21] Are you thinking of work session or do you want to bring something to the committee?

[1:44:24] So, and that right now, it's actually a pretty nice deal because we basically got two months before we meet again here as a committee, so that gives us time to create a draft.

[1:44:34] And as soon as we have that draft done, we could maybe have a first review at the main meeting and then you guys could determine whether or not you wanted to have another meeting on it.

[1:44:44] I would have think that this would not be a comprehensive amendment, this would be only a minor amendment because we wouldn't be adding any zoning districts or classifications like egg one or egg two, and that we're going to stay within the existing boundaries that we're going to do.

[1:45:00] We've got and just modify some of the performance provisions, definitions and CUP requirements.

[1:45:07] So we have two thoughts concerning the main meeting. It's going to be a huge meeting.

[1:45:12] And you will not have gotten any sleep by there.

[1:45:15] I'll be fine.

[1:45:19] Okay. So any other thought?

[1:45:22] All right. Let's move on.

[1:45:25] Discussion on chapter 13.

[1:45:28] And that'll be Jason.

[1:45:40] Hang on, let's take a two-and-a-half minute break. Everybody just hang on.

[1:45:46] Three, three, three.

[1:45:49] No, no.

[1:45:50] There's 180 seconds.

[1:45:52] We're taking a break.

[1:46:02] Our land use staff, our planning staff, everybody can basically, within community development

[1:46:07] has been able to review this document.

[1:46:10] And so there's numerous changes that are really just removing duplicate of text

[1:46:17] And we're also trying to clarify what the Platt's submittal would have.

[1:46:23] Right now there's a lot of information that is included on the face of the Platt.

[1:46:27] We've had several waivers here for road setbacks, and that we basically was an implication

[1:46:35] because we required too much information on the Platt a while ago.

[1:46:40] So keeping the Platt very simple and clean so that when it's filed with a register of deeds,

[1:46:45] we don't have to go back with all these waivers and amendments to the plat, but yet then also

[1:46:52] still retaining that information in the additional submittals, so the supporting documentation

[1:46:58] if you will when they complete the plat. So I'd like to just go through the main policy changes

[1:47:06] and we're not advocating for these, but I'll kind of give just a short brief reason why you might

[1:47:12] want to consider some of these changes.

[1:47:15] The first one is with our survey required, right?

[1:47:18] Now the ordinance references that if you keep your parcels over 35 acres in size, that

[1:47:24] you do not need a survey, and so somebody that owns 240s side by side could come in there

[1:47:32] and maybe there's a farm field on that, that goes on both 40s.

[1:47:36] They could literally try to create a meets and bounds description to follow the wood line, and

[1:47:42] You might end up with something really, really jagged like this and you know, I mean some

[1:47:46] mounds that's as page one because they don't need a survey just because they keep both

[1:47:51] parcels over 35 acres, you know, and so that provision doesn't come into effect a lot

[1:47:58] because you need both parcels to be over that amount, but this here would basically mean

[1:48:04] that any parcel that's being subdivided would require certified survey map.

[1:48:11] And so the remnant would also be required.

[1:48:14] So if you had a 40 acre parcel and you chunk

[1:48:17] all one or two, you know, two acre lots of of it,

[1:48:21] you would have a lot, one, a lot, two,

[1:48:24] and then the remnant would be your lot, three of the map.

[1:48:28] Now, usually, in that or 99% of the time,

[1:48:33] the surveyers already got to go and find the other corners

[1:48:35] and that when they're splitting off those other parcels.

[1:48:39] So it's not like they're really having to do a lot of extra work.

[1:48:44] It's just that they're including it on the map and then it creates a lot of easier processes

[1:48:49] down the road because when ROD files it, it's a lot one of CSM number blank and also you get

[1:48:56] like one sentence and that verse is having a whole page and when property analysis have to

[1:49:04] put it into the tax roll.

[1:49:06] It's very simple and the assessors are dealing with it

[1:49:09] when properties are being bought and sold.

[1:49:12] A very short abbreviated meets and bones.

[1:49:16] So any questions on that one?

[1:49:18] Okay.

[1:49:19] The concept review is throughout the whole document.

[1:49:24] I would consider this a preliminary review

[1:49:26] for the preliminary plan or the preliminary plan.

[1:49:30] And so I'm not sure a concept review

[1:49:33] is a correct wording, our staff, and including Corey would like to take an offer courtesy

[1:49:39] reviews.

[1:49:40] So if somebody's got a draft and they want to send it in and say, hey, is there going

[1:49:45] to be any issues with this?

[1:49:46] We're still open to that.

[1:49:48] I just don't know if we need to be as formal to have a preliminary review before the preliminary

[1:49:53] plan, before the final plan.

[1:49:56] So there's nothing in the statute that requires us to have that.

[1:50:00] So again, similar concept could still be offered, no fees attached, just a courtesy.

[1:50:09] So, road provisions.

[1:50:11] So there was a lot of road provisions in the ordinance.

[1:50:14] There was a court case in Rock County that token basically came out and said that public

[1:50:20] improvements are to be specced by the local municipality.

[1:50:26] So be the towns in our case, they're the ones that can require what the width of the

[1:50:31] would be how much pavement they want on it, any drainage easements, utility easements, what the

[1:50:39] county can require is more the stuff for the order we wale. So, in other words, we can say that a

[1:50:46] road has to be, you know, plated or maybe has to continue to the other property line for future road

[1:50:52] development so that at all connects, we just can't get into the weeds as far as what the specs are

[1:50:58] of those provisions. Now, if this amendment was to go into place, we would definitely want to

[1:51:04] do some outreach to make sure that the towns know that we're no longer reviewing those and to

[1:51:09] make sure that they have their standards in place. There are some standard town-rolled specs

[1:51:15] in chapter 82, I believe, of the Wisconsin statutes that will really cover a lot of this.

[1:51:21] Just want to make sure that they would be aware of it. Again, this here is only the first review

[1:51:26] this ordinance so it's still require a public hearing. We would have to file a petition with

[1:51:32] the county quirk. We could do a public hearing in May or June and it could be into the

[1:51:36] county board if you wanted to in June or July depending on how much review time you want.

[1:51:44] We just finished up the comprehensive plan update and as part of this survey requirement of that

[1:51:52] plan update was like 90% of the residents of the colony wanted to preserve the real

[1:52:00] character of the colony and preserve the agricultural around and there is a lot of

[1:52:07] provisions in the conservation design that are very duplicative and there may

[1:52:13] be a setback of a hundred feet but then right below what they say that that hundred

[1:52:17] what setback can be reduced by up to 50% if you meet this X, Y, and it's just a lot of

[1:52:25] gray area. So being that the towns and their town complex designate so much of the land

[1:52:33] to be developed, maybe R2 zoning, conservation design is a good tool for the colony to offer

[1:52:41] to preserve the rural character, but you

[1:52:44] still meet the housing needs of the county.

[1:52:48] And so with the conservation design,

[1:52:50] there's a 25% density increase.

[1:52:54] So if you had a parcel that you could really

[1:52:55] only put eight hoses on, and a conventional major plat,

[1:53:01] now you do conservation design,

[1:53:04] you're able to reduce the lot sizes down to half acre,

[1:53:07] and you get 25% increase or roughly 10

[1:53:11] blowing units out of that same parcel. We don't have many of these. I think I was going

[1:53:18] one or two in the whole county right now because a developer looks at the ordinance

[1:53:23] is like, oh, it's like 10 pages long. You know, and I think the center of land use education

[1:53:30] or UW extension probably came up with the current text that we've got because it is very common

[1:53:35] amongst the counties, it's kind of standard, if you will.

[1:53:41] So the proposal has a lot of simplification and conservation design to try to promote conservation

[1:53:50] design within the colony, if that's something that the committee wants to support.

[1:53:55] And one of the main things that they ran into a lot of problems with was that Mona Openspace

[1:54:00] requirement going from 50%, we dropped that to 40%, it could even be less if you want, but

[1:54:07] basically if you've got 100 acres right now, the ordinance would require 50 acres to remain

[1:54:13] open space, and we would drop that to 40 acres of open space. We think it'll be more attainable.

[1:54:25] So, as a comment, did you have one on the last one on the road provisions? Sorry.

[1:54:31] I guess on both of these, I do. On the road provision, one of the concerns I get being a former

[1:54:41] town board person,

[1:54:46] the town board has been very reliant on review for roads and construction

[1:54:53] and everything and reliant on the county and they go through the process for review with

[1:55:00] county highway department and most of them do have a spec, but by doing what you're talking about it kind of makes me

[1:55:11] concerned that it's going to force them now to also hire in engineering services and everything to do reviews and have

[1:55:20] additional costs and additional layers.

[1:55:25] So right now a lot of this we rely for the role reviews and all this stuff to be done under our administrative fees and everything.

[1:55:35] It was incorporated in and it was more streamlined because we're just dealing with the county to do this and if we're taking the county out of this now and we're going to put all the burden on to the town that

[1:55:48] Hey, you're going to enforce your roads and how they're constructed and how they're done and the lay-outs

[1:55:55] We're going to be pretty much pushing that they're going to have to hire in engineering services and we're going to add another layer of cost on to developers and everything else in there

[1:56:05] So I'm just thinking out loud here about I realized the rock connie case, but

[1:56:12] Is there a way that we can have a mutual agreement with the towns or another way to do this?

[1:56:18] so that we can avoid the legal side of it but yet be able to do what we've been doing.

[1:56:24] So that question has been asked and that unfortunately the talents can not delegate their

[1:56:29] review authority to the colony and so that's where and that I'm not happy with the rock

[1:56:34] colony case either but literally we would have no enforcement authority to say hey we want that to

[1:56:39] be a 23 foot black top pavement road versus the standard 22 we could not require that as a colony

[1:56:46] the town could. And so that's where our outreach needs to be very good. We can take the plan pages

[1:56:54] that we had to cut out. Here's all of our specs. And we can take and give them to the town.

[1:57:00] And then they can require the developer to show how they're going to meet it. So I don't think

[1:57:05] they have to go as far as hiring outside services if they didn't want to. But really, this has

[1:57:13] around since before 2018, and our office hasn't been reviewing it for the road specs.

[1:57:20] So it's just a kind of a clean up thing. It's been more in the ordinance for a guidance document

[1:57:25] for towns and people to look back to, just because it's one central location, but really they

[1:57:30] should be going back to the statute of chapter 82. So yeah, supervisor Anderson.

[1:57:36] I guess I don't see, you know, like you said any reason why they couldn't use the guidance,

[1:57:42] the county used to follow as far as their own standard and then is there any reason the

[1:57:48] township can't like for example I know it lose the fees but the township can't be the

[1:57:56] kind of higher the county to do the review to see if it meets their own standard if that

[1:58:00] makes sense. As far as the recommendation not ultimate authority but a recommendation.

[1:58:06] Good ask Heather on that because I know that they can't just delegate their authority to

[1:58:11] But if the town contracts with us to do their review are we then a contracted party like in

[1:58:19] Engineering, so

[1:58:20] Seems reasonable to me

[1:58:25] Because then that's the town's decision to say these are the people doing the review for us and they're explicitly making that decision

[1:58:34] Or if they can't if we can't do the review for them as a county staff

[1:58:39] They can hire us as far as as far as the form of the decision they can hire us to give them a recommendation and 99% of the time

[1:58:46] They just follow the recommendation problem. I don't see a problem with that

[1:58:51] But that doesn't change the fact that we still need to clean up this ordinance. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely

[1:58:56] We can definitely use that as part of our follow-up with them

[1:58:59] You know, and the memo is hey this is changing and that may be we offer a service similar to like what we do with the

[1:59:05] plans in that that we help the talent with demanding their compliance.

[1:59:12] I'm sure the highway

[1:59:12] commissioner will have something to say about that as well. Yeah, and that Robbie's guidance

[1:59:18] is looking to statute. He says it's all spec don't right there. That's what we should be following.

[1:59:23] But not saying that that the statute answered every call to sack with and you know what I mean?

[1:59:28] So there is design criteria that would be helpful for the tones.

[1:59:34] So through all the

[1:59:35] And then I'm just going to ask the second question, well, okay, so moving on to the conservation design.

[1:59:45] I'm a very big advocate for conservation design is talking with you in the past,

[1:59:51] but I think our biggest downfall with conservation design that we need to work on is how we're going to manage the...

[2:00:00] Based water management issue is that's where the downfall is. When they install these systems,

[2:00:08] it's the long-term management issue and how to do it. I don't believe it's a good practice

[2:00:15] to leave that to homeowners associations because they can fall apart. They don't necessarily

[2:00:22] plan them accordingly where they have sinking funds and things for replacement for the future.

[2:00:29] I think there has to be a way, and it's going to involve somehow either inissapality or

[2:00:36] another means that we have to do to do it.

[2:00:40] But if we really want to make this happen, first we have to resolve how we're going to take

[2:00:47] here the wastewater management issue.

[2:00:50] So now the way I read it right now is that a common system would not be required, and that

[2:00:56] It would be an option to have a common system, but if you had bigger watts that were suitable

[2:01:02] for their own private sanitaries that they would be able to put them on there, and maybe

[2:01:07] you just wanted to clarify that so that it's queer.

[2:01:11] Yeah, because I think you need it and don't you need the state statutes at three quarters

[2:01:15] of an acre for if you're going to have an individual system?

[2:01:19] There's no required of it as long as it meets setbacks, you could have a corner acre wide

[2:01:23] you could have a sewer on it so really I just understood that my I live on

[2:01:31] under a quarter acre and it has its independent septic system. It's also

[2:01:37] probably grandfathered in but it's you know you're not gonna stop if I needed

[2:01:43] to replace my septic system like you can't really stop me from doing that I

[2:01:47] guess I don't think we should and not just only personal experience or

[2:01:53] obviously other people in the neighborhood that have each house has their own

[2:01:56] septic system and we kind of tough to, I guess, pull the rug out.

[2:02:01] Local back to septic, a couple of points down here so, because we've got some more.

[2:02:08] So, again, Mike, what was the act?

[2:02:12] Our Zoning Administrator, we had used Administrator,

[2:02:14] was involved in this draft.

[2:02:16] There was a lot of excess Zoning Administrator,

[2:02:19] administrator, discretion, wrote into the ordinance. He's all in favor. I'm not trying to rob

[2:02:25] Mike of his power. But unfortunately, that gray area, all the time, created every time that

[2:02:35] our office gets some submittals. It's like, oh, what do we do? Do we apply it here? Do we

[2:02:39] apply it there? You know, there was been some internal policies that have been put out to staff

[2:02:45] and about what should be applied when, and that, and our goal is really, so that if they

[2:02:50] can create a document that is on the website, any land owner, sub-divider, serve error,

[2:02:56] can go out there, and they can read the requirements, and it's very clear.

[2:03:00] This is what's saying Craig County's going to require, and this is the process that we're

[2:03:03] going to have to do to do it.

[2:03:05] So that's the goal of that provision, the policy, you bet.

[2:03:11] As far as the zoning administrator, he still has to make rulings that could be brought to

[2:03:18] BOA as a appeal, so we can't strip all that away.

[2:03:26] No, this is a lot of the fluff for the discretion.

[2:03:34] I'm very talked about keeping the face of the plaats queen, but just putting that in the

[2:03:44] It was buildable area. That's the main thing. So that's the area with all the right

[2:03:48] of ways, without the steep slopes, the wetlands. That's the main portion that we're concerned

[2:03:54] about. What I mean by clarified is we defined what contiguous was. And that about having

[2:04:00] a connection strip between the two chunks. I think we ended up with 16 feet. I think was what

[2:04:08] we said it had to be a width to connect so that you don't have a one foot strip to connect.

[2:04:12] So that's what I mean by clarifying.

[2:04:18] There are several references in the ordinance

[2:04:20] where it almost implies like the county is going to enforce

[2:04:25] the easements, deed restrictions,

[2:04:28] covenants and bylaws of some of these plats

[2:04:31] and quite often we don't have any authority to do so.

[2:04:36] With the ones that we have authority to enforce

[2:04:38] or like conservation easements and a conservation design.

[2:04:42] So, those provisions are all in there.

[2:04:44] So, anything that sink or a county would be a part of, we would still be an enforcer of.

[2:04:49] However, if there is a covenant that says your host has got to be hot pink, you know, we're not going to send out our way and you staff and tell somebody that they got to make their whole hot pink.

[2:04:59] That would be up to the homeowner's association and that to do that.

[2:05:10] So, back to the septic side.

[2:05:13] Currently, every watt, within St. Croix County, when it's subdivided, requires a soil attest to be done on that watt to verify that it's suitable for a sanitary system.

[2:05:26] Okay, fine.

[2:05:27] The problem is, is that soil attest, you know, back in the day, we're 350 bucks or 400 bucks, it wasn't a big deal on the scheme with things.

[2:05:36] now those are pushing six to seven hundred dollars and so we're getting fairly large

[2:05:40] tracks of land that a farmer is buying or somebody that just wants it for hunting land is buying

[2:05:47] and they're saying yeah we don't really care to do that soil attached we don't want to absorb

[2:05:51] that cost I have no intention I'm building on that piece of property and so they're taking in

[2:05:58] calling an outlot on the survey map when in reality that parcel meets the minimum lot size

[2:06:05] requirements, it meets the contiguous notable area, it meets everything in the ordinance, but

[2:06:10] it's being called that, oh, I just because they didn't want to pay for the soil attests.

[2:06:14] And so we've also got existing parcels in the county that are maybe bulk of wetland, you

[2:06:20] know, and they might not be able to meet the contiguous notable area on that whole parcel.

[2:06:25] Do we really want to call it an old water?

[2:06:27] Do we want to let them have it as is?

[2:06:30] I don't know what the assessors do, but that's a question that kind of comes to my mind because

[2:06:34] So if we got a big parcel that's deemed as an outlot, we would probably be assessing it

[2:06:40] like it was an outlot and that they couldn't build any dwellings on that property or anything.

[2:06:47] So it's just not really good order we development to be calling all these things outlots

[2:06:52] when typically an outlot is a parcel that doesn't meet the ordinance requirements.

[2:06:58] So maybe they don't meet the length of width because it's a road, it's a plated roadway

[2:07:02] and it's only 66 feet wide, but it's 1,000 feet long, you know, those are the alt watts that are okay,

[2:07:09] and those are the alt watts that we still want to continue to allow. It's just these bigger chunks just

[2:07:14] because of the soil test. So, but yet if we have parcels that are being split into five acres or

[2:07:21] less, or if they're part of a major plant, we know the intent of those parcels then is housing

[2:07:26] development, so we took in our suggesting in the ordinance here that those are the watts

[2:07:34] that we would require the soil test on. The ones that are, you know, smaller watts intended

[2:07:39] for housing more than likely. Any questions on that one?

[2:07:50] With that comes by or be where, you know,

[2:07:52] and that when you buy a piece of property and it's 38, there's, you know, if you want to build on

[2:07:57] there, you know, that somebody should be thinking, hey, I'm going to put it in the purchase order,

[2:08:02] but I'm going to put it in on contingent that it has a perk that'll work for a sewer system.

[2:08:11] So

[2:08:13] is that something, if we make this change, we could notify like, I don't know, all of the,

[2:08:20] I guess, real estate licensees in the county or something, or that generally work in the county,

[2:08:27] that we probably have an email record of, or at least the major branches or whatever, just so that they root all of that, them are aware.

[2:08:37] I mean, we could, but really, you know, for my own personal experience, don't be buys a lot without perk testing at first.

[2:08:48] I mean, you'd be crazy to do so. So I'm buyer beware, but I mean, I think the buyer's probably already are.

[2:08:54] I mean before you're going to spend that kind of money.

[2:08:58] I mean, I think everywhere else you go, but it's just been past practice here that we

[2:09:03] may be trying to protect the buyer too much.

[2:09:07] And that a little bit, because as the time has came on, you know, on that we've changed

[2:09:12] septic system designs, what's allowable, you know, so I mean, times change and we don't know

[2:09:18] what the land is going to be either, you know, so somebody could go in there with a

[2:09:23] and flatten it and it could make that soil test no longer valid too, you know, we would have nothing, you know, to know about it.

[2:09:33] So, right. So,

[2:09:38] okay, there was some provisions in far as the landscape standards that were in conflict with chapter 15.

[2:09:45] So, we just made consistency through all of the document with definitions.

[2:09:52] And like I said, various standards that they were the same.

[2:09:56] Otherwise, it's confusing, which one are you supposed to follow?

[2:10:01] Condense the ownership options for outlats and shared common open space.

[2:10:05] There was provisions in there to allow like a third party conservation organization to own them.

[2:10:11] But of course, we had concerns about tax deed, takebacks, property taxes.

[2:10:17] You know, who was going to follow it through and make sure each party was doing everything that they should be?

[2:10:22] So the one-third party that we would allow besides the developer and the county would be the town.

[2:10:28] So which and that is kind of most of those public properties go.

[2:10:35] We updated the agencies, ordinance, links, some middle requirements.

[2:10:42] There was several provisions throughout the ordinance that I would call just negative and nature.

[2:10:48] They're like on that they're really unnecessary. They were within the ordinance like if you don't do this

[2:10:53] We're gonna penalize you and use the enforcement provisions. Well that of course because of its an ordinance

[2:10:59] It's implied so we still have our enforcement section and that's everything that's gonna enforce the whole ordinance

[2:11:05] So hopefully it's just more public friendly

[2:11:12] So a big change and it's not much of the text in the ordinance

[2:11:17] But currently, any credit county has required any public improvements to be installed before

[2:11:24] the final plan is approved and filed with the Register of Deeds Office.

[2:11:29] Currently, our financial insurance for doing that will only require 50% down because we are

[2:11:35] holding that final plan approval.

[2:11:38] And this provision, I think, would be more developed or friendly, but yet still cover the

[2:11:44] on concerns because the developer will have approval of the final

[2:11:49] plat, but yet the county will still retain 120% financial assurance of what the

[2:11:56] cost of the improvements are to make sure that they're implemented out there on

[2:12:00] the site. So in other words, public improvements would come after final

[2:12:05] plat approval first and before. Any questions on that one?

[2:12:14] Yeah, so in other words if I'm putting in a development and I've got public improvements that I have to put in for roads or whatever it is, you're saying that if I got to spend a million for the road, now I've got to spend 2.2 million that I have to have cash.

[2:12:35] Well, and that's what we're saying in the 20% and that 1.2 so we would have to have financial assurance for 1.2 and that plus you'd have to build the road but the financial assurance could be in a line of credit or whatever, you know, so 2.2 million, no, you need to have cash.

[2:12:54] but what this really does is it takes the burden off from you and let's say that the

[2:13:01] county changes the ordinance or let's say staff move on and they have a different interpretation

[2:13:06] of the provisions and now you and you invested a million dollars in that road and now the

[2:13:12] requirements change and that now you don't get your final plat approved that's a big deal

[2:13:18] you know, and versus what we're saying is, hey, you're

[2:13:23] final class approved, you got to have the financial assurance

[2:13:26] because we got inflation costs, that's why it's 120% because it

[2:13:29] could be up to three years later.

[2:13:31] The million dollar project would require 1.2 million dollar

[2:13:35] performance bond, a performance bond cost 1 to 3% of the total

[2:13:39] project costs.

[2:13:44] I don't know, last time I was pricing performance bonds, they were in the

[2:13:54] the 120% that is the maximum that we're able to go to. So, yep. But from what we've kind of

[2:14:03] talked with some of the developers already, you know, and that they were very supportive of

[2:14:08] this concept, so that they knew that the green lights there, I gotta take and spend the money,

[2:14:13] but at least know that everything's going to move forward.

[2:14:19] I guess I don't see the need for the 120%

[2:14:23] If you're going to provide a bond or whatever it is,

[2:14:27] why would you need to be over a hundred percent?

[2:14:30] That's a solution.

[2:14:36] That'd be a public hearing on this, yep.

[2:14:44] Are we going to, should we consider having an open house,

[2:14:47] where we invite public to come in and make comments on this one?

[2:14:50] These are some pretty big changes.

[2:14:52] It's up to you.

[2:14:53] And that's kind of the purpose of the public hearing,

[2:14:57] and we have ample time to provide notice right now.

[2:15:00] And we can even create a web page and put it on online, similar to the compliant, if you'd like. So,

[2:15:09] I'm a public hearing. Would it be quite a public hearing?

[2:15:14] Right, I get that public hearing happens within, you know, four minutes of actually taking the vote. And if we have an open house, it gives a lot more time for policymakers to consider what what's being said.

[2:15:28] I know it's a lot more work for the staff.

[2:15:31] I appreciate that I do.

[2:15:35] I'm sorry I quite a few hours in this, so yeah, I get.

[2:15:39] We are action item.

[2:15:40] We could always be delighted to the following meeting.

[2:15:41] You don't have to vote right after the public hearing.

[2:15:46] Noted.

[2:15:47] Noted. I just want, I don't, this is another case where we've got two builders on this committee

[2:15:53] and both of them have put up a red flag on this one issue.

[2:15:56] The last thing that I want to see is to pass this and then have a quarter of the bill

[2:16:04] there's a sacred county come in here, angry that we did this because we didn't tell them.

[2:16:12] I don't want anybody thinking we snuck something in.

[2:16:15] So I want to take every opportunity that we can to make sure that we communicate this

[2:16:21] and get input.

[2:16:22] But I want if we take and send note the draft and that to the surveyors and developers

[2:16:29] and that that we work with on a regular basis and that's so that they are very well

[2:16:34] notified for the public hearing.

[2:16:38] That's I think that's pretty good.

[2:16:41] We're going to include realtors on that and I think they would be prudent.

[2:16:47] But we try to find that list and can't guarantee that we'll hit every

[2:16:52] reorder and that, but we can, we can maybe hit the branch office or

[2:16:56] something within the colony.

[2:16:57] So if you get a listing of the Sanctuary Valley Builders Association, you

[2:17:05] can get a pretty decent listing of all of the main builders anyway from the

[2:17:10] and then also the Western Wisconsin Realtors Association I think is the other one that you

[2:17:19] could get a pretty decent listing of everybody that would and you may be able to just

[2:17:25] send it to them and they can disperse the information.

[2:17:32] No, I need to ask the question if we had any issues without getting the financial insurance

[2:17:37] that we've ended up holding the bag.

[2:17:39] Has the county lost money by not getting insurance?

[2:17:44] I don't know if the county has, but in my 20 years, I've seen it at least twice.

[2:17:49] I've seen it at least twice where a developer has gone under before they finish the project

[2:17:54] and we had to exercise their performance bond.

[2:17:59] I remember that the county is kind of a third party on this, too, because we'd be working

[2:18:05] with the talents on completing these projects.

[2:18:10] Okay, so in asking for, you know, increased communication, we're going to fill the room with a specific

[2:18:17] population who are going to object to this, and I know that too, I just want to make sure

[2:18:21] that we don't anger this population.

[2:18:24] I don't know.

[2:18:25] I don't know.

[2:18:27] So, we're talking about the development in New Richmond.

[2:18:29] There was next to the turkeys at the county purchase and then sold to developer.

[2:18:33] Was that an unfinished?

[2:18:35] It was unfinished.

[2:18:36] I don't know if the city ended up taking a hit on that.

[2:18:39] I know that the land came back to the county on tax abatement.

[2:18:43] Yep.

[2:18:43] And we sold it for a nice price.

[2:18:46] But I think the developer really made out.

[2:18:47] But I think they had to finish some of the utilities in that.

[2:18:52] I don't think so.

[2:18:52] I think they had everything right down to cable TV plugged into that.

[2:18:57] Okay.

[2:18:58] It was done.

[2:19:00] It turned key project.

[2:19:01] Yep.

[2:19:02] It was my understanding on that.

[2:19:04] was that the developer had invested, put in all the infrastructure, put it all the roads, storm,

[2:19:12] sewer, everything was done. But was unaware that there was a huge fee that was due to the

[2:19:22] city for sewer and water access charges and that put them under. It was an excess of a third

[2:19:33] a million dollars in fees at the city was looking for and that put them over the top that

[2:19:40] they couldn't get the funding or the financing to pay for the permits to get their final

[2:19:46] platter approval.

[2:19:47] I was just trying to think of a project in the county where the developer didn't go under,

[2:19:52] but maybe they'd finish the utilities of that one.

[2:19:58] Yeah.

[2:19:58] And with the financial assurance, I know that's a huge increase from 50 to 120 percent,

[2:20:02] but that's a faster turnaround.

[2:20:03] There's provisions in the ordinance too that basically upon completion, that money is released back or that bond is released and that it's not upon right now

[2:20:13] It kind of lingers on for many years after words where they could be like a partial release and stuff and that

[2:20:19] We're just trying to keep it very simplified, but yet if we've got a development and they've already got the final plat record

[2:20:25] And we only got 50% financial assurance and they walk away from it

[2:20:29] What are we gonna do to take and make sure that stuff's put in?

[2:20:32] So that's why we've increased it over a hundred percent.

[2:20:37] But consider, I'd suggest to the committee,

[2:20:41] we consider having a public hearing,

[2:20:44] and then what would be a second thing to take the vote

[2:20:46] a month later, and have discussion a month later.

[2:20:51] As might sound crazy, and it might not be possible.

[2:20:53] But I'm just throwing it out there.

[2:20:56] Is it possible to let the individual contractor choose

[2:20:59] which option they want to do it?

[2:21:01] we have to set one standard.

[2:21:07] I suppose it's possible and that you couldn't create it.

[2:21:10] It's not typically done how we're doing it right now.

[2:21:13] Typically, the financial assurance, the reason why there's

[2:21:15] financial assurance is to make sure that it's done

[2:21:18] because the final class has already been recorded.

[2:21:21] So this is very unique, oh, we've got it.

[2:21:25] And it's also delays the whole planning process,

[2:21:29] of course, because and that you've got a preliminary that

[2:21:32] comes in, then they get their preliminary approval from staff.

[2:21:36] Now they go spend that, you know, quarter of a million million dollars, whatever, build

[2:21:41] the road and everything, and now they're coming back for final product approval.

[2:21:44] Well, what happens if the ordinance changed in there or what happens if staff say, and

[2:21:49] no, sorry, it's not good enough.

[2:21:51] We don't want to do that anymore.

[2:21:53] You know, so at what point do you ask for the financial assurance at preliminary

[2:21:56] plant or at final plant approval then what the change.

[2:22:00] Final plant approval.

[2:22:02] All right.

[2:22:02] So they could get a preliminary plant.

[2:22:04] They can go put all the utilities and then ask for final plant approval and they would

[2:22:08] need no assurance because the utilities are already in.

[2:22:13] So crazy works.

[2:22:16] Correct.

[2:22:18] So are you saying what would streamline this?

[2:22:21] What would be better and still protect the interest of the taxpayers?

[2:22:26] at what point should we be doing to make it easier for the contractor for the developer.

[2:22:32] Like it's proposed.

[2:22:34] Okay.

[2:22:35] That's a final plat.

[2:22:36] It should be done.

[2:22:37] In other words, we should go through all the approvals.

[2:22:40] Get all of our permits up front, right?

[2:22:42] And then we should take and start construction.

[2:22:46] And the financial assurance is to make sure that that happens.

[2:22:54] All right.

[2:22:55] Continue.

[2:22:58] The next one that we changed was policy, was we simplified the land, disturbance section.

[2:23:06] This is one of the things that was part of our last agenda topic about the chapter 15 amendments

[2:23:11] for filling and grading.

[2:23:13] We've got a lot of different provisions where maybe they've got to go through ten foot

[2:23:18] You know, in that it's maybe 20 to 25 percent slope right now anything over 25 percent would be prohibited by the ordinance now that

[2:23:28] Case on the middle of a farm field or something where there's no erosion potential that might be in a model will use you know, but if you got a you know

[2:23:38] You've got a 150 feet of elevation that's 25%

[2:23:42] That's a totally different thing.

[2:23:45] This provision is kind of looking forward to what

[2:23:48] Chapter 15 amendments might look like.

[2:23:51] And that to try to simplify that process and create some

[2:23:53] Performance Standards, so that is not just a prohibited use,

[2:23:56] but that they have to file property,

[2:23:58] erosion control.

[2:23:59] They have to make sure that it's stabilized.

[2:24:02] And so that, like I said, even some of the ditches

[2:24:05] on their backswool or over 25% you know.

[2:24:09] So it's just trying to put some context in there

[2:24:11] about the differences.

[2:24:16] Right now the company's got two different links

[2:24:18] to with ratios.

[2:24:20] Right now we specify parcels less than 10 acres at one

[2:24:24] and parcels greater than 10 acres at one.

[2:24:28] So we simplified it and we went to the bigger one.

[2:24:30] So there's less restrictive.

[2:24:33] And that is a four to one.

[2:24:35] And then right now, because of the shape of lots,

[2:24:38] can vary a bunch, there's like several pages of how to calculate what the width is

[2:24:44] and basically we try to take and simplify it so that it's three measurements and see average of them.

[2:24:50] So you take the widest part, you take the narrowest part, and you take one in the average or in the middle

[2:24:55] and then you put all those together, then take your width times four and if your average is less than

[2:25:03] whatever that be, so if it was 400, if it was 100 feet wide, you're good to go.

[2:25:12] So, okay, one of the things that we don't do a lot of is developer agreements, but we

[2:25:20] left it in there, just in case we need to use it someday down the road, but we did condense it down,

[2:25:26] simplified the wording, so no big changes as far as what it actually is or what it can do.

[2:25:34] The land division ordinance is kind of unique.

[2:25:38] I've never heard of a waiver before.

[2:25:41] Typically, those are considered variances.

[2:25:44] And if you look at criteria, that a waiver was to be reviewed against.

[2:25:49] It's very similar to a variance, unnecessary hardship, physical property limitations,

[2:25:54] not contrary to public interest.

[2:25:56] So we remove the waiver provisions and we imported variance provisions.

[2:26:01] that those would go to the board of adjustment. So, there's no case law on labor's center of

[2:26:09] land use and education, doesn't use labor's, you know, so I mean really you're asking for a

[2:26:14] variance to the standard.

[2:26:19] And then the current B section is quite lengthy so we do do that and we

[2:26:24] simply reflect the committee's fee schedule that you approve as the fee schedule and the ordinance

[2:26:31] for the ordinance. Do you need the fee schedule in the ordinance? Or could you reference a fee

[2:26:37] schedule outside of the ordinance would be easier to update? That's what we did. And that is

[2:26:42] that we just reference the fee schedule and that outside of the ordinance. So we removed all fees

[2:26:47] and kept it very simple in the ordinance. So we don't have to amend the ordinance every time

[2:26:52] and just look outside.

[2:27:01] And just so that's not a shock. And that when we go out of public hearing

[2:27:06] with this. The current documents about 108 pages long and it's almost cut in half directly

[2:27:12] and that's about 54 pages long but really the policy changes have just been went over right here.

[2:27:20] So there's not a lot of policy, there's a lot of duplicate text in several sections.

[2:27:25] I think the conservation design stuff could be cut more. I mean it's something I would

[2:27:30] encourage you to take and review because there's a lot of stuff about internal open space

[2:27:36] within the group clusters, and there's a lot of provisions there, and that might still

[2:27:40] scare developers away from using consecration design because it looks like a lot, but

[2:27:45] it's really not that hard to meet, so it's something to throw out there, I'd encourage you

[2:27:51] to review it and decide, you know, how will, how will attractive do we want to make conservation

[2:27:56] design within St. Craig County?

[2:28:02] We're going to have a conversation on conservation design at a later time when it becomes

[2:28:07] clear subject and I suggest we do make it a future agenda item or workshop or something and I'm

[2:28:17] saying that to avoid another 20 minute conversation because it's a very important topic

[2:28:25] and I'm

[2:28:26] not making light of it I think we need to delve into it and promote it. All right anything else

[2:28:35] good. This morning when I woke up I was really just dancing around because I knew I got to here

[2:28:41] financial report today. Anything? Sorry to disappoint you. This is through February, so it's really

[2:28:49] truly in the year to identify financial trends and red flags. If you saw something you want me to

[2:28:53] answer though, I'll be happy to.

[2:28:58] Otherwise the numbers aren't big enough to worry about yet.

[2:29:00] I should have invited my friend Judy Oglerhoff. She was good at this.

[2:29:12] Development, community development, carbon update.

[2:29:16] Does anybody know that Jason had a baby the other day?

[2:29:19] You know, named Clint, so otherwise I don't have anything else right now Mr. Chair.

[2:29:28] I don't understand, now this is of course bonnets. West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Committee.

[2:29:36] Well that was the other day that already happened. That was a great meeting by the way.

[2:29:41] We held the meeting yesterday at Bulmas Farms and Jason gave a phenomenal report on

[2:29:50] and farmland preservation, and they very well received, and I want to make a public

[2:29:58] thanks to this wall.

[2:30:00] And Steve Schala, and just it was a great, great representative St. Craig County finale at the regional planning.

[2:30:08] I request for a future agenda items.

[2:30:13] Right, wait until next term.

[2:30:16] Okay, the date of the next meeting is Thursday, April 18th.

[2:30:19] I think it is not that date. So you will not have a meeting in April, your next meeting will be in May.

[2:30:24] Because I'll be, thank you, you anticipated that.

[2:30:26] Yes, I did, yeah.

[2:30:27] I'll spend on every agenda, everyone's missed that.

[2:30:30] Okay, so the day the next meeting will be

[2:30:34] Well, well as the organization the organizer of the meeting is that's a point to okay

[2:30:39] We don't know what the next meeting is. We don't need something until right the new colony board is constituted

[2:30:45] Right, okay, guys stay tuned adjourn. Thank you

Community Development Committee Regular Meeting

Agenda

Transcript