The Oconomowoc Town Board puts the breaks on a sprawl-for-the-sake-of-sprawl development after the developer decided to move an access road.
"The road change had been proposed as a safety measure to increase the visibility of cars going in and out of the subdivision from Norwegian Road."
Yeah, right. And I bet this subdivision planned for "really high-end homes" was safely designed with right-angle turns, narrow roads, and sidewalks (he said sarcastically....).
Bravo, Oconomowoc.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Town, county push to save farmland
Debate over subdivisions highlights preservation efforts
By AMY RINARD
[email protected]Posted: April 6, 2008
Town of Oconomowoc - When a developer decided that he'd rather put an access road to his high-end subdivision through a grove of pine trees instead of where it had originally been approved, the Town Board refused to allow it.
Last month, the Waukesha County Board sided with the town and rejected the developer's request for a change in plans.
It was the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle to preserve farmland and open space by a county with precious little left and a town that finds itself the protector of much of what survives.
"The proposed development is misplaced, as it is an island of residential development in the farming community," the Town Board said flatly in the resolution that it approved unanimously, rejecting the developer's request for a plan change.
A previous Town Board in November 2005 had approved the zoning changes that landowner David Robinson needed for the 57-acre, 10-lot residential subdivision along the west side of Norwegian Road, about a mile north of County Highway K in the far northwest corner of the county.
But a more recent controversy over another proposed subdivision near the same area - it was rejected - and the election of a local farmer to the board has highlighted the issue of farmland preservation.
Area targeted
Now town officials have pledged to work harder to protect farmland from development, especially north of Highway K. That area is the largest contiguous stretch of productive farmland in Waukesha County and home to at least one large and thriving farm operation.
"There has been a lot of resident objection to this subdivision," town Chairman Robert Hultquist said of the Robinson property. "I really don't think there will be much more development north of Highway K; as long as I'm in office, I'll work to curtail it."
Robinson said it was not yet certain whether the Norwegian Road subdivision would now proceed. He said moving the road back to its original location so it did not have to pass through one end of a pine plantation would not be a problem.
The road change had been proposed as a safety measure to increase the visibility of cars going in and out of the subdivision from Norwegian Road.
"We'll probably have to go along with the town; we don't want to create any problems," Robinson said.
But, he said, it is far from certain whether the project, planned for what he called "really high-end homes," will proceed to the construction phase. He declined to explain the reasons for that uncertainty.
"We just don't know at this time if it will go ahead," Robinson said.
Much of the debate by the Town Board and the County Board centered on whether a pine plantation, planted in the 1990s, should be considered part of an environmental corridor worthy of preservation.
Planners urged change
Both the town and county land-use planning staffs had endorsed the road change, and the town Plan Commission voted unanimously in favor of it in January.
But when the issue came before the Town Board for action in February, supervisors rejected the change, saying the road "should not be constructed in the environmental corridor."
On the County Board, 25 of the 28 supervisors voted against the road change.
"It's wrong for us to change this just because it's inconvenient," said Supervisor Patricia Haukohl of Brookfield, chairman of the county Park and Planning Commission.
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