Town to host ‘most important’ land use meeting

Town of Saukville residents have the opportunity to voice their views on the town’s future during an upcoming open house meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 16.

The meeting at the Town Hall is intended to provide information and receive feedback as officials update the town’s land use map.

“At the meeting, we’re going to have our specialist lay out the concepts behind future land use, the ideology and different forms about how communities plan,” Town Chairman Kevin Kimmes said. “It could be no growth, limited growth or low growth. There’s a lot of different philosophies.”

Kimmes said one thing seems to be certain — town residents don’t want to see large residential or commercial developments. He said maintaining the rural atmosphere of the town was a main theme in a recent community survey.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s important to attend this meeting,” Kimmes said. “Once we adopt (the land use map) and someone applies for a land use that’s aligned with our vision, it’s hard to say, ‘No.’ It’s the most important meeting on any land use decision on the town.”

A major effort being made in the town is to identify agriculture land and how it’s being used.

“The Town of Saukville is utilizing a rural planning concept called ‘Planning from the Outside-In,’ which is a process that identifies the town’s most precious land resources first,” Ken Jaworski, senior consultant with Cedar Corp., said in an email.  Cedar Corp. is assisting the town with their planning process. “These resources can range from land used specifically for farming practices and/or forestry...  to  areas of environmental significance, like the (Cedarburg) Bog.”

According to Jaworski, the town is going to “great lengths to identify the various types of agriculture uses.”

Those uses could include dairy farms, poultry farms, agri-tourism and crop farming.

“If agricultural and working farmland in the town are going to be protected, residents need to understand, and be comfortable with, what comes along with that use,” Jaworski said.

Kimmes stated that he believes town residents don’t want to see new major developments. But he also said many landowners want the ability to split off and sell five acres or more from their property, often for single-family home development, something which many farmers rely on for additional income.

“Overwhelmingly, we heard, ‘We don’t want to do large developments.’ … but we’ve also heard people say, ‘But if I want to split off five acres for one home, that’s different.’ So we have to have a plan that can accommodate that.”

Kimmes also said that without new development, it will be hard for the town to grow its tax base. That makes it more difficult to fund projects like major road repairs.

“If we have a land use plan that says no growth, (tax revenues) don’t go up,” Kimmes said. “We have to increase our taxes to pay for the roads no matter what our land use plan is.”