Transcript Using and Amending Your Comprehensive Plan

Using and Amending Your
Comprehensive Plan
Brian W. Ohm, J.D.
Land Use Law Specialist, Department of Urban & Regional
Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison/Extension
Kevin Struck
UWEX Growth Management Educator, Sheboygan County
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Overview
• Using your comprehensive plan
– You’ve got a comprehensive plan, now what?
• How to use a comprehensive plan in everyday decision
making
• Amending your comprehensive plan
– It is difficult to predict the future
• Amending the plan when the community wants to
approve a project that is not supported by the plan
– Periodic updates
• The practice of periodically reviewing the plan and
making changes
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• Remember the 2010 changes to the
comprehensive planning law
– 2009 Wis. Act 372 (signed into law, May 18, 2010)
– See Ohm, “2010 Updates to Wisconsin’s
Comprehensive Planning Law,” Perspectives on
Planning (May 2010)
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• “. . . Beginning on January 1, 2010, if a local governmental unit
enacts or amends any of the following ordinances, the
ordinances shall be consistent with that local governmental
unit’s comprehensive plan:
– Official mapping ordinances enacted o amended under s. 62.23(6)
– Local subdivision ordinances enacted or amended under s. 236.45
or 236.46.
– County zoning ordinances enacted or amended under s. 59.69.
– City or village zoning ordinances enacted or amended under s.
62.23(7).
– Town zoning ordinances enacted or amended under s. 60.61 or
60.62.
– Shorelands or wetlands in shorelands zoning ordinances enacted
or amended under s. 59.692, 61.351 or 62.231”
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• “’Consistent with’ means furthers or does not
contradict the objectives, goals, and policies
contained in the comprehensive plan.”
– Wis. Stat. § 66.1001(1)(am)
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• Other statutory provisions:
– Cities, villages, and towns need to make a finding that the plan for a
proposed tax increment financing district is in “conformity” with the
master plan of the city, village, or town.
– The creation of an architectural conservancy district or a business
improvement district requires a description of the “relationship” of
the district to the local master plan.
– Urban redevelopment plans need to be “in accord” with the local
master plan.
– Redevelopment authorities in first class cities must make the finding
that the purpose for issuing bonds for public school facilities “is
consistent” with the city’s master plan.
– Counties and regional planning commissions are allowed to
comment on the effect that cooperative boundary agreements
between cities or villages and towns may have on the county
development plan or the regional master plan.
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• Other statutory provisions:
– A cooperative boundary agreement plans “shall describe how it
is consistent with each participating municipality’s
comprehensive plan.”
– Water supply plans (required under the Great Lakes Compact
legislation) must include “[a]n analysis of how the plan
supports and is consistent with any applicable comprehensive
plans, as defined in s. 66.1001(1)(a).” The DNR will not
approve any water supply plan that is not consistent with any
applicable comprehensive plan. Urban redevelopment plans
need to be “in accord” with the local master plan.
– The Working Lands Initiative requires that farmland
preservation plans be “consistent with the comprehensive
plan” and that the farmland preservation zoning ordinance be
“substantially consistent with the farmland preservation plan.”
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Using your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• A comprehensive plan can also:
– Help establish the basis to include non-housing
facilities for certain programs funded by the
Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development
Authority.
– Establish street widths in cities and villages.
– Help determine the appropriate location for medical
waste incinerators.
– Authorize the rezoning of registered lands for
nonmetallic mineral extraction operations.
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• What is the purpose of comprehensive
planning?
– Informed decision making
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• The essential question for decision makers:
– Does the enactment (or amendment) of the
zoning/subdivision/official map ordinance further or
not contradict the objectives, goals, and policies
contained in the comprehensive plan?
• Remember a “rezoning” is an amendment to the zoning
ordinance.
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• American Planning Association, “Writing Better
Staff Reports”
– Some common problems with reports:
• “Lack of rigorous analysis against comprehensive plan text
and plan maps”
– See Meck and Morris, “Formatting and Writing the
Staff Report,” Zoning Practice (November, 2004)
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• Examples from Wisconsin Communities
– See attachments
• St. Croix County
• City of Madison
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• What can we learn from other states?
– See attachment: “Let the Courts Guide You: Planning and
Zoning Consistency”
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Using your comprehensive plan:
Application of the law
• Best practices
– Identify relevant objectives, goals, and policies from
the plan
– Discuss how the proposed ordinance furthers those
objectives, goals, and policies
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• Procedures of s. 66.1001 for adopting
comprehensive plans apply to:
– initial preparation of plan
– amendments to the plan
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
What the law says
• Implementation element.
– “The element shall include a process for updating
the comprehensive plan. A comprehensive plan
under this subsection shall be updated no less
than once every 10 years.”
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Overseeing the process
Although the City Council/Village or Town Board ultimately
decides whether to adopt the proposed amendment, they
may choose to delegate oversight of the process.
• Plan Commission
• Ad hoc “work group”
• In-house staff
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Who does the work?
Often, the best choice will be a partnership of
two or more resources.
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Private consultant
In-house staff
Regional Planning Commission
County Planning Department
UW-Extension agent
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Frequency of amendments
• Whenever they arise
– Effective in a small, quiet community where
amendments are likely to be infrequent
• Annually, or other set time period
– Might be more efficient to “group” amendments
in a fast-growing community rather than having to
deal with an amendment every month or two
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Public participation
Required by statute, although activities do not have
to be as robust as they may have been for
the original planning process.
• Public Participation Plan
• Notifications to non-metallic mining interests
• Notifications to any others who requested it
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Standardize the process
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Amendment application form
Consistency analysis form
Review procedures
Filing system
This makes it easier in the future to remember
how various amendments were handled, and it
documents a community’s due diligence.
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Working on the amendment
• Use tools like Word’s “Track Changes” and the
comment insertion option
• Include disclaimer if work is being done by
someone other than the original author
• Don’t forget to update Table of Contents, if
necessary
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Adoption of the amendment
• Same statutory requirements as for the
original plan’s adoption*
– Public notice, public hearing, resolution by plan
commission, ordinance by council/board
*One exception: A draft does not need to go to the
distribution list prior to adoption – only the Final amended
plan, after adoption
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
Distribution of amended plan
Amended plan can be distributed via a digital copy on a CD;
or can be a paper copy (or both). Helpful to recipients if a
cover letter highlights the changes and identifies pages.
• 66.1001(4)(b)
– Governmental bodies located partly or wholly
within your governmental unit; governmental
bodies adjacent to yours; WisDOA; regional
planning commission; local public library
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Amending your comprehensive plan:
10-year plan update
A formal, required amending of the entire plan, wherever
updates are deemed necessary. (Some plans may have
specified a more frequent updating than every 10 years.)
• A good time to acknowledge accomplishments since
the plan was originally adopted
• Updates will likely include census/demographic data,
changes to community facilities, transportation maps,
land use maps; and need to check whether vision,
goals, objectives, policies, programs are still relevant
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Pending legislation
• AB 303
– Consistency requirement would only apply to local
governments that have a comprehensive plan.
– Provides for the repeal of comprehensive plans.
– State agencies cannot consider comprehensive
plans in determining eligibility for economic
development programs.
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