Using and Amending Your Comprehensive Plan

1. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

2. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

3. 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) UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

4. 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” UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

5. 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) UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

6. 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

7. 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.” UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

8. 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

9. Using your comprehensive plan: Application of the law • What is the purpose of comprehensive planning? • Informed decision making UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

10. 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

11. 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) UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

12. Using your comprehensive plan: Application of the law • Examples from Wisconsin Communities • See attachments • St. Croix County • City of Madison UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

13. 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” UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

14. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

15. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

16. 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.” UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

17. Amending your comprehensive plan: Overseeing the process • Plan Commission • Ad hoc “work group” • In-house staff 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

18. Amending your comprehensive plan: Who does the work? • Private consultant • In-house staff • Regional Planning Commission • County Planning Department • UW-Extension agent Often, the best choice will be a partnership of two or more resources. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

19. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

20. Amending your comprehensive plan: Public participation • Public Participation Plan • Notifications to non-metallic mining interests • Notifications to any others who requested it Required by statute, although activities do not have to be as robust as they may have been for the original planning process. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

21. Amending your comprehensive plan: Standardize the process • 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

22. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

23. 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 UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

24. Amending your comprehensive plan: Distribution of amended plan • 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 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

25. Amending your comprehensive plan: 10-year plan update • 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 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.) UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline

26. 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. UWEX Local Land Use Planning and Zoning Wisline