December 22, 2022 at 10:43 a.m.
For housing, Oneida County zoning code needs to be completely rewritten-and gutted
For housing, Oneida County zoning code needs to be completely rewritten-and gutted
That said, while it's a start, there's much more work to be done to dismantle the zoning disincentives - and mandates - that thwart local housing development. Indeed, the committee and the staff need to take a wholesale look at the ordinance and its regulatory scheme and dismantle most of it.
In the Lakeland area, affordable housing is one component being studied by the ad hoc committee convened by the town of Minocqua to address ongoing and worsening workforce issues. The reasons for our labor force shortages are myriad and complex, and to a degree so also is housing, but underlying the housing challenge there is one principal obstacle to adequate housing in the county - its massively bureaucratic and regulatory zoning code.
Despite various rewrites and reforms over the years, the code is essentially a big-government relic held over from the days when the ultimate regulator, former county corporation counsel Larry Heath, ruled the zoning roost. Mr. Heath despised property rights more than the devil despises angels, and he went out of his way to establish the most punitive land use (or, more aptly, land you're not allowed to use) system imaginable.
A property owner in Mr. Heath's line of sight might as well have been an angel strapped to a stake in the middle of a bonfire.
Today most of the infrastructure of that hellspace remains intact, and, judging by statements made by various staff, they don't mind it all that much.
But, the reality is, if the regulations underlying all the disincentives to development aren't rolled back - and we mean eviscerated - then all other efforts will go for naught.
The committee's discussion last week came on the heels of a new report by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which, as we reported, shows that government regulations are driving the cost of housing ever higher. Indeed, the researchers calculate that government adds approximately $88,500 to the average cost of each new-built home in the Midwest.
Just think what those regulations add to the cost of a multi-family development, which is in scarce supply in Oneida County, or, as county zoning director Karl Jennrich put it last week, such development is practically non-existent. This is how absurd the regulations are: In Oneida County, the regulations are actually more restrictive for multi-family projects in the district zoned "multi-family" than they are in business zoned districts. In the multi-family districts, there are multipliers for each unit built into the square footage requirements of a parcel, whereas in the business districts there are no multipliers.
As surveyor and contractor Jimmy Rein informed the committee, it's practically impossible to put apartments in a multi-family district because, once the zoning requirements are met, there's not enough space.
Yeah, we're scratching our heads, too. That's absurd, and it's the quintessential example of government being the essential problem.
Thankfully, the county will be taking a look at that, as well as the possibility of loosening regulations so that more multi-family development can occur in recreational and residential and farming districts.
But that needs to be just the start. In a separate discussion last week, the committee engaged in a give and take about the time its takes to get building permits in Oneida County - often weeks and weeks - compared with Vilas County, where they can be obtained in a day.
Again, that indicates that, when it comes to zoning, Oneida County is truly a government swamp, a quagmire of needless and onerous regulations.
If the committee is serious about housing, it will do a lot more than tweak the ordinance in multi-family districts, it will take a chainsaw to the regulations that thwart housing development, starting with the list of conditional uses in each district.
In general the conditional use process in zoning has gotten out of hand, and not just in Oneida County. There are way too many conditional uses as opposed to permitted uses in any given district, and, the problem is, conditional uses are granted at the discretion of the county, and discretion introduces subjectivity and bias into the proceedings.
Instead, most zoning should be "by right," that is, permitted without extensive review. To say it another way, every zoning district should clearly state what uses are permitted, and there should be few, if any, conditional uses. A hospital, for example, either can or can't be built in a district, and, if it can, then it should be allowed "by right," without extensive review so long as minimum standards are met, such as height restrictions and adherence to safety codes.
In by-right zoning, conditional uses, while not eliminated, are whittled down to the bare minimum. New zoning districts might have to be created on the front end to accommodate more permitted uses and community desires, but on the back end there will be much less cost and much more certainty for developers - and more housing development, in particular.
The scope of single-family zoning districts needs to be revisited as well. We do not advocate abolishing them, or offer any specific proposal, but such questions as whether those districts should allow "in-law" cottages - that is, small residential accessory dwellings - or duplexes need to be discussed, and perhaps zoning districts that are classically single family and others that are single family but allow accessory dwellings or duplexes could be considered.
All of this presumes grassroots involvement - not comprehensive planning but comprehensive individual citizen participation - in developing clearly defined zoning districts.
As the WILL report alluded to, other onerous requirements need to be examined, such as parking and minimum lot sizes. While we see the need to require minimum parking spaces for businesses that have the space to do so, the parking requirements for larger facilities such as apartment complexes and grocery stores are likely too onerous and eat up too much space.
It is not uncommon to see a sea of empty or sparsely occupied concrete and asphalt parking lots surrounding such complexes, and it is a colossal waste of space.
Minimum lot sizes also need to be abandoned, for they serve no purpose whatsoever except to protect the affluent from having middle- and lower-income households as neighbors.
Off water, the advantages of smaller parcels are obvious - more housing units can be developed. But there are advantages on-water as well.
As we have written about before, because the state has impervious surface requirements, the size of lots plays no role in protecting our county's lakes. That is to say, property owners can only develop a certain percentage of the shoreland around a lake, no matter how many parcels that shoreland contains. To wit, developing 15 percent of 50 100-foot frontage lots is the same as developing 15 percent of 25 200-foot frontage lots.
Indeed, studies show that larger-lot owners often install more impervious surfaces percent-wise than do smaller-lot owners, cramming decks and gazebos, patios and grand driveways and concourses into them.
The only difference really is, with smaller lots you get more housing, lower prices, and middle-class access to lakes, and that reduces pricing pressures off-water, too.
The bottom line is, no county and no community will have the same needs or wants. There is no one-size-fits-all, but communities need to engage that process of deciding those needs and wants and be able to do so without county regulatory commands from on high.
In the end, affordable housing may call for some state preemption of local control when it comes to county zoning. While local control is best when it is possible, it must be remembered that counties are administrative arms of the state, existing to enforce state policy.
Oftentimes, in recent years, local control has been weaponized against property rights protected by the constitution. State law should protect those constitutional rights; it should require by-right zoning with a process that is defined and certain; it should reject zoning based on purely hyperlocal and aesthetic considerations, except in historic districts.
Right now, there are many obstacles to providing adequate and affordable housing in the area, but they all pale next to the biggest obstacle of all: the Oneida County zoning code.
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