Crescent plan commission looks at areas of town that may need zoning protection

Members of the Crescent plan commission have been charged with looking at zoning within the town and attempting to get a handle on how the zoning district could change. Initially there was some confusion as to whether or not the town had adopted any zoning at all.

A few months ago, committee chair David Holperin had asked Scott Ridderbusch from Oneida County zoning to come to a meeting to talk about county zoning, what had been adopted by the town, and to answer some questions about how changes might be made. At that time, Ridderbusch explained the town had adopted the Oneida County zoning districting in 2007, but had made the decision to zone the entire town general use.

There was some apprehension regarding how town residents would react in hearing the term “zoning” being bandied about under the guise of making changes to these districts.

“We have to find a way, when discussing this, that it isn’t big brother,” commissioner Jim Altenberg said at the beginning of the discussion earlier this year. “It’s little sister trying to make the neighborhood better.”

This is the approach the plan commission has taken when looking at whether or not to develop different zoning districts within the town. In recent meetings, the commission had reviewed the types of zoning districts available and what was allowed in each of those districts.

A place to start

At the plan commission’s Nov. 5 meeting, Holperin said he did not expect action on anything from the commission during the meeting, but he wanted to get some clarification on the ares of the town where they could look at changing zoning. He also reviewed permitted use, administrative review and conditional use as it was outlined by the county. With those uses in mind, and the various districts allowed in the county zoning regulation, Holperin said he wanted to look at the township map first to see the areas the town could not consider where they could not do anything with zoning. Those areas would include ares such as the airport, the golf course and the wastewater treatment plant. Shoreland zoning areas, too, he said, were other areas over which the town would not have the ability to change zoning districts.

Holperin said a good place to start when looking at potential zoning was the area around County Highway K and State Highway 47 and River Street as well as Hwy. 8.

“I think we should look at protecting the businesses up here in this northern corner,” Holperin said at last week’s meeting, pointing to the area near the intersection of highways K and 47. The area is a bit of a patchwork between the town and Rhinelander.

“If we do anything, I think it would be logical that we would start in this corner,” Holperin said. “Certainly, along Hwy. 47, along Hwy. 8, and some length of Hwy. 17.”

“I would say look at this northern corner, because there are already some businesses to build upon,” agreed commission member Connie Anderson.

The discussion turned to Crescent School on Boyce Drive. Other businesses including a restaurant and Grunst Archery are in that area as well, Altenberg pointed out.

“That may be another area that we need to do something about so that something doesn’t end up right next to the school that the school district doesn’t want next to it,” Holperin said. “I can think of a couple of unsavory type of businesses or loud manufacturing that could easily end up next to a school district, so we might want to look at that as well.”

“I think we need to look at Boyce Drive a little harder, we really do,” Altenberg said. “You’ve got a good section of properties in there, and there’s already existing businesses.”

The area is quite mixed between residential and business properties. Anderson said it appeared there was a property there that seemed to be growing into a campground. With the area zoned as general use, there was a wide range of uses that would be allowed in that area, but the commission felt this area might be a good portion of the town to give some time and attention when it came to changing from general use to some other zoning district designation.

In a discussion regarding highway corridors, commission member Mike Pazdernik said he had been thinking about a “Welcome to the Town of Crescent” sign on both sides of the town on Hwy. 8. The issue would be that, heading out of Rhinelander, travelers would be almost halfway through the town before they would be able to put up a sign on property that was actually within the town, due to the city-owned property.

In the end, Holperin said he felt it was clear that he could use more direction on how to proceed. The commission agreed that he should attempt to secure a meeting with someone at Oneida County zoning before the next meeting to get better direction on how the process would go.

“I’m trying to think in my mind how we’d even start to implement that because first of all we’re all going to have to agree on what we want to do,” Pazdernik said. Holperin agreed and said, at that time, it would have to become a public discussion with input from town residents regarding any changes as well. 

“But we’re not even there yet,” Holperin said. “I don’t know the process.” He said he would get an appointment with someone at the zoning department and start the discussion about how to go about protecting some of those areas they had discussed from certain types of uses the town had already decided they did not want to allow. He said he would bring back information from the count zoning department to the next meeting.

The next meeting of the Crescent plan commission will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 3.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].