Oneida County land and water conservation committee tightens shoreland rules

Seeking to close what they called a loophole in Oneida County’s shoreland ordinance, members of the land and water conservation committee voted to prohibit clearcutting and other land-disturbing activities in lakefront access and viewing corridors — citing concerns over erosion, aesthetics and water quality.

Committee chair Collette Sorgel had asked for Ted Rulseh from Oneida County Lakes and Rivers Association (OCLRA) to join the committee to speak about some language in the shoreland ordinance the association and others wished to see changed. The concern was the matter of clear cutting in the access and viewing corridor. Rulseh said the matter went back several years when a property owner on Two Sisters Lake clear cut the access and viewing corridor in that zone. 

“We think this is a hole in that ordinance,” he said, stating that the board had taken action at that time to ask that language be put into the ordinance that would not allow such action. “There really should not be clear cutting in that zone.” 

He said he realized the language was difficult, but that fact did not mean that making that change should be avoided. 

The issue has to do with erosion, aesthetics and water quality. With the Northwoods’ pristine water quality being one of the drivers of tourism as well as property values, the hope was to protect the lakes as much as possible while still allowing riparian owners freedom to do certain things on their shorelines.

“The only thing I can suggest to you on that, I don’t know how the county even begins to enforce this,” said committee member Robb Jensen. “How do you monitor whether someone has 6.125 trees in their viewing corridor? I just think we’re trying to get into an area that’s really difficult to enforce.” He said lake organizations should work with people to understand the importance of leaving vegetation on their shorelines.

“I acknowledge the difficulty of enforcing, but I guess I would reiterate that that’s not a reason to allow it,” Rulseh said. “The SPO doesn’t say go ahead and clear cut, but there’s no prohibition in there.” 

In Vilas County, he said, there was language in the SPO that allowed “selective” clear cutting, for instance. He said educating lake organizations and their members was a worthy goal and should be done irrespective of the ordinance, but it was a very long term proposition and more difficult without some standard to which to point. He agreed that demanding already existing property owners to  plant trees would not be practical, but it would be practical to not allow clear cutting on a lot where vegetation already exists.

“I don’t think the education is about enforcement at this point,” said committee member Linnaea Newman. “It does mean education, though. We need to have some standard, whether or not it’s enforced, that we can point to and say we’ve agreed this would be the best thing for our shorelines if we maintain these standards.” 

She agreed that not every property owner would maintain those standards, as a few would do what they wanted, regardless of any ordinance or education efforts. She said she had seen multiple pictures of land owners bulldozing all the way to the shoreline, but she did want to have some standard to which to point as the standard for the county. She said she did not want to see lakes in Oneida County start to look like the lakes in Dane County. She said she wanted something educational for zoning to point to when a complaint was made. She asked zoning director Karl Jennrich what he could do when he found a situation such as one where someone had bulldozed all the way down to the lakeshore.

“The department has the ability to require them to mitigate, and in some of these circumstances, they did have a mitigation plan filed with us,” Jennrich said. “The problem was that we believe they went above and beyond what was authorized by the permit, and they bulldozed right to the shoreline as part of construction of the house and as part of construction of the retaining wall.” He said, once the damage was done, it was difficult to rectify what had been done.

Newman said the county needed to have something that would point to what the county felt was a good idea. Selective cutting, she said, stated that. While it may not be completely clear to everyone, it was something to point to as a standard.

“Sure people are going to disagree on it,” she said. “Sure, we’re not going to take a gun out there and say thou shalt not cut down all these trees, but as education goes, we have to have some kind of standard that says this is what we are standing for on our shoreline preservation in Oneida County.” 

Newman said she felt that aligning with Vilas County might be a good idea to make it seem like the two counties were a cohesive, intelligent group looking to protect lakes.

“OCLRA is of the belief that most people want to do the right things,” Rulseh said, expounding on Newman’s comments. “A lot of times, people don’t do the right things because they don’t know what the right things are.” 

He said, if people could be counseled in the zoning office as to what selective cutting was and what it would look like on that particular property, it would go a long way toward starting a conversation and some type of education.

The committee then viewed one property that had recently been under construction. In this case, a boat house was moved, natural frontage was destroyed in the creation of the boathouse and an inert wall was created. There was also no erosion control in place. 

Although there were many stipulations on what was supposed to happen, the landscaper did not follow through on those requirements. Jennrich said the department was currently dealing with that particular property and the issues there.

There was also some discussion about education and outreach to realtors as well. People in those positions could help to educate new riparian owners who are purchasing lake property, for instance, for the first time. Newman said that part of that education would be for the realtors to be able to point to the shoreland ordinance as the standard that Oneida County has deemed acceptable. 

County conservationist Michele Sadauskas said originally, the reason the language was left out of the ordinance was because corporation counsel at that time felt the language would not be permitted by the state statute. However, since that time, multiple counties had placed some very clear prohibitions against clear cutting into their ordinances. When Rulseh came to her to talk about this, she thought perhaps what was needed was simply clearer and more simplistic language, which was where the current wording came from that would allow selective cutting, but would require trees of four inches or more in diameter would need to remain standing. 

Other language the department felt needed to be changed was in relation to landscaping. This was something, under the ordinance, that allowed not only for planting trees and vegetation, but also “altering the contour of the ground,” She said this opened up the access and viewing corridor as “fair game” to any sort of landscaping, excavation, and many other things that would be detrimental. She said she felt this was too broad and subjective.

In the end, the committee opted for language that prohibited clearcutting, filling, grading and other land disturbing activities within the access and viewing corridor and also would eliminate the word “landscaping” and its definition. They also chose to allow select cutting, using the same language as Vilas County.

Jennrich has sent the previous language to the Department of Natural Resources for review. The landscaping definition was in the ordinance under review by DNR, but the clear cutting was not. Once the ordinance with comments from DNR comes back, the committee would then come up with the final language based on input from DNR and public comments and then the matter would go to a public hearing.

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