Bikie friends - Below is an action alert that is very important to help preserve the Dane County where we love to work, live, play, and bike. The new Capital Area Regional Plan Commission (CARPC) is having ONE public hearing on the new criteria and policies for all future development in Dane County. It is VERY important that you voice your opinion and speak up for compact development, farmland preservation, water quality, and smart transportation policies.
If you feel that the way communities are developed affect your bicycling, and I certainly do, this is a crucial action alert. Please pass it on to other lists. Thank you in advance! Robbie [start forwarded message] Calling all friends of healthy communities, farmland, and clean water and air. You can help protect Dane County's farmland and groundwater from poorly planned development! We only have until Jan. 24 to show our support for proposed changes that have the developers scared and the conservationists hopeful. We (an ad hoc coalition of groups and individuals) have made this easy-to-use guide so that you can choose at what level to participate: Basic Actions (5 min.), Stepped Up Actions (20 min.), or Powerful Actions (several hours). At the end of this email the issues are explained in more detail. We're asking everyone to do at least 2 things: 1. Please contact the new CARPC (Capital Area Regional Planning Commission) today in support of their proposed criteria for Urban Service Area extensions. These new criteria will deny approval to many farmland-gobbling, groundwater-threatening, car-dependent proposals, and will instead encourage infill and redevelopment, to create safe, compact communities. 2. Please attend the one Public Hearing on these criteria, Thursday, Jan. 24 at 7:00 p.m., Rm. 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Madison. Whatever level you can help on, we thank you most gratefully. The developers and their allies are organizing to get these criteria changed, (see why below) and we must inundate the CARPC with public comments and show up en masse to make a real change in the way development is done in Dane County! Signed, Black Earth Creek Watershed Association, Barbara Borns The Friends of the Dane County Parks, Inc., Phil and Libby Lewis Friends of Badfish Creek, Caroline Werner Friends of Cherokee Marsh, Inc., Jon Becker League of Women Voters, Dane County, Connie Threinen Madison Audubon Society, Karen Etter Hale Sierra Club Four Lakes Group, Seth Nowak, Kate Blumenthal and Caryl Terrell Trout Unlimited, Jeff Smith Upper Sugar River Watershed Association, Becky Olsen West Waubesa Preservation Coalition, Phyllis Hasbrouck P.S. Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] when you have sent in your emails/letters, so that we can keep a tally, and let us know if you plan to attend on Jan. 24 as well. Please tell your municipality as well, so we can keep track of where we need to get more support. _________________________________________________ BASIC ACTIONS (5 min. plus one evening) 1. Please email the following text to the CARPC at [EMAIL PROTECTED] today! It's very important that you add at least one personal sentence explaining who you are, where you live, and why this is important to you. I support strong, strict criteria for the CARPC, to protect Dane County's farmland and groundwater from poorly planned development. I especially support criteria to: prioritize infill and redevelopment; eliminate the flexibility factors; and protect farmland, environmentally sensitive areas and critical groundwater recharge areas. But before they can begin to review new development proposals, the CARPC must fulfill its mandate to update the Dane County Water Quality Plan to include areas of the highest environmental sensitivity and growth pressure. Sincerely, Your Name Your Address (very important!) 2. Show up at the one Public Hearing on the criteria that will determine how our landscape looks for centuries to come. That's Thursday, Jan. 24 at 7:00 p.m., Rm. 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Madison. Please wear something green to identify yourself with protecting our natural resources! You can register to speak for 3 minutes if you wish, or just register (fill out the registration slip and give it to someone in charge) "in favor of strong criteria to prioritize infill and redevelopment, preserve farmland and protect groundwater." We need people from every corner of Dane County! ____________________________________________________ STEPPED UP ACTIONS (20 min. plus one evening) 1. Please email the following text to the CARPC at [EMAIL PROTECTED] today! Please add a few personal sentences explaining who you are, where you live, and why this is important to you. I support strong, strict criteria for the CARPC, to protect Dane County's farmland and groundwater from poorly planned development. I especially support criteria to: prioritize infill and redevelopment; eliminate the flexibility factors; and protect farmland, environmentally sensitive areas and critical groundwater recharge areas. But before they can begin to review new development proposals, the CARPC must fulfill its mandate to update the Dane County Water Quality Plan to include areas of the highest environmental sensitivity and growth pressure. Sincerely, Your Name Your Address (very important!) 2. Also send your letter to as many of the individual Commissioners as possible. (Contact info below.) If you live in the same community as a commissioner, it's very important that they hear from you, since they will definitely be hearing from developers. The more personal stories or information you can give, the more convincing it will be. If you have any expertise or are well known, a call or email from you is especially important. CARPC Commissioners and who appointed them. Dane County Executive (3 appointments): . Kristine Euclide, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Martha Gibson, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Sally Kefer, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dane County Towns Association (3 appointments): . Kris Hampton, Town of Cottage Grove Chair, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Carlton Hamre, 846-3227, 4875 Cuba Valley Rd., DeForest, WI, 53532 . Harold Krantz, Town of Cross Plains Chair, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dane County Cities and Villages Association (3 appointments): . Jeff Miller, DeForest Village President, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Kurt Sonnentag, Middleton Mayor, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Joe Chase, Sun Prairie Mayor, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Madison Mayor (4 appointments): . Zach Brandon, City Alder, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Larry Palm, City Alder, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . George Kamperschroer, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Anne Sayers, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. Show up at the one Public Hearing on the criteria that will determine how our landscape looks for centuries to come, and bring 1 to 4 other people with you! That's Thursday, Jan. 24, 7:00 p.m., Rm. 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Madison. Please wear something green to identify yourself with protecting our natural resources! You can register to speak for 3 minutes if you wish, or just register (fill out the registration slip and give it to someone in charge) "in favor of strong criteria to prioritize infill and redevelopment, preserve farmland and protect groundwater." We need people from every corner of Dane County! 3. Send this email on to between one and ten friends! ___________________________________________________ POWERFUL ACTIONS (several hours plus one evening) 1. Write you own, original email and send it today to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (See below for explanatory info. The complete "Policies and Criteria Document" is available online at www.danecorpc.org/index.htm.) 2. Email your comments to all of the commissioners (see contact info under "Intermediate Level.") 3. Organize a delegation from your geographical or interest community to attend the public hearing. Use this email to spread the word, and then call people and get their commitment to attend the public hearing on Jan. 24. Show up with your delegation at the one Public Hearing on the criteria that will determine how our landscape looks for centuries to come. That's Thursday, Jan. 24, 7:00 p.m., Rm. 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Madison. Please wear something green to identify yourself with protecting our natural resources! You can register to speak for 3 minutes if you wish, or just register (fill out the registration slip and give it to someone in charge) "in favor of strong criteria to prioritize infill and redevelopment, preserve farmland and protect groundwater." We need people from every corner of Dane County! Consider carpooling, and see how many people you can bring! ____________________________________________________ BACKGROUND ON THE ROLE OF CARPC: Planning for urban growth is the responsibility of local jurisdictions. Urban growth is required by state law to provide a full range of urban services and to be reviewed and approved against approved water quality plans. Urban service areas (USA) are those lands in and around existing communities that are most suitable for development and capable of providing a full range of urban services (public sewer and water, fire and police protection, and other urban services). Local communities develop proposals to extend the boundaries of new urban service areas consistent with local and regional plans. Review and recommendations for approval/modification/rejection of these new USA's is by the designated Regional Planning Commission, and the ultimate decision rests with the Department of Natural Resources. The Capitol Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) was created by Executive Order 197 on May 2, 2007, consistent with s. 66.0309, Wis. Stats., for Dane County. The major role of CARPC is to develop a Water Quality Plan that will define areas to be protected from development, and areas that can be developed with measures to protect, restore or minimize degradation of water quality. CARPC is expected to begin to review and approve Urban Service Area (USA) extension applications in early 2008, after it completes adoption of Criteria for Review of Urban Service Areas. NEW CRITERIA THAT HAVE THE DEVELOPERS SCARED AND CONSERVATIONISTS HOPEFUL! 1. The CARPC wants to encourage walkable urban neighborhoods instead of poorly planned development that gobbles up working farmland. So in Criterion 2.B they give priority to "efficient use of existing capacity in urban infrastructure" and in Criterion 2.C, they say, "Generally, if there is a 20-year supply of developable land in the current Urban Service Area (USA) (or a portion of the USA available to the respective unit of government)...priority should be given to developing the existing developable lands within the USA..." In other words, don't come looking to expand your Urban Service Area if you still have 20 years worth of land left in it! 2. How does the CARPC decide how many acres any one municipality can develop? They use official population projections and a formula to arrive at the number of acres they think will be necessary to accommodate that population growth. Until now, there was a "flexibility factor" as well. For communities within the Central Urban Service Area (CUSA), which includes Madison, Middleton, Monona, McFarland, the northern third of Fitchburg, and parts of other townships, the flex factor is 50%. For communities outside the CUSA, it's 100%. What does this mean? It means that if population projections predict that a village will need 100 more acres for expansion in the next 20 years, that they can actually increase that by 100%, to 200 acres. Or if a central urban community is thought to need 100 acres, they can increase it by 50%, to 150 acres. This is really sending mixed messages to the communities. It's as if you made a well-researched budget for how much you could spend, and then said, "But let's go ahead and double that!" Poorly planned development wastes taxpayer dollars by requiring extension of water and sewer, trash collection, police and fire protection, etc. over many additional miles of new roads. The current draft has eliminated the flex factors. This will greatly affect many current development proposals, including ones from Belleville, Deerfield, Marshall, Mazomanie, Mt. Horeb, DeForest and Windsor. This criterion passed by only one vote, so you can be sure the developers will be lobbying hard to turn someone's vote around! 3. Criterion 2.D states "The CARPC desires to promote approaches to mitigate the loss of farmland to urban development through the use of, for example, intergovernmental agreements, easements, and innovative programs such as used in the Town of Dunn, Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Purchase of Development Rights (PDR). These protect the productive land needed to support the economic viability of the farming industry and also protect wildlife habitat, recharge for streams, springs, and drinking water." These tools allow CARPC to encourage or force developers to pay to save viable farmland in exchange for paving over farmland on the urban fringe. This will be fiercely fought by developers. It also passed by only one vote, so your participation is crucial to make sure it becomes part of a new way of doing business in Dane County! 4. The CARPC authority derives from the Clean Water Act. The Criteria may include many references to protection the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater. Unfortunately, CARPC is not taking responsibility for revising the Water Quality Plan in accordance with their charter, adopted by the County Board of Supervisors and executed by Governor Doyle on April 1, 2007. The charter requires CARPC to update the Dane County Water Quality Plan by 1) identifying areas of the highest environmental sensitivity and growth pressure that should be protected from development based on water quality provisions in NR 121, and 2) defining areas that can be developed with measures to protect, restore or minimize degradation of water quality. Before they can begin to review new development proposals, CARPC must fulfill its mandate to update the Dane County Water Quality Plan for areas of the highest environmental sensitivity and growth pressure. [end forwarded message] -- Please note that my personal email has changed. Please delete robbiew at tds.net from your address book. My alder account remains active, and city business should be sent there.
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