Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation

• Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation creates a nine-element definition of a comprehensive plan that requires each community to address: issues & opportunities; housing; transportation; utilities & community facilities; agricultural, natural & cultural resources; economic development; intergovernmental cooperation; land use and implementation.

• Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation outlines 14 goals for the results of local plans, which state agencies are also encouraged to work towards. Some of the goals are: promotion of urban redevelopment; provision of a range of transportation choices; protection of natural areas, farmland and forests; cooperation among nearby units of government; and providing affordable housing.

• Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation provides state planning grants -- but only if communities promise to meet six criteria. Each plan must: include all nine elements, meet local planning goals, designate Smart Growth Areas to which state and local infrastructure will be directed, be completed within 30 months, create implementing ordinances and provide for public participation.

• Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation requires all cities and villages above 12,500 in population to adopt a model traditional neighborhood ordinance (pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments). It also requires the development of a conservation subdivision ordinance (rural developments which preserve common open space).

• Wisconsin's Comprehensive Planning Legislation provides specific minimum public participation standards that all local planning efforts must follow, whether the planning effort receives state funding or not. Click here to review the major public participation procedures that local governments must follow.

Beginning on January 1, 2010, local land use actions must be consistent with a comprehensive plan. This applies to zoning, official mapping and subdivision regulation. Any ordinance, plan or regulation that relates to land use must be consistent with the comprehensive plan. This means that unless a community intends to take no official actions regarding land use whatsoever, it should have a comprehensive plan in place by January 1, 2010. That date (a full ten years from passage of the legislation) was selected to give communities enough time to complete their plans.

For additional information on Comprehensive Planning visit the Division of Intergovernmental Relations.

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