The pandemic may have put the brakes on many things over the past year, but that hasn’t stopped people planning to change things up. And when the Sheboygan County Planning, Resources, Agriculture & Extension Committee met last month, they got an idea about the nature of some of those changes in the way land is being used within the county.
Kevin Struck is Sheboygan County’s Growth Management Educator in the UW Extension, and he reported answering some 124 questions from local officials, developers and citizens over the one-year period since the pandemic began.
Among them: Questions about “Tiny Homes”, allowing beehives or chickens in a residential area, the best zoning district for a new paintball business, and the feasibility of a so-called “cluster subdivision” with 50% open space.
Struck said it appears that the downtime of the pandemic has given people time to ponder new options for their property, and increasing numbers of retirees are planning to divide or develop their land holdings.
Struck said planning and zoning have become much more complicated, with the county now dealing with locating cell towers, licensing wedding barns, the use of land for solar farms and the like. And as the population grows, so does the potential for conflict over how land is used.
Struck will likely be handling more such questions in the future because as local clerks with quick answers retire, more time and effort to get those answers will instead be required of the county.
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