Image Courtesy of Friends of the Black River Forest
Though it’s been 11 months since a wetlands permit denial from the Wisconsin DNR was upheld by the Appeals Court, plans to locate a golf course adjacent to Kohler-Andrae State Park are far from over and scheduled to be reviewed on Tuesday by the Sheboygan City Plan Commission.
Kohler is applying to the Commission to have its 2020 Conditional Use Permit to build the course extended so it can move forward with the plans, a move that Mary Faydash, a spokesperson for the opposition group Friends of the Black River Forest, says raises numerous problems.
For one, she said, that Conditional Use Permit stated that any changes to the plans would require that a new CUP be applied for, and according to Faydash, changes abound. Faydash told WHBL News that: “If this is taken, let’s say, to the DNR, the complete topography of the course has changed since 2020. There was massive erosion along the shore, so the holes can’t go in the same place.”
Besides the land undergoing its own alterations, Faydash added that another change involves incorporating a shuttle system for golfers rather than having to fill more wetland acres for parking and access, which also changes the acreage on the application.
Meanwhile, the Plan Commission has also been changing conditions for Kohler indirectly by upping the percentage of deforestation that’s allowed on a landowner’s property, increasing it significantly, she says, in order to accommodate Kohler’s plans. Faydash says that presents another issue related to the original CUP. “Because the City and the Plan Commission could very well just change the rule and say: ‘Oh well, we said that there had to be a new CUP, but we’re changing that.’ So FBRF comes into play by watching this and taking any legal action that’s necessary to get the Plan Commission to follow its decision. So our attorney is addressing the issue with the Plan Commission, and we’ll see what happens.”
The plan commission meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, and if further action is needed, the second monthly meeting is set for November 26.
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