Town OKs zoning ordinances

After months of detailed work that included a hold on conditional use permits, the Town of Belgium has updated zoning ordinances.

The Town Board unanimously approved the 70-page document this month. 

This was the second time since 2015 the town’s zoning ordinances have been updated, and it likely won’t be the last, Chairman Tom Winker said.

He called the ordinance a “living document” that will be updated as needed.

“Development pressure will come back,” he said, adding that in this era of attorneys “we have to tighten up how we do business.”

The Plan Commission unanimously recommended the zoning ordinance be approved.

Zoning Administrator Charlie Parks said the updates were primarily driven by the Homeowners Bill of Rights that was passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by then Gov. Scott Walker in 2018.

The law changes how municipalities handle conditional uses and substandard properties, Parks said.

Under the old law, the Plan Commission would discuss conditional uses and make a recommendation to the Town Board. But some of that authority has been taken away.

“The new law requires that it be more objective,” Parks said. “Reasonable standards are laid out. If they can meet those standards, it moves forward.”

That caused the town to alter its list of conditional uses. 

“It was a good time to take a look and see if we really wanted all those conditional uses in the ordinance because the way that the law is written now, conditional uses aren’t decided the way we used to do it,” Parks said.

Most of the town’s conditional uses are in agricultural and residential areas. Some of the commercial and industrial uses were taken out, Parks said, with a slim likelihood the town would have to deal with those anyway.

Nuisance issues were incorporated into the document.

“This is the town kind of growing up as people come in and bring new uses they think are cool and we don’t necessarily think are great,” Parks said.

Unregistered vehicles is one example.

“People can have them but they have to be stored inside so everybody else doesn’t have to look at them,” Parks said.

Shipping containers is another issue the town has been handling. Parks said the town has received multiple requests for people to live in them or to keep on residential property as permanent storage facilities.

“You can imagine what that would look like,” Parks said.

The containers are allowed for short-term use and work well to store hay or straw, but “You can’t just use them as a place to live or as a permanent structure on the property,” Parks said.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission provided input on the zoning ordinances for free.

“That was substantial. That was a pretty nice thing for them to do,” Parks said.

The town switched attorneys during the process, and new attorney Paul Alexy recommended changing the moratorium on conditional use permits to a suspension of permit procedures, a legal wording that is more defensible, Parks said.

Alexy went through the document to clarify wording, bring it in line with state statutes and make it more defensible, Parks said.

Winker thanked the work of town resident Jim Hubing.

“His pedigree allows him to understand what attorneys write. I don’t always understand that, and I don’t think most normal people understand what attorneys write,” Winker said.

The town first adopted a zoning code in 1966.

“I think that’s a wonderful thing. How do you know how you’re going to get there unless you do some planning?” Winker said.

The zoning code is on the town’s website at www.town.belgium.wi.us/zoning.