Yes, enforce Grafton zoning

“There goes the neighborhood.”

The old expression of frustration or surprise over new neighbors, whether used with whimsical or serious intent, is getting a workout these days in Ozaukee County and the surrounding area.

As the area’s population grows and cities and villages extend their borders, some residents who chose to live in semi-rural areas worry about intrusions out of character with their neighborhoods in the lightly developed countryside.

Town zoning codes exist to protect residents like these, and the Town of Fredonia demonstrated how effective they can be early this year when town officials resisted zoning changes that would have permitted a large motor sports facility with a competition track to be built on land zoned for residential and agricultural use.

In the Town of Port Washington, however, zoning failed to protect residents from a neighborhood intrusion of staggering proportions—one of the world’s largest data center developments.

Town zoning would have forbidden the

development, but that became instantly irrelevant when the City of Port Washington annexed hundreds of acres of town land and promptly zoned it as what city officials called a “technical campus district.”

Currently in the Town of Grafton, signs posted at residential driveway entrances along a stretch of Lakeshore Road are urging town officials to “Enforce Grafton Zoning.”

The signs are a mild indication of a zoning test that has ignited a controversy over an attempt by a company to operate what is known as a sober living facility on property designated for residential use.

A more dramatic manifestation of the intensity of the controversy was the crowd of more than 125 town residents that packed a Grafton Town Board meeting in May to demand that officials enforce zoning restrictions to keep the facility out of their neighborhood.

The property in question is a 4,080-square-foot house on an eight-acre lot near homes in a wooded area close to Lake Michigan. The house would accommodate up to eight adults who would pay to live there while recovering from addiction. The facility would be operated by a for-profit company, Forest Recovery WI.

It seems that a stealthy entrance into the neighborhood was planned. Town officials were not informed and residents learned about it only by accident when a deliveryman told a neighbor he had dropped off 11 mattresses at the house.

Once informed, town officials reacted by issuing a cease-and-desist order to Forest Recovery WI intended to prevent the use of the property as sober living facility on the grounds that it is not permitted by town zoning.

That should have settled the matter. The zoning ordinance is clear and it is clear that the facility would violate it. Yet the company is persisting.

In a letter to the town, Forest Recovery WI’s attorney made a clumsy attempt to rewrite the zoning ordinance by claiming, “The Forest’s use at the property is a permitted use under the town code because it squarely meets the definition of dwelling, single family.” The eight unrelated paying residents of the facility would qualify as a family, the letter maintained.

The attorney representing the neighbors accurately described that notion as “absurd.” The facility is a commercial business. The residential zoning district permits only single-family homes.

It is unfortunate that the real families living in the affected area have had to go to the expense of hiring legal representation to fight a violation of a town ordinance. This is the town government’s fight and it owes its citizens a vigorous effort to win it.

There is, of course, a social aspect to the controversy. Some observers may describe it as an example of that awkward acronym NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). It’s likely that some of the residents are motivated by the fact that they just don’t want people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction living near them. It’s a fairly common situation that often doesn’t reconcile with the fact that services such as places where people can recover from addiction are needed and have to exist somewhere.

But that is not the issue here. This is simply about a commercial business moving into a residential neighborhood. Zoning laws cannot be circumvented to let that happen.