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The issue of overlay district zoning may have been banished by the newly elected Oneida County Board of Supervisors in April, but that doesn’t mean it has disappeared entirely. The controversial ordinance that sought to regulate the size and dimensions of home structures may yet be revived at the town level.

Overlay district zoning has its roots in the 1960s when an anti-trailer ordinance was first put on the books in Oneida County. When that ordinance was found to be discriminatory in the mid-1980s, the board adopted an overlay district ordinance that allowed towns to adopt one of four zoning options. The most stringent, overlay district one, required property owners to build dwellings larger than 720 sq. ft., wider than 24 ft., with a pitched roof.

Opponents of overlay district zoning argue that it’s a misplaced government intervention into property owners’ rights to do what they please with the land they own.

Proponents of the regulation argue that overlay districts protect property owners from having their values depreciated by the dwellings of their neighbors.

The County Board killed overlay zoning at the county level this spring, but two weeks ago the town of Woodboro asked Karl Jennerich, zoning director for the Oneida County Planning and Zoning Department, to appear before the county’s planning and zoning committee to see if the overlay districts could be revived on a town-by-town basis.

According to Jennerich, the towns of Woodboro, Stella, Pine Lake, and Minocqua have all shown interest in reviving overlay zoning and he felt it was his duty to bring their case to the committee’s attention.

“If we have a handful of towns that want it, I should try to accommodate their needs and wants,” said Jennerich. “I feel strongly about that.”

The result of Jennerich’s good intentions was a strong rebuke from the planning and zoning committee. Committee chairman, Scott Holewinski of Sugar Camp, expressed his exasperation that the issue had re-surfaced after finally being put to bed.

“The county board has looked at this how many times and voted to eliminate it,” Holewinski said. “Now we’re talking about looking at it again?”

The committee voted three to one not to bring the issue to the full board, directing Jennerich to advise interested parties in the towns that had communicated with him that the only way back to the board would be directly through their town supervisors.

Now the debate is back in the towns and it could re-surface at the county level again in the future. But in some ways the issue has been with the towns all along.

Following Oneida County’s overlay zoning ordinance, it was the towns’ decisions which overlay districts to apply and how to apply them. If, as was the case in Sugar Camp, the town did not want to regulate the size of its residents’ dwellings, it could simply assign it overly district four status, which carried few limitations.

According to Jennerich, the issue has gotten more complicated now that the County Board has taken it off the books. Now, should a town want to adopt overlay districts, it would have to jump headfirst into the zoning game, because the county would no longer enforce the regulations.

“If they do it, they have to get into zoning,” Jennerich said. “If someone comes to me to get a building permit I’d have no option but to issue a permit.”

But in the past the towns have relied on the county’s permit process to enforce the regulations. Jennerich said the towns would have to use whatever means they have at their disposal to enforce zoning on someone with a building permit in hand.

“They would have to try with their own political will and their own attorneys,” Jennerich said.

What is abundantly clear about the issue of overlay zoning is that people have strong opinions about it. It has been talked about as a class issue, as an issue that pits locals against seasonal residents, and even more broadly as a constitutional issue.

But there is still a real lack of documented evidence about the effect of overlay zoning on property values, which is the relevant claim for proponents. Additionally, even in its strictest form, overlay district zoning never hampered structures like double-wide trailers – which met the size requirements – or non-permanent campers – which must be regulated by a camping ordinance.

As financial times get tougher, the political will to require people to build a certain size dwelling may be fading. Perhaps the biggest question for proponents of overlay zoning is what type of zoning would really protect their property values.

Tell us what you think...

Comments »

Bob wrote on Sep 30, 2008 10:11 PM:

" The very concept of zoning law from its earliest beginnings was never intended to "protect property values" by insulating snobs from the lesser peoples. This function was and is reserved for restrictive covenants placed upon the land by owners prior to sale or development.

The purpose for zoning law was and is to provide for an orderly pattern of development so the public can plan for and design necessary utilities and access.

When you try to use zoning law to do the job of restrictive covenants you invite an endless and ultimately successful stream of litigation from those property owners who have been discriminated against by the lawmakers. "

Fed up wrote on Sep 30, 2008 9:11 PM:

" With forclosures at a all time high. Why would the local goverment want to force folks into a home they can not afford?
If they find a need to regulate do it regarding safety not size.

Leave us little guyes alone. We are the ones that do the grunt work around here "

The comments above are from readers. In no way do they represent the views of the Rhinelander Daily News.