Many years ago as a teenager, I recall looking out the window as my Dad would drive west out of Sun Prairie on Highway 19. What struck me at the time were the rural subdivisions being created. This got me thinking about the long term consequences of rural land use and how it affects farming, urban growth, and provision of public services. My thought to have a career as a city planner began on car rides west of town. Last week I came across a couple papers I did while in college. As I perused these 40 year old papers, I realized how much work went into each product. Devising a theory and then testing the theory. This involved meeting and talking with different persons, surveys, data collection, literature review, and synthesis of the data and information to see how my theories held. Just the mapping, the old fashioned way was time consuming. Permit me to go back forty years to a different age.
One of those papers, written in the spring of 1980, was titled "Motivating Forces in the Creation of Rural Subdivisions in Dane County, WI." Running over 70 pages, the paper examined varied physical land factors, farming activity, land use, and development trends in Dane County. What stands out is that the four main goals of the then 1973 Dane County Land Use Plan, were much as we see today in many land use plans. Perhaps at some point I will do a test to compare those goals with how development now looks forty years later. More specifically the paper examined two rural subdivisions in the county, one in the town of Bristol, north of Madison, and the other in the town of Oregon, south of Madison and Fitchburg. Surveys of these subdivision residents were completed to understand the push and pull factors of choice of residence in a rural subdivision. I also talked with 21 different persons, today we would refer to them as stakeholders. These persons ranged from the subdivision developers, to farmers who sold, nearby farm owners, to county and local officials. As I said in the beginning of the paper, the major emphasis was on the people involved, and to see how decisions, based on beliefs and perceptions, affected the transitional zone between city and country. It is in these zones, as noted by Historian William Cronon, and which I know by experience, that conflict occurs.
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| T of Oregon with Location of Hillcrest Heights Subdivision highlighted |
What was interesting was that of those that moved from a previous home to the rural subdivision expressed no strong push factor for relocating to a rural subdivision, yet, those from outside of the city of Madison spent little time looking for a home in what was their previous place of residence. The main focus for those from outside of Madison was to examine rural homes. For example, 77% of residents in the Hillcrest Heights subdivision in the town of Oregon only looked for rural homes; the rate for rural home searches was lower for Sunburst in the town of Burke, which was 59%. Homeowners in Sunburst were younger and more were first time home buyers than in Hillcrest Heights. The proportion of school age children was similar for both subdivisions.
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| Sunburst Subdivision T of Burke |
At that time, 75% of the residents of those two subdivisions were employed in the city of Madison, and 12% in a nearby small community. Interesting, given the time frame of 1980, over half the households reported both spouses being employed. Of course, the exclusive method of transportation was by personal vehicle. No ride sharing, and given the lack of density mass transportation would be highly inefficient.
The dynamic involved with these two towns is rather different. Oregon, located further from Madison, and as noted separated from Madison by Fitchburg, is one of the few towns in Dane County to not have undertaken Farmland preservation and the related tax credits, and the next, and related step, of Exclusive Agricultural zoning (which does not mean much anymore). Both of these policies were being enacted throughout much of the county in 1978-1979. In making conscious decision to not assist in preservation of farmland, the town of Oregon has seen a good amount of rural lot creation, by certified survey map, perhaps more so than by plat. This led to an interesting dynamic. Farmers who resisted the temptation to subdivide and create rural subdivisions in the later part of the 20th century, would see their land become "hostage," so to speak in their mind, to the rural residents who essentially desire to preserve the rural open space around their subdivision or dwelling. This fits the saying told by a former Fitchburg Plan Commission member: "that an environmentalist is a person who already has their house in the woods." The farmers who later wanted to develop saw it as rather hypocritical for new landowners how built on good farmland to now not allow the conversion of another farm. Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) is not at all a recent trend. If the farmer had subdivided earlier, before control of the town switched from farm land owners to non-farm rural landowners, there would have been a greater loss of farmland, but perhaps more equity in the decision process. What the situation in the town of Oregon showed is the need for proper planning. Instead they got ill feelings and divide, and its unplanned nature has led to some who felt disenfranchised. Planning is important, as I found that often people will can grasp when planning is logical and based on natural resources, and service capabilities. A rural landowner or farmer may not have liked the plan, but they would have understood. Planning moves away from frivolous decision making.
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| Detail of Hillcrest, outlined area was subdivision in 1979-1980 |
What is interesting, is that farmers I interviewed for my 1980 paper were concerned about the very issue of non-farm residents gaining control and then controlling their farm decisions, demanding more public services, or prohibiting them from rural development. At the same time the rural non-farm residents want the farmland preserved, they have no problem complaining about farm odors, farm traffic, or other aspects they view as undesirable. On the other hand, farmers complain about these things, but when they want to develop these concerns go away. As an employee under me once stated, the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee in Fitchburg was not farm friendly, but farmer friendly. There is a difference. In the town of Oregon, those who continued to farm were, as it turns out, were right. The non-farm landowners gained control and would prevent much new subdivision, but not necessarily large lot creation by certified survey. Most of the non-farm residents live on land that was previously owned by a farmer, and subdivided, but subsequent land owners were not now allowed to do the same, due to change in town control.. Farmers, rightly or wrongly, view their land as their 401k (I cannot count the number of times I heard this statement), and subdivision makes more profit than selling for farm land, at least in Dane County.
The farmers who controlled the town of Oregon lost control, and what they thought would be their rights, without farmland preservation and agricultural zoning, to realize a greater profit from their land holdings failed to materialize in some cases. Those disenfranchised farmers would have been better off supporting planning with farmland preservation and Exclusive Agricultural zoning as they would have at least received some tax credits for retaining farmland.
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| T of Burke, Sunburst Subdivision Location Highlighted |
The town of Burke, or the little that remains from annexations by Madison and Sun Prairie, will go away in 10 to 15 years as it is absorbed by those two communities through an intergovernmental agreement. Burke has created more rural subdivisions, and of interest to Sunburst is, at the time it was beyond the extraterritorial reach of both Madison and Sun Prairie. The 1973 Dane County Land Use Plan goal of creating distinct and separate communities is not realized in the case of Sun Prairie and Madison. They, by choice, have decided that the perceived economic value of suburban office buildings in the American Center (what will the office market be like after Covid?), big box sprawl (Prairie Lakes in Sun Prairie) and large apartment buildings along USH 151 is more important than community separation and community identity. Growing up, one of my classmates parents owned the land that now comprises part of Madison's American Center, a large suburban office project anchored by American Family Insurance. In my estimation, it was that project, more than any other, that started the land wars along Hwy 151 between Madison and Sun Prairie.
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| Detail of Sunburst Subdivision, 2017 air photo |
What did my 1980 paper conclude? First, the general consensus of planned growth falls short when disagreements over local autonomy arise. This is really nothing new, and the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission was neutered, so to speak, by similar thoughts. In 2015 legislation was passed allowing towns to divorce themselves from Dane County zoning; Dane County was often thought to be the impediment to rural subdivision activity. Second, specific to the subdivisions, both sites passed from dairy to cash crop when sold to a non-farm owner, and then to subdivisions. The shift to non-farm owners, at least at that point tended to occur by retirement or death of the main farmer. Third, my study also found disinvestment in agriculture, particularly in the town of Burke. This disinvestment presaged the takeovers by the cities of Sun Prairie and Madison. Given the lucrative location of the town along USH 151, 51, and 90/94, is it no wonder there was disinvestment to await greener pastures? Fourth, there was a five or more year supply of rural lots, meaning holding costs for the subdivider, not to mention the towns having to plow and maintain roads little used. Fifth, Burke was attempting to balance agriculture, and other land uses, but I think that became met with futility given urban expansion of Sun Prairie and Madison. Finally, the sprawled development leads to greater costs for the municipalities than otherwise thought or intended, not to mention energy costs (recall this was 1980) for commuting. In rural development nothing is really convenient but your view of the corn field nearby.
Preservation of farmland becomes more difficult in uncertain economic times, and as more and more farmers struggle with low commodity prices and high expenses, the agricultural land that remains within a commute range of an urban core are more becoming horse havens, than farms. I came to conclude that at least the land is preserved and hay is a decent crop, with little erosion potential, and the horse farms are much better than a rural subdivision. Agricultural statutes do not recognize horses as an agricultural venture, as raising cows, chickens, or pigs. Some seem to think that there is more land out there to grow our food, but this part of Wisconsin has some of the best farmland and climate in the world, and we allow it to be swallowed like a small bird by a cat.
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| Development along Hwy 1951 is to left, and angle road at southwest corner is interstate. The line between the S and P, for Sun Prairie, is a strip of land in the t. of Burke |
Rural subdivision activity is still occurring in parts of Dane County. Traveling along County G to Donald Park, one can see the public improvements for a new rural subdivision which the realty sign says will consist of 1.5 to 2.2 acre lots. This is the town of Verona. The town of Verona, like the town of Oregon, was never part of the Exclusive Agricultural Zoning and Farmland preservation. The issue of local control dominates in many aspects of land use planning. I may do further blog posts on this topic, but one thing I have noticed in my experience is that the we are losing a land ethic. With over 32 years in local governments, I think this has been occurring for many years, and even prior to the great recession, although its decline was hastened by the great recession. (The relation to the great recession to the decline of the land ethic is rather ironic, which perhaps is another blog post.) And now, many years later, as I travel on Hwy 19 Sun Prairie is now part of Token Creek and urban sprawl of Deforest/Windsor stretches south of Hwy 19 between 51 and the interstate. But, for the creek that runs across part of 19 and its related wetland, the corridor is basically developed, showing that there is no community separation.
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