SUN PRAIRIE RISING

by Bill Connors

posted on Sun Prairie Politics Only Local Facebook Page

The agenda for the next meeting of the Plan Commission at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, April 14, includes a discussion (no action) of a draft intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the City of Sun Prairie and the Town of Sun Prairie. Maps at the end of the draft agreement show an area adjacent to the east and south east limits of the city that is marked as an Urban Development Area (UDA), which both local government anticipate could one day be attached (like annexed, but the town government cannot contest it) into the city for development. The UDA area is fairly small, only 1,300 acres (1,000 developable acres), which is approximately one-third of the area needed for projected future housing development in the city over the next 25 years.

Annexation into the city of land outside of the UDA would be prohibited by the agreement (unless, of course, the agreement is amended).

The agreement provides that the city government will pay the town government 10 years of lost town property tax revenue, rather than five years of lost revenue under state law, each time the city government approves an attachment of town land into the city. In practice, the developer of the land being attached usually reimburses the city government for the amount of money the city government must pay to the town government.

The agreement contemplates a second, future agreement about how the city and town governments will share responsibility for planning development along CTH N.

The agenda also includes a discussion of a draft of the city’s new zoning code.

Here is a link to the agenda. You can access documents, such as the draft intergovernmental cooperation agreement, by clicking on an agenda item in the online agenda.

Sometime soon, we should see also a draft of the updated intergovernmental cooperation agreement with the Town of Bristol. The old agreement with the Town of Bristol would have expired but was extended by one year to allow time for negotiating a new agreement.

For those who are not already aware of this, the Town of Burke government will cease to exist in 2036, and all remaining land in the Town of Burke will be attached into either the City of Sun Prairie, Village of DeForest or City of Madison pursuant to an old intergovernmental cooperation agreement among the four local governments.

Below is a map showing how the remaining land in the Town of Burke will be divided among the City of Sun Prairie, Village of DeForest and City of Madison.

I wish the Sun Prairie city government would not wait until 2036 to open the blocked roads between the city and the town along the current western limit of the city: Token Rd, Rebel Dr and Bull Run.