Fee of $400 suggested for farming inside city of Reedsburg, Wisconsin

“We’re basically just trying to cover the city’s costs.”

By Ken Leiviska,
Times-Press
January 8, 2011

An ordinance allowing limited agricultural use in residentially zoned areas was approved in November, but the fee to perform harvesting will not be discussed by the Reedsburg Common Council until Monday.

The new ordinance will allow developers to apply for an annual permit so they can harvest crops on undeveloped residential sites for one year. On Tuesday, the city Plan Commission decided to recommend that the fee should be set at $400.

“We’re basically just trying to cover the city’s costs,” said city engineer Steve Zibell. “It takes into account the staff’s time, the paperwork, making copies and mailing notifications.”

For years, the city had turned a blind eye to the controversial practice of farming on undeveloped residential land. Recently, though, a group of homeowners in the Eastridge development just off Old Reedsburg Road began complaining about safety issues.

Many residents there argued that the developer was endangering the safety of neighborhood children by using heavy farming equipment to harvest crops within yards of a city park. Several were also agitated that they were paying city taxes but living next to hay and alfalfa fields.

The ordinance passed by the common council last year creates strict guidelines to address many of those safety concerns. Developers now must provide information on which crops will be grown, where they will be grown and the manner and frequency of harvesting.

“Awareness was really one of the main issues,” Zibell said. “The new ordinance should create a better sense of that.”

When the ordinance was first discussed in the fall, developers said they were OK with the new guidelines, adding that adhering to the city’s policy of maintaining vegetation height at 6 inches or less was becoming a hassle.
“I wouldn’t want to have to lay somebody off so we can hire someone to just mow lawns to make them look like lawns,” David Pace, of Pace Real Estate, said at a Plan Commission meeting in September.

Developers such as Pace figured a fee of some kind would be attached to the permits, and that permits would have to be renewed each year. However, at the time the Plan Commission offered no guess as to what the fee might be.
The proposed $400 will be discussed at the Ordinance Committee at 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall. With approval there, the Common Council will likely set a public hearing on the issue for Jan. 24.

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