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The city and town of Onalaska are on the verge of a boundary agreement, thanks to a change in leadership in the town.
Boundary talks stalled when Onalaska Town Chairman Dave Paudler was unseated in 2007 by Stan Hauser. While Paudler was in office, both municipal plan commissions approved the agreement, but it never got to the council and town board level.
When Paudler won back the chairman’s seat in April, he and others resuscitated the discussions.
Paudler said he does not anticipate any problems from the current board in approving the agreement.
“The board has been supportive, and the document protects us pretty well,” Paudler said.
Each municipality will be voting on the operational agreement, a precurser to the boundary plan, at respective city council and town board meetings Dec. 8. The operational agreement spells out expectations in developing a boundary plan focusing on three areas: Brice Prairie, Sand Lake Coulee and the area between Riders Club Road and Highway OT.
The goal of the operational agreement being approved Dec. 8 is to have the municipalities work cooperatively to establish urban and rural land use and development policies and regulations consistent with comprehensive plans of each and to promote orderly growth.
Both documents call for a joint planning commission for dealing with annexation and zoning, rezoning, subdivision, conditional use and site plans in the above mentioned areas.
While the operational agreement is approved at the local government level, the cooperative boundary plan is subject to public hearings, public review and state approval, a process that takes about six months.
In the draft cooperative boundary agreement, the town and city agreed to a revenue sharing plan, spelling out rules for annexation of territory between the town and city — specifically the area between Riders Club Road and Highway OT.
Under state law, a city or village must reimburse a town for five year’s tax revenue when a property is annexed, but the city wouldn’t be required to do that if a boundary agreement was in place.
Under the draft agreement between the city and town, however, the city would continue paying the town five year’s worth of town taxes on property between Riders Club Road and Highway OT at annexation.
Instead of paying every year, though, the city would pay the whole thing up front. Paudler said the town will place that lump sum into an escrow account and, over a period of time, take a percentage out every year and put it in the operational budget.
“We’ll take a certain percentage — we haven’t worked that out yet — each budget cycle to soften the impact of the loss of income,” Paudler said. He said putting it all into one year’s budget would create a huge revenue shortfall in the following years.
Jason Gilman, the city’s land use and development director, explained why that area was targeted for different treatment: “To have those annexed by the city would create a significant revenue loss for the town.”
What the state has in place will apply to all other areas not specified in the agreement when annexed.
Paudler said discussions have been very amicable, as they were back in 2007. “I’m pleased with the process,” Paudler said. “The city has been very cooperative. You can be open and discuss things. It’s been a great experience.”
Assuming both municipalities approve the operational agreement, the next step is to develop and adopt a cooperative boundary agreement.
According to a draft timeline, the process would include a joint public hearing anticipated to occur the third week of January 2010. Then a 60-day public review process will occur between Jan. 26 and March 26 allowing residents of the city and town to comment.
After the public comment period, the town and city will each adopt the boundary agreement by majority vote. The boundary agreement is then sent to the state Department of Administration for a 90-day review period.
If all goes according to schedule, the cooperative boundary plan will be adopted and effective July 2010.
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