NEW BIPARTISAN LAW CLARIFIES VIEWING CORRIDOR STANDARDS IN THE SHORELAND BUFFER ZONE
A bill introduced by Senator Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) clarifies the size of a viewing corridor that a county shoreland zoning ordinance must allow if it requires a vegetative buffer to be maintained. The bill was recently signed into law by Governor Evers as Act 200.
Previously, counties were required to allow viewing corridors of a width of 35 feet for every 100 feet of shoreland frontage. This was widely interpreted to mean that for every 100 feet, a landowner could have 35 feet of buffer, so that a 199 foot wide lot received a 35 foot corridor, but a 200 foot lot received 70 feet.
The law makes the size of corridor allowed fairer by allowing 35% of the frontage to be a viewing corridor, with a minimum width of 10 feet. The law also incorporates the standard in NR115, the administrative code governing shoreland zoning, that the maximum amount of viewing corridor that can be allowed is 200 feet. Previously it was unclear whether the NR115 standard applied.
Wisconsin Lakes worked with the Dept. of Natural Resources and Sen Felzkowski to draft a compromise to the language that all parties could be satisfied with, resulting in a bill Wisconsin Lakes supported.
