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• CIF September 14, 1998 To: Dane County Zoning RE: John Walsh Property / Located at end of Hidden Valley Rd. , Cross Plains, WI I have been a farmer and a vocational-agricultural teacher, in addition to serving a term as the Town of Springdale Assessor. I am very familiar with the Walsh property. I have been building log homes in rural Wisconsin for 16 years. My work is almost exclusively devoted to log construction in rural areas for individual residences. My experience in farming and teaching vocational agriculture has made me quite familiar with lands, soils, topography, forestry and related issues. I have considerable experience in identifying farmland vs. land not suitable or capable of sustaining meaningful farming or agricultural uses. I spent approximately 14 months on the Walsh property, building his cabin. I am familiar with the grade, the soils, the woodlands, wetlands and the specific lay of the land. I've excavated, moved soil, removed trees, and am very familiar with the soil and topography of the parcel sought to be rezoned. With my background, I feel I am familiar with land use issues and, at John's request, submit my comments regarding the zoning classification of this property. I feel that it is unreasonable to rezone this land Exclusive Ag. This is not and never has been farmland. It has lowland that is too wet to farm, and rocky soil that is too think to farm. The slopes are excessively steep. The only agricultural crop that could be harvested is a poor crop of trees (poor due to slopes and poor soil) . However, the soil is so poor, and slopes so steep that logging efforts would result in severe erosion and scarring of the land. The logging would also not be cost effective for the low grade trees that it could produce, especially in light of the severe erosion into the Black Earth Creek Watershed which would follow. Residential zoning would recognize best use of the land, the only reasonable use of the land, and would reflect the residential nature of the surrounding lands. The bottom line is that the land in question is much more suitable for people than for farming. This is a very unique property, but zoning it agricultural deprives the owner of any reasonable use of his land. The proposed 10 acres is wholly unfarmable, but does contain a desirable homesite near the end of Hidden Valley Road. The 10-acre parcel sought to be rezoned is suitable for development as a single family house. As a builder for 16 years, I can attest that developing