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COMPOSITE REPORT - Page 2 Application No. 6657 STAFF COMMENTS BACKGROUND A. The applicant, the Town of Christiana, is requesting C-2 zoning to allow the sale of this reclaimed mineral extraction site for warehouse use. The Town Chair has indicated that two potential users have expressed an interest in the property, one for refrigerated storage and one for dry storage. There may be a need for a small office, but well and septic service is not anticipated. The applicant indicates that agricultural use is not practical because the topsoil was removed through past activities. B. The subject property is adjacent to and north of the Village of Cambridge outside the urban service area. It is along a narrow gravel road called Lagoon Drive, with the main portion of the property starting about 1,200 feet east of STH 134. Starting in the 1960s, the property was used as a extraction site for clay. The Town has owned the property since 1989 due to tax delinquency. Also in 1989, the property was rezoned to A-2(8), granted a conditional use permit, and surveyed to allow use as a compost site with the Village of Cambridge. The site was never used for compost disposal. II. ANALYSIS A. The surrounding area is largely in cropland. The exception is the Village of Cambridge/Lake Ripley sewage treatment lagoons directly east of the subject property in Jefferson County. Access to the lagoons is taken from Lagoon Drive. In 1992, the Village of Cambridge annexed land across STH 134 from the subject property, but that land remains undeveloped. The County Highway Department has no comments on the proposed rezoning. B. According to the DNR 1986 Wisconsin Wetland Inventory map for this area, a majority of the subject property is designated as a wetland. As such, under Chapter 11 of the Dane County Code of Ordinances, use of the property must satisfy the requirements of the Inland-Wetland overlay district in addition to the base zoning district. Permitted uses are very restrictive within the Inland-Wetland district;they do not allow the construction of any commercial structure or warehouse. The eastern 1-2 acres of the property are also in the floodplain and in an RPC-designated open space corridor. Environmental Health staff have no objections to the proposed rezoning. C. Warehouses are a permitted use in the proposed C-2 zone district, assuming that the property is not affected by a wetland overlay district. The C-2 district also permits intensive commercial and some industrial uses. D. RPC staff have reviewed the proposed development against the Town of Christiana Land Use Plan(see attached comments). They indicate that the proposal appears to conflict with the following Town/County commercial development policy: