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development areas, and removed from agricultural preservation, through the plan amendment. Therefore, a total of approximately 5800 acres is being removed from agricultural preservation through this amendment. About 728 acres of the agricultural transition land and 776 acres of the rural development land has currently already been developed. In addition, about 1,650 acres of the remaining agricultural transition land and 600 acres of the remaining rural development land lies within a groundwater overlay district, within which, a minimum residential lot size of 8.5 acres would be enforced. The groundwater overlay zone is an innovative element of this plan which is designed to maintain essential groundwater recharge areas within the town. However, this implies a lower density of development within these areas that results in conversion of more farmland, given the same number of new dwelling units. The August 9, 1996, preliminary staff report sent to Dane County requested any additional information they could provide to justify the amount of farm land included in the new transition areas. A November 6, 1996, memo from planning consultant, Rick Roll, provides information that justifies the reasonableness of the transition area size based on: (1) recognition that about 700 acres of land in the transition areas on the map are already developed, which had not been previously evident since no map of existing land use had been provided to the department; (2) use of a more realistic average household size for projecting dwelling unit demand for the planning period; and (3) recognition of the constraints on dwelling unit density within portions of the agricultural transition areas due to the presence of a groundwater recharge overlay district in the plan (an innovative, nonstandard feature). Based on the new information provided, staff has computed that the size of the transition area appears reasonable to address the need for development within the next 20 years. The county planning official has also provided additional information to the department updating the earlier 1981 county agricultural preservation plan with regard to plans and policies for capital improvements in the town, programs to protect,special environmental resources and open space, and procedures and standards for regulating private waste disposal systems. The county planning official has provided to the department a section-by-section tax parcel description and a map indicating all lands removed from agricultural preservation since the 1981 plan was adopted. In addition, a list of fmdings made under s. 91.55 (2) (a), (b) and, (c), Wis. Stats., was provided on a section-by-section basis explaining why these lands were removed from their agricultural preservation designation on the 1981 county agricultural preservation. This information is included in an appendix to the plan. The lands removed from agricultural preservation were placed primarily in agricultural transition and rural development areas. About 60% of the land area in the town remains in agricultural preservation. When added to the areas designated as agricultural transition areas, the plan enables about 80% of the town's land area to be eligible for farmland preservation tax credits. Certain inconsistencies present in the plan amendment text and map legend were corrected in the revised version of the plan amendment submitted on November 27, 1996, and this corrected version will be submitted to the Dane County Board for approval. In particular, clarification was provided that the Resource Protection (RP), Mineral Extraction (ME), and Rural Commercial (RC) areas shown on the map are overlays of underlying areas which are 2