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Town of Berry Comprehensive
Plan
Plan summary | Comprehensive
Plan PDF | Map
Plan
Summary
The Reason for Planning
The Town of Berry contains some
of the most beautiful countryside in Dane County. Wooded ridges and hills
interspersed with lowland valleys provide scenic vistas. Woodlands, creeks,
and open fields provide habitat for wildlife. Residents cherish the rural,
open lands. The beauty of the land is also attracting new development;
the value of land in the Town has nearly doubled in the past four years.
With relatively easy access to the Madison metropolitan area and nearby
villages and cities, Berry is attractive to those seeking to live "in
the country." This is the time for Berry to balance future development
with preservation of the rural character of the Town.
Purpose of the Comprehensive
Plan
The Town of Berry Comprehensive
Plan will help the Town to preserve its rural, open spaces and guide
the amount, location, and quality of development over the next 20 years.
The goal of this Plan is to preserve the rural scenery and lifestyle
in Berry through careful planning, design, and placement of land uses,
community-sensitive regional transportation solutions, and intergovernmental
cooperation to manage growth.
The Comprehensive Plan updates
and replaces the Town's 1981 Land Use Plan, and meets all requirements
of the State's "Smart Growth" and Farmland Preservation laws.
The Comprehensive Plan was prepared following more than a year
of study by the Town, and using several methods of public input. This
public input has shown that residents wish to preserve the rural character
of the Town while ensuring that landowners are able to exercise their
development rights.
The resulting Comprehensive Plan
document includes ten chapters, covering land use, transportation, agricultural,
natural and cultural resources, utilities and community facilities, housing,
economic development, intergovernmental cooperation, and implementation.
The following paragraphs summarize the key recommendations.
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Protect Rural Community Character
"Community Character"
is hard to define, but it is the reason why many people choose to live
in the Town of Berry. The rural character of the Town is defined by steep,
wooded hillsides, verdant lowlands featuring agricultural uses or rural
open spaces, and natural resource areas such as Festge Park. One of the
attractions to many residents is the ability to get away from more developed
areas and enjoy the openness of the scenery. In order to preserve this
open, rural character for as many residents as possible, the Town has
chosen to adopt guidelines that will help to:
- Preserve significant scenic and natural areas, and historic
buildings.
- Protect views along Highways 14 and 19 by controlling
new signage and development.
- Sensitively site new housing on the rural landscape.
Accommodate Development
This Comprehensive Plan contains
a Planned Land Use Map to help the Town decide how to guide land uses
in the future. Future development decisions will be based on that map
and the policies behind it. Key elements include
- Ensuring that landowners will be able to exercise all
development rights conferred under the density policy originally expressed
in the Town's 1981 Land Use Plan (1 dwelling allowed for every 35 acres
of land owned).
- Allowing limited "shifting" of development
rights from one parcel of land to another, provided the development
is in order with the goals, objectives and policies of the Plan.
- Accommodating new development in areas where there is
already development, such as Marxville.
- Working with the Village of Cross Plains to direct new
growth to carefully planned "transition" areas near the Village,
while respecting the values of Town landowners near the Village edge.
- Exploring approaches that would require development in
planned development areas, such as Marxville, to assist in the preservation
of long-term rural/agricultural land elsewhere in the Town, to ensure
that landowners throughout the Town are treated equally.
- Controlling new commercial development in the Town, and
focusing on agricultural, recreational or other support uses that will
benefit the community.
- Keeping new development away from sensitive environmental
areas, such as wetlands, floodplains, steep slopes, and productive agricultural
land.
It is important to emphasize that
this Plan does not prohibit development on all parcels containing
high-quality agricultural lands, open space, and steep slopes. Rather,
the Plan encourages landowners to direct site development
or disturbance away from these features and into more appropriate portions
of their property.
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Promote High-Quality Development
Design
As important as where new
development goes is how it looks and relates to surrounding uses,
roads, natural areas, and the desired rural character of the Town. The
Plan recommends the following to promote high-quality design of
new development:
- Using principles of "conservation neighborhood design"
in the design of new subdivisions (where they are allowed). These principles
include preserving blocks of natural areas or farmland and preserving
rural character by "hiding" new development with vegetation
or topography.
- Using siting guidelines in the design of all development
in the Town that does not require a subdivision. These include preserving
existing vegetation and site features (fences rows, barns, silos, etc),
locating development to minimize visibility from public roads and existing
residences, and keeping development below hilltops and ridgelines.
- Requiring commercial uses to be built according to a
site plan that demonstrates good site, building, landscape, signage,
and lighting design.
Pursue Responsible Transportation
Planning
The ease of transport between the
Town of Berry and nearby cities and villages is both a blessing and a
curse. The expansion of U.S. Highway 12 will be completed by 2005. State
Highways 14 and 19 continues to grow busier. With respect to transportation,
the Comprehensive Plan recommends:
- Continued updating and implementation of a Town Road
Improvement Program.
- Limiting "side of the road" development on
main roadways.
- Consideration of Town road impact fees or special assessments
for new development projects that place a burden on or require the upgrading
of Town roads.
- Accommodation of bicycle traffic on less traveled Town
roadways.
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Prepare Intergovernmental Plans
and Agreements
The Town of Berry will have to work
with other governments to fully achieve its future objectives. Recommendations
for intergovernmental cooperation include:
- Resolving any conflicts between the Town of Berry
Comprehensive and plans of adjacent communities.
- Considering joint services with surrounding communities
when it would result in better services or cost savings.
- Working with the Village of Cross Plains to develop an
agreement regarding the future development of the Village and the Town's
desired growth areas.
- Working with surrounding communities, particularly the
Village of Cross Plains, to encourage an orderly, efficient land use
pattern that preserves farmland, rural open lands, and natural resources,
and minimizes conflicts between urban and rural uses.
The Town Plan Commission and Board
of Supervisors will use their discretion in approving rezonings away from
Exclusive Agricultural zoning. Development proposals will be evaluated
by how well they fulfill the goals, objectives and policies of this Plan.
The Plan provides written guidelines in the form of land use policies
and a preferred site development process for development of land, which
includes illustrations depicting land suitable for development and land
desirable for preservation. These illustrations will make the site development
process useful as a handout to landowners wishing to develop on their
property.
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Provide a Guide for Implementation
The recommendations of this Plan
will not implement themselves. The Town, in cooperation with residents
and property owners, will have to exercise the guidelines contained in
this Plan and take further actions over the next several years
in order to make the Plan a reality. These actions include:
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