Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, August 15, 2004
Demand for bigger lots drives sprawl into coulees
A deer scampered through the tall grass in the empty lot at the tip of the Boulder Ridge subdivision.
Beyond the lot, you could look down on the Mississippi River in the distance.
And if you were quiet, you could hear the sound of birds and wind in the trees.
"People who buy here want a view with privacy and space," said Dick Barbour, who developed Boulder Ridge, east of
La Crosse on Hwy. 33.
"City living is not for everyone. People have different interests, desires and budgets. People say they want the country, so I try to find the land and create what they are looking for."
A week earlier, La Crosse City Planner Larry Kirch had driven to the same spot. Boulder Ridge and nearby Forest Ridge and Lost Ridge are examples of urban sprawl, he said, pointing to the large lots with individual septic fields.
"Many people are moving here for our views, but pretty soon the views will disappear as the land is taken up with ‘McMansions.' Is that not urban sprawl?"
The contrast between the opinions of Barbour and Kirch illustrate the various views regarding sprawl. Ask what it is and you'll get as many different opinions as the number of people asked.
But two things are certain: Residential development of the La Crosse area has gone deeper into the coulees and farther onto the ridges in the last two decades because many people want bigger, picturesque lots; and sprawl
does not come without considerable public cost, economically and environmentally.
Boulder Ridge resident Nadine Duncan sums up the appeal of getting out of the city: "My husband and I, like most of our neighbors and residents of similar developments east of La Crosse on Hwy. 33 ... were looking for a location to build that would not have to be as dense as building in La Crosse,'' she said. "We wanted a quieter environment with more space between homes."
But Jason Gilman, Onalaska's land use/development director, said what developers and prospective homeowners want has to be weighed against "the common good" for the region and the municipality.
"I've always admired the beauty of this area," said Gilman. "It's troubling to me to see these houses spring up. Our scenic beauty is a lot more important than we might realize, in terms of our quality of life."
La Crosse County doesn't have the traffic gridlock and long commutes of larger metropolitan areas, such as Milwaukee and Madison, where people drive to and from homes that stretch far into surrounding counties.
Gilman, however, said he can see that day coming.
He added, "Is that what you want to see the area look like in the next 50 years? Our rural areas, pockmarked with rooftops?"
NEW HOUSING
La Crosse County zoning permits for single-family dwellings have increased steadily from 110 valued at $7.6 million in 1988 to 216 valued at $35.2 million in 2003.
According to the county's projections, the county's population, now 108,795, is expected to reach 118,246 by 2020. Much of that growth is expected to be in the city of Onalaska, town of Onalaska, and villages of Holmen and West Salem.
If the rate of housing development in the late 1990s continues to 2020, the county's Development Plan, adopted in 2000, predicts additional housing worth $1.2 billion, with the bulk of the building in La Crosse, Onalaska, West Salem, Holmen and the towns of Onalaska, Holland, Hamilton, Medary and Shelby.
The 2030 Metropolitan Transportation Plan shows population growth in the area as high as 92.5 percent in Holmen and more than 40 percent in the towns of Hamilton and Holland.
The county, in a study being done in with University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, is trying to learn how much land is still available. Preliminary statistics show about 103 of the 480 square miles in the county are undeveloped. However, the county does not know how much of that, or of the farmland, is too steep to develop.
Does past growth in La Crosse County constitute sprawl?
Jeff Bluske, director of the county's Zoning and Land Information Department, does not think so.
"We still have a lot of undeveloped land," he said, adding that 74 percent of the county's population is on 8.2 percent of the land.
"The worst nightmare would be no growth," Bluske said. "The county has had a 6-percent growth in valuation annually for about the last four years. It takes that amount to offset increases in the county budget. If we stay at 100,000 people, we would have to decrease services or increase the mill rate."
At least one town supervisor is not so sure that growth is always a good thing.
"I do not believe you have to grow or die," said town of Onalaska supervisor Steve Kujak, head of the town's Plan Commission. "It costs more to serve (a new development) in some cases than you will collect in taxes. If you have smart planning, it will force commercial growth at the same time instead of just becoming a bedroom community. You grow it slow, methodically."
A developer also warns about sprawl.
"We are allowing people to do scattered-site development and put houses on top of these bluffs and take up a lot of land," said Jay Hoeschler, who developed Waterford Valley on the southeast edge of the city. "It's putting pressure on the infrastructure. We don't have that much land, so we ought to use it wisely and prudently, and that calls for proper planning, and it may call for sharing these open spaces."
HOW IT LOOKS
UW-L geography professor Cynthia Berlin looks at the question via satellite images on her computer screen. Her study began to see if human activity has compromised the area's wetlands. But when she looked at the spatial changes between 1982 and 2001, she said it definitely meets the definitions of urban sprawl.
Her study focused on portions of La Crosse, Vernon and Trempealeau counties in Wisconsin, and Houston County in Minnesota. According to the images, urban land use in the counties increased about 205 percent between 1980 and 2000, while the population increased merely 18.2 percent, she says in an article titled "Sprawl Comes to the American Heartland."
Acknowledging her study is based on satellite images and not on statistics, she said, "It is evident that sprawl has been occurring in the greater La Crosse region at an alarming rate. Clearly the rate of land consumption of urban development greatly exceeds the population growth rate."
However, she said it appears the rate of sprawl was less in the 1990s than in the 1980s.
"Most of the development has been at the expense of farmland and pasture," Berlin said. As land values have risen and the demand for single-family homes on spacious lots has increased, there has been increasing pressure on family farms to sell to developers.
The result has been areas of single-use development — only residential or only commercial, she said. "Studies show that more people than you would think would like to see integration, a sense of a true traditional village where there are shops, etc. The city of Onalaska has a vision of that in its revitalization, and Kirch and the La Crosse mayor and council do it in downtown revitalization.
"But in the rural areas, there doesn't seem to be that vision practiced."
TERRAIN
The Coulee Region's unglatiated terrain of bluffs and coulees makes the issue of sprawl much more complicated than in flat areas because so much of the remaining land is undevelopable. Much of the land is wooded hillside, untouchable in places because the county forbids building on land with a slope of 30 percent or more.
In addition to causing erosion, Bluske said, development on steep slopes sometimes results in opening springs. Once open, he said, they cannot be closed, and then it's not possible to keep basements dry.
According to Tom Faella, director of the La Crosse Area Planning Committee, 54 percent of the county's land is woodlands, wetlands and water.
Medary town chairman Wayne Lemar estimates that nearly half the land in Medary is off limits because of the 30-percent slope restriction. "We have a lot of steep coulees," he said. "You can build in the valleys, but you are restricted as to where you can build."
If the land is relatively flat, Lemar said, a person could build on less than an acre. But he said in steep areas, the town encourages larger lots, partly so the driveways won't be so steep.
Terrain is dictating the size of the lots in Stone Hill Estates, being built off Smith Valley Road near the Medary Town Hall, said Terry Herbst, the major investor. The lots will be 5 acres on average, he said. If they were smaller, he said, the driveways would be steeper, which might mean they wouldn't sell because Wisconsin residents know the winter perils of steep driveways.
"These lots are taking up the land," admitted Mike Hoppens, a Realtor and a partner in Stone Hill Estates.
"But to be environmentally friendly, you have to have lots that are larger."
WHY HAS IT HAPPENED?
Of the remaining land in the county, Faella said 28 percent is agricultural. Perhaps the reason Berlin's statistics show more sprawl in the 1980s was that agricultural land did not have the protection of the Farmland Preservation Program then. Those pieces "fell like dominos in the 1980s because farms were then assessed at potential use so farmers sold out to developers," Bluske said.
If one farm sold for development, he said, those around it were taxed based on the selling price, and farmers were forced to sell. Under Farmland Preservation, farmers receive a tax rebate for staying in farming.
The towns' former zoning also led to sprawl, said Greg Flogstad, director of the Mississippi River Regional Planning Commission.
Until the mid-1980s, agricultural land in La Crosse County was simply zoned Ag A, said Bluske. In 1985, he said, all the towns except Medary adopted "exclusive" and "transitional agriculture" designations. It is more difficult to obtain permission for a development in exclusive agriculture, which has the best soils, than in transitional, where the soils are marginal and the slopes may be steeper.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association blames sprawl on town regulations that prohibit higher densities. Minimum lot sizes such as 5 or 10 acres consume farmland at a much more rapid rate than 1- or 2-acre parcels, said Tom Larson, director of the association. "Developers would love to develop at higher densities."
In La Crosse County, Bluske said only the town of Farmington, near Mindoro, has a minimum acreage requirement, which is 2 acres. In the rest of the county, he said, the minimum is about a half acre — 20,000 square feet, the size Wisconsin requires for private septic systems.
New roads also have led to what some consider sprawl. The building of Hwy. 53 to Holmen in the 1990s spurred housing because the commute is easier, said Dale Oestreich, district planning supervisor, Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
THE MARKET
The county and towns certainly have some control over where new housing can happen, but developers say the market and the terrain dictate where they buy land.
"A former developer advised me to find out where the market is and get in the middle of it," Barbour said.
"I can't create a market. I create a development to meet demands, but if you miss, it can be very costly."
The sale of lots in Boulder Ridge is evidence the market is there for large lots with views in the country, he said. Of the 29 lots he began developing in 1999, four are left. The lots range in size from 1 to 5 acres and cost from $44,000 to $90,000. One individual bought two so there would not be another house nearby and the view could be preserved. The houses cost from $250,000 up.
Down Hwy. 33, bulldozers are carving out the property around the former Ridgeview Inn restaurant. A sign shows 97 narrow lots going back into the woods.
"This is the epitome of sprawl," Kirch said, watching a bulldozer create a cul de sac. "They aren't moving to the country. They are moving to a subdivision six miles out."
But people who are moving to the subdivisions say they want the rural atmosphere.
"It is fantastic scenery and quiet," said retiree Mike Wahlen, who moved to Boulder Ridge from his former home two miles closer to La Crosse. "We just wanted to be a little farther out and to have a prettier, quieter neighborhood but still be close to town."
"There is not one building site for everybody," said Barbour. "That's where Kirch is wrong, telling everyone where they should live ... on a city lot with city sewer and water. Maybe not. People should have an option. You want alternatives."
Another factor influencing the market is the difference in mill rates, developers say. La Crosse's 2003 tax rate was $11.65 per $1,000 of valuation, compared to $4.84 in Shelby and 75 cents in Medary.
CONSERVATION SUBDIVISIONS
Kirch and national writers on the subject of sprawl believe in tighter development that leaves natural areas such as woods as common or public areas. The concept is known as conservation or cluster developments.
In a cluster development, all the homes are on a small portion of the property, leaving green space owned in common.
Waterford Valley, developed by Hoeschler off Hwy. 14/61 in southeast La Crosse, was designed to conserve natural areas for all the residents to enjoy. But several observers say lots there haven't sold as rapidly as subdivisions with more individual land and less common land.
"We represent good stewardship," Hoeschler said. "All the houses are on city sewer and water. We did not spread housing all over hill and dale. We do not have houses peppered all over the hillside."
The lots in Waterford are 1/3- to 1/2-acre, and all the residents have access to 80 acres of open space, maintained in an association, he said.
The first home in Waterford was occupied in 1997, and now 30 of the 52 lots, which start at $50,000, have been sold, Hoeschler said.
He said lots have not sold as fast as he had hoped because for the past 10 to 15 years, the new housing has been to the north. They have much easier access to Interstate 90.
"When the people who bought $80,000 to $100,000 homes there go up to a higher-priced home, they stay in their community."
Now developers such as himself, the Gerrards, Roeslers and Joe Hengel are providing a range of housing choices on the South Side, Hoeschler said. The Gerrards developed the Brickworks subdivision, the Roeslers developed Roesler Creekside on Hwy. 14/61, and Hengel has developed Meadow Ridge and Lost Ridge subdivisions along Hwy. 33, and is developing Grandad View Dairy Estates near La Crosse Floral and the Pammel Creek subdivision on 33rd Street.
In addition, Hoeschler said, the city is developing a plan for the southeast portion of the city.
Hoeschler believes cluster development can work to conserve the land. "But (developers) need to design amenities," he said. "It has to be an attractive and pleasing way to live."
The Stone Hill Estates developers are aiming at those who want space. People want to own their own woods, Hoppens said. "If the woods were commonly owned, anyone could walk in the woods by your home. That encroaches on your privacy."
Bluske said he wants cluster developments to work because they would be easier on governments. For example, he said, school buses could pick up children at common stops.
But it can be difficult to obtain financing, Larson said, because the conservation or cluster developments do not have a history.
Whether they work depends on the marketplace, Larson said.
"The developers are competing with other developments with larger lots, so they have to convince the buyers. It's tough being a pioneer."
Joan Kent can be reached at (608) 791-8221 or jkent@lacrossetribune.com
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