St. Croix County Board changes conditional use permits from BOA to Community Development Committee
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
HUDSON — The St. Croix County Board has approved an amended Chapter 15 of the zoning code, changing the review and possible approval of conditional use permits from the Board of Adjustment to the Community Development Committee.
During the St. Croix County Board’s March 4 meeting, the board also amended the proposed updated zoning code to change the number of events allowed under agricultural entertainment back to 15 and amended language about dealerships being required to have a land use permit for one trailer dealership that is not compliant with the zoning ordinance.
The St. Croix County Community Development Committee has been reviewing Chapter 15 for the past year and has streamlined the language to make it easier to read and understand, said Shawn Anderson, county board supervisor and chair of the Community Development Committee.
In addition to Anderson, the Community Development Committee includes county board supervisors Scott Counter, Kerry Reis, Ryan Sherley and Jerry Van Someren.
Scott Counter said he was concerned about moving conditional use permits from the St. Croix County Zoning Board of Adjustment to the Community Development Committee.
BOA members are required to be a resident of a township that comes under county zoning, but the Community Development Committee is made up of county board supervisors who may or may not live in a municipality that is under county zoning, Counter said.
Members of the Community Development Committee could be making decisions affecting residents who come under county zoning who are not subject to the same regulations themselves, he said.
People serving on the BOA have the knowledge base, the training and the background to deal with the county’s zoning ordinance, and it is a quasi-judicial body, Counter said.
The Board of Adjustment is composed of appointed individuals, and the Community Development Committee is composed of elected officials, he said.
There is a potential for a conflict of interest with the Community Development Committee making decisions about conditional use permits because then the same people who are making the rules are making decisions about how to enforce the rules and whether to issue conditional use permits, Counter said.
Counter said he would either like to send Chapter 15 back to the Community Development Committee for further consideration or make an amendment at the county board meeting to allow conditional use permits to remain with the Board of Adjustment.
Appeal process
The Community Development Committee will have staff recommendations for conditional use permits, and if the county residents applying for a conditional use permits do not like the committee’s decisions, then they can use the Board of Adjustment as way to appeal the committee’s decisions, Anderson said.
The BOA would have appellate authority, and appealing to the BOA gives county residents another step before they would have to appeal decisions on conditional use permits in circuit court, he said.
Greg Tellijohn, county board supervisor, noted that Board of Adjustment members have had years of training and participation in webinars and also must be concerned with applying the rules for the Scenic Riverway.
County residents can appeal Board of Adjustment decisions to the circuit court, he said, adding that he, too, would like Chapter 15 to be sent back to the Community Development Committee for further review.
While the members of the BOA are highly trained, the training for those serving on the Community Development Committee is voluntary, and the membership on the committee can be changed every two years after the spring election or at the whim of the county board chair, said Dan Hansen, county board supervisor.
“We have a good system now … this is a case of if it’s not broken, so why are we fixing it. It does not need to be remedied,” Hansen said.
Ag entertainment
The amended Chapter 15 reduced the number of allowable agricultural entertainment events under Agriculture 1 and Agriculture 2 zoning from 15 per year down to 10 per year.
Changing from 15 to 10 seems arbitrary, said Paul Berning, county board supervisor.
Farmers are trying to maintain their farms, and the regulations should be as least-restrictive as possible, he said.
County board supervisor Ryan Sherley said he agreed with Berning.
The number of events allowed applies to events with fewer than 100 people. When the events will draw more than 100 people, then it is a completely different process, Sherley said.
Counter said he has heard complaints about events of less than 100 people when there is no off-road parking available and people have been parked on both sides of a township road.
Field driveways have been blocked, and even if the field driveways are not blocked, cars parked on both sides of the road make it impossible for farmers to drive their equipment, so they have had to walk home, he said.
Van Someren said he had wanted the number of events restricted to seven per year.
People have bought property and moved out of the Twin Cities because they want peace and quiet, and agricultural events have prevented them from enjoying the peace and quiet of their property, he said.
By raising the number of events to 15, the St. Croix County Board is not treating with respect the people who moved to the country, Van Someren said.
The county’s zoning code requires that an event drawing more than 100 people for ag entertainment requires a land use permit and an event plan, and if there are more than 10 days of events, a conditional use permit and a public hearing is required, said Jason Kjeseth, director of community development.
The St. Croix County Board approved amending the proposed updated ordinance to include 15 days for agricultural entertainment events rather than 10 on a vote of 14 “yes” to four “no.”
Voting against the amendment were county board supervisors Rick Ottino, Scott Counter, Jerry Van Someren and Tim Ramberg.
Dealership
One trailer dealership is not compliant with the zoning ordinance, Anderson said.
The dealership would be a legal non-conforming use, said Heather Amos, county corporation counsel.
Kjeseth said the dealership presented a compliance issue with county zoning.
The dealership is zoned Commercial 1, and there are concerns that if it were zoned Commercial 3, then all of the other allowed uses for Commercial 3 could be an issue in the future, he said.
The St. Croix County Board unanimously approved the amendment to accommodate the dealership.
Approval
All together, the St. Croix County Board spent an hour discussing the proposed amendments to Chapter 15.
In 2024, the Board of Adjustment handled 20 conditional use permits, and in 2023, the BOA handled 26 conditional use permits, Kjeseth said.
If the conditional use permits are transferred to the Community Development Committee, then the Board of Adjustment would still handle variances and would represent an avenue for appeals from committee decisions, he said.
Kjeseth stressed that he was not taking a position one way or the other about transferring the authority for the conditional use permits because the decision was ultimately up to the county board.
Under current state law, when there is an application for a conditional use permit, and there is substantial evidence for creating certain conditions for the conditional use permit, then the permit must be approved with conditions as long as the applicant agrees with the conditions, Kjeseth said.
“There are not many conditional use permits that are being denied,” he said.
County staff have switched from telling applicants “you can’t do that” to “you can’t do that, but you can do this,” so that in 2024, the number of variances coming before the Board of Adjustment decreased from more than 20 per year to four in 2024, Kjeseth said.
An amendment to change the proposed ordinance so that conditional use permits were switched back to the Board of Adjustment failed on a vote of 11 “no” to seven “yes.”
County board supervisors voting in favor of the amendment to keep conditional use permits under the authority of the Board of Adjustment were Paul Adams, Rick Ottino, Scott Counter, Dan Hansen, Greg Tellijohn, Bob Swanepoel and Tim Ramberg.
The St. Croix County Board voted 17 “yes” to one “no” on repealing the previous Chapter 15 zoning ordinance and replacing it with the amended ordinance that allows 15 agricultural entertainment events per year, that accommodated the trailer dealership and that switched the conditional use permits from the Board of Adjustment to the Community Development Committee.
Greg Tellijohn voted “no” on the motion.
