City has no process for site plan reviews

CLINTONVILLE – When it comes to site plan reviews of proposed property development plans the city of Clintonville does not have a defined process on how to handle them.
That was the message that Diane Rowe, who had been serving as the city’s interim city administrator, told the Clintonville Common Council at its July 14 meeting. Rowe had taken on the position of interim city administrator after Caz Muske left the city in early June to take a city manager position with the city of Platteville.
Rowe told the council that after speaking with city staff and developers, city staff said they could not find an established process for site plan reviews.
“It’s unclear how it’s done,” Rowe said.
Until the city develops a new process, Rowe said she received permission from Clintonville Mayor Jeannie Schley to use MSA Professional Services to review site plans.

“(City) staff is able to do some of the stuff, but to the level of detail that is required on these types of reviews, we really need it more thoroughly reviewed,” Rowe said. “And the timing of it, some of these have been sitting there for a while and staff was unaware of it.”
Rowe said the city’s ordinance does require site plan reviews. Site plans need to be submitted to the zoning administrator for review and approval. From past experience, Rowe said site plans should also be reviewed by the city’s fire chief, building inspector, public works director, zoning administrator, and an engineer. This would help ensure consistency with city ordinances.
“In talking to (city) staff, they were not familiar, they did not know this process until just recently,” Rowe said. “The first time they saw it was in June, I believe. So, there’s just confusion.”
Rowe said she asked one developer about their experience in the city with site plan reviews and what the process was that they went through.
“He said that he wasn’t aware of one (process),” Rowe. “And when I asked about approvals, they said they were just verbal (approvals).”
She added that another developer told her that their application form had “City of Clintonville” on it, but after Rowe reviewed the form, she found it referenced some things that were not in the city of Clintonville’s ordinances.
“I suspect that this may have been from another community and modified somewhat for use here (Clintonville), but the regulations are not what we have,” Rowe said. “And the only reason why I bring this up, is to me that’s like a culmination of all these things that make me believe that there is not a process in place and that we need one.”
Currently, Rowe said the city charges $350 for a site plan review. She said that charge is “really low given what type of evaluation there should be on these.”
Rowe reiterated that site plans should be reviewed by an engineer because of the technical aspects of the site plans.
“Our staff does a great job of reviewing it for their parts, but some of it is very technical,” Rowe said.
The cost to review site plans should cover the cost of having a professional to review the plans, which in a typical municipality would be $700-$1,000, Rowe said.
“I brought this forward because we had two site plans that nobody really knows what to do with,” Rowe said. “I feel that this is really important. We need to get this done quickly and get some type of process established.”
Council President Greg Rose said the Clintonville Safety & Ordinance Committee, which was recently created, should discuss the matter to develop a process for review.