Comprehensive Plan
Clark County,Wisconsin

Comprehensive plans help communities develop an approach to manage their future. Clark County was one of only a few counties in the state of Wisconsin that did not have a comprehensive plan to guide growth and create economic opportunities for farmers and business.

Foth & Van Dyke developed a regional planning process which allowed each town and municipality to participate within a county coordinated comprehensive planning process. Clark County was initially divided into ten planning regions and Foth & Van Dyke staff met with each region to facilitate discussions on local issues and potential solutions. Local input was facilitated in a regional format building the foundation for a county-wide comprehensive plan.

Challenges:

• The county comprehensive plan had to be built from the "bottom up," allowing for local control.
• The planning process had to be fair and equitable to farmers and landowners.
• A long county tradition of conservative attitudes tested the planning processes' impact on private property rights and personal freedoms.
• Coordination and interaction between local comprehensive plans and the Clark County Comprehensive Plan required mutually acceptable plan amendment policies.

Benefits:

• Organized first time county comprehensive plan effort. The effort was coordinated in two phases: Phase 1: Plan for planning. Secured $326,000 in WDOA grant funds and obtained agreements from local municipalities (towns, villages, cities) to participate in the county-wide planning effort. Phase 2: Executed multi-jurisdictional comprehensive planning effort which included the development of 27 individual community (town, village, city) comprehensive plans and the county-wide comprehensive plan.
• The comprehensive plan included a special study which dealt with issues and opportunities created by a growing Amish and Mennonite population.
• Developed first time county-wide land use and community services inventory available for each community on Clark County's new interactive website, www.co.clark.wi.us.