Wisconsin TND law achieves mixed results

In 1999, Wisconsin passed the first and only state law in the US requiring municipalities to have traditional neighborhood development codes. Eight years later — and five years after the initial deadline for adopting these ordinances — many municipalities still have not enacted a TND statute, according to Kevin Pomeroy, planning director for 1000 Friends of Wisconsin. “There’s no penalty for not adopting the ordinance, so there is no rush to comply,” Pomeroy says. All municipalities of more than 12,500 population — a total of 65 — are covered by the law.
“We have obtained copies of 32 TND ordinances,” Pomeroy says. “Of those, 13 have adopted the model ordinance [produced by the University of Wisconsin Department of Urban and Regional Planning] or something substantially similar, and another 13 have adopted the model ordinance as a ‘guidebook.’ Six others are not clearly related to the model ordinance. We have also confirmed that 2 other communities have not adopted a TND ordinance. We are in the process of contacting the other 31 communities over 12,500 people to confirm their status.”
The good news is that many municipalities, particularly Milwaukee, and cities and towns in the Madison area, have gone beyond the requirements of the law and are more aggressively promoting smart growth, Pomeroy says. Some have passed form-based codes, a term which wasn’t even in the planning vocabulary in 1999. Form-based codes rely heavily on images. Wisconsin’s TND model ordinance promotes new urban concepts like mixed-use and interconnected street networks, but relies on text.
“It isn’t the model ordinance that is driving what is happening in [Milwaukee and Dane County],” Pomeroy says. “Madison hasn’t adopted a TND ordinance but they have been approving projects above and beyond what would be envisioned in the ordinance. So maybe the TND ordinance isn’t all that important any more.”
“Middleton, Sun Prairie, Madison, and Fitchburg all worked with Dane County to develop an ordinance that will be similar across the four communities, so that Dane County developers can deal with uniform codes,” 1000 Friends reports. “Madison, going further, is doing a total rewrite of its zoning code and will be including numerous improvements, including a sustainability focus.”

The impact of built projects
Successful built projects are having an influence, Pomeroy says. “Middleton Hills (a 149-acre TND near Madison) was one of those catalytic projects. Developers can see it on the ground and kick the tires. It’s those kind of projects that are having more and more influence.” Veridian Homes of Madison, the state’s largest builder, has become a strong promoter of New Urbanism.
In Milwaukee, long-time mayor John Norquist, now the CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, led an effort to change codes and promote new urban planning techniques. “Everything was in place to do the right thing [in Milwaukee], and that legacy continues,” Pomeroy says. “In the rural areas, promotion of New Urbanism is less common. There are exceptions. River Falls [a city about 12,500 population 20 miles southeast of St. Paul] is doing some innovative things.”
River Falls incorporated its TND ordinance into its comprehensive plan maps and has had mixed success working with developers, Pomeroy says. “Sterling Ponds, its first TND, was actually done through the PUD process. A second planned TND fell through because of resistance by residents near the town land that would have been annexed for the development. Another developer is already land banking for a TND on a third site.”