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Dear Editor;
I don't understand how our county zoning laws can be so schizophrenic. On one hand, a power company can bury a community underneath solar cells covering some 2500 acres of silicon and tying up another 1000 or so in attached acreages, thereby changing the fabric of the rural farming community for the next 50 years and beyond.
At the same time, in some townships, Dodgeville for example, if an existing farm is divided into two zoned entities, the land zoned separate from the buildings, then an additional acreage, totaling approximately 37 acres, must be put into an agricultural easement that restricts any building on that easement into the future.
In the first example, arguably 2500 acres of Wisconsin's finest, most productive farm ground is taken out of production for generations, for the betterment of a few, while incurring property devaluation to the many, seems to be OK.
While in the second example, nothing, nothing has changed, and the land is additionally encumbered by an easement that restricts any use other than agricultural use.
The process of establishing the solar farm is intentionally being rushed so that calm minds and considerations are set aside for the benefit of a large corporation's exploitation of the many. The process is not right.
Alan Jewell
Dodgeville