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Bill overriding recent SCOTUS, Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions gets hearing

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//October 16, 2017//

Bill overriding recent SCOTUS, Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions gets hearing

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//October 16, 2017//

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A panel of lawmakers is preparing to hear a bill that would undo recent court decisions involving the sale and development of land.

Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Insurance, Housing and Trade will hear public testimony on the proposal, named Senate Bill 387, at a meeting startintg at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Room 411 South of the State. Should the panel recommend the bill for adoption, its next stop would be the full Legislature.

State Rep. Adam Jarchow, R-Balsam Lake, and Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, announced their introduction of the bill in July, saying the it’s designed to restore property rights restricted by recent decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court and Wisconsin Supreme Court. Groups representing local governments have said they opposed the bill because it would undermine the principle of local control.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Wisconsin family that had been prohibited by a county ordinance from selling one of two adjacent parcels of lakefront land along the St. Croix River, east of the Twin Cities.

The family had argued that the state courts improperly considered the two parcels as a single piece of property when conducting their takings analysis. But the highest court in the nation disagreed.

The decision let stand a state Court of Appeals ruling finding that whenever contiguous parcels are at issue, regardless of their zoning or when they were acquired, they should be considered together. Some argued this ruling essentially prevents government officials from having to provide compensation when they adopt regulations that deprive property of most or all of its value.

The bill up for discussion on Tuesday is also meant to overturn the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision, in May, to uphold a Trempealeau County environmental and land-use committee’s denial in 2013 of a conditional-use permit to an open, 265-acre frac-sand mine in Arcadia.

County officials had denied the application for a number of reasons, including concerns regarding the mine’s environmental consequences and the health of nearby residents. AllEnergy had asked the court, among other things, to review whether the evidence in the record supported a denial of the permit, and to adopt a new rule that would require a conditional-use permit to be granted when all ordinances are satisfied and additional conditions can be added to deal with adverse effects of granting the permit.

The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

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