Cross Plains committee urges stronger sustainability and flood protections in comprehensive plan update

Members of the Village of Cross Plains sustainability committee reviewed draft sections of the village comprehensive plan and recommended that sustainability goals, flood mitigation measures and active-transportation connections be embedded across chapters rather than held in a separate appendix.

The committee’s recommendations focused on three priorities: explicitly adding sustainability language to the vision statement and plan chapters; strengthening flood-mitigation objectives and stormwater management practices; and making transportation and trail connections — including regional transit references and local connector trails — clearer in the plan’s policies.

“We may consider recommending…including sustainability goals” said Jenny, Sustainability Committee member, as she walked through proposed edits that would add energy efficiency, conservation, renewable energy and reduced transportation emissions to the draft plan’s survey and visioning materials. Jenny also urged officials to increase emphasis on flood mitigation after severe local flooding during the past decade.

Committee members noted several technical and policy gaps in the draft and recent ordinance language. They discussed the village land division code, Chapter 83, and raised that several earlier water-quality buffer protections — for example, a 150-foot buffer measured…