Watertown discusses rewrite of lakefront commercial zoning to curb conditional-use battles

Watertown planning commissioners and city council members spent much of a joint special meeting reviewing a draft rewrite of the city's Lake Commercial (CL) zoning that would close the current CL district to new additions, split lake-area commercial zoning into three subzones and replace conditional uses with permitted and special permitted uses.

The draft, presented by Community Development Manager Carla Huber and community development staffer Brandy, would preserve existing CL parcels and the permits they were granted under the current ordinance while creating a new set of CL districts for future applicants. "What we have is just the framework in place here," Huber said, describing the draft as a working document meant to reduce ambiguity in how CL uses are handled. Under the proposal, established CL properties that already received permits or conditional uses would remain governed by the old CL rules; new requests would be governed by the new zones.

Why it matters: Planning commissioners and several council members said the change is intended to stop repeated, multiple hearings over the same rezoning and conditional-use questions at the lake. Councilman Mike Danforth described the repeated public fights over rezones as a recurring problem and said the committee's approach tries to minimize the "boogeyman" fear by narrowing what can be proposed through zoning rather than leaving many uses to subsequent discretionary hearings.

Key elements discussed

- Closure of the existing CL district: The committee proposed leaving the handful of properties already zoned CL under the current ordinance (and their…