Upcoming Events

The steering committee meets at 7:00 pm on the first Thursday of each month in the Horicon Community Center. All meetings are open to the public and all are encouraged to participate. When this date falls on a holiday the meeting may be rescheduled by the committee.

Final Dec. 6, 2008 DRAFT Now Available!

The Comprehensive Plan

The Town Board of Horicon has given approval to develop a Master Plan. This will be the first update since the 1976 Master Plan. Members have been designated and subcommittees have been formed.

What is a Comprehensive Master Plan?

The purpose of our municipal Master Plan is to provide for the planned, desirable development of the Town of Horicon, and is the basis upon which the Zoning Ordinances and Subdivision Regulations are written and revised. A Community Survey is to be made available to the residents of the Town to make sure that their concerns, comments and suggestions are incorporated into the Master Plan.

Specific benefits of having an effective comprehensive plan are:

  1. Establish a community vision: with the participation of the public and through a community survey, you can help define community preferences that decide what kinds of growth and economic development you want the Town to encourage or discourage and what valuable resources you want to preserve.
  2. Avoid surprises: by taking an inventory of the Town's cultural, economic assets, natural resources-to compare to updated population and economic trends - we help ensure that planning decisions are managed and predictable, and provide for protection of these assets and resources.
  3. To update the 1976 Master Plan: times, conditions change. To account for population growth and the impact of surrounding town's changes, an update is required to prepare for future needs that set forth recommendations to guide balanced growth and development.
  4. Establish goals: the goals of the Master Plan set the focus of the actual Master Plan preparation and its implementation; and serve as the basis for regulation changes, for capital improvements, program funding, and for future planning priorities. For example, four key goals are enumerated below that will be examined and discussed are:
  1. To maintain the essential open and rural character of the Town by encouraging smart land use development in those designated areas surrounding existing hamlet areas.
  2. To preserve, protect, and enhance environmentally sensitive and visually important land areas in Horicon.
  3. To establish areas within the town that provide for a diversity of housing opportunities, ensuring that growth is driven organically from within the town, while assuring adequate standards are met for public health, safety, welfare and convenience.
  4. To recognize the need for developing a stronger economic base, working with adjacent town's resources, to promote year-round recreation and new business opportunities that lead to enabling, in particular, seniors and lower-income residents to better afford to live within the Town.

The Master Plan

The Town of Horicon's Comprehensive Master Plan might be comprised of the following chapters:

Community Survey & Population Demographics

We intend to distribute a community survey questionnaire to all voters, year-round and seasonal residents, property owners and local businesses, to gather information about you and your concerns, to allow our townspeople to participate in creating goals, objectives and recommendations for the Town to accomplish.

Population trends, demographics, projections, patterns of income, occupancy, etc. will be researched, discussed and displayed.

Housing and Land Use

Residential development, affordable housing, building permits, and land use controls will be discussed.

Commerce

Patterns of employment, existing businesses, new business opportunities, and existing educational resources will be examined for the purpose of offering enhanced opportunities for local employment providing for new business development that will offer a stronger community identity, while stabilizing the Town´s municipal tax base.

Environment & Natural Resources

Lake water features, conservations lands, ecological resources, geologic features will be identified, discussed and mapped.

Public Services

Surveys including all town departments, fire, highway, recreational, library, utilities, landfill, adequacy of municipal & town community center facilities will be discussed to address current & future needs, capacity and their locations will be mapped. Adjacent town sharing of facilities, resources will be examined and discussed regarding feasibility.

Education

Recommendations will be made of how the town can enhance opportunities. Possibilities are providing new chidren's programs outside of school, an outreach program to Town residents, as well as reach seniors interested in adult education or programs of public interest that both utilize existing regional/town school, library facilities and other town´s facilities.

In Summary

Smarter land use results when development flexibility and the needs of the community are balanced using the criteria established in the Master Plan. These criteria enhance our environment and surrounding neighborhoods, sense of rural character and community by regulating the permitted types of land use (residential, commercial), and by limiting the amount of negative impact that any development can have on noise, traffic, scenery, natural and historic resources.

When the community is active in the planning process, we all feel a sense of ownership and commitment to realize the goals of the Master Plan.