Last week’s marathon Town of Sevastopol Plan Commission meeting will likely not be repeated Monday night before the town board. Mike Parent of developer Quarry Bluff LLC says the group plans to make a presentation of around 10 minutes. Parent says he feels like he did not receive a fair shake Wednesday due to misconceptions about what information is needed when applying for a use permit.

Parent says there are examples of projects voted down at the township level that were later approved by the county’s Resource Planning Committee such as the Parallel 44 Winery in Sevastopol. The Resource Planning Committee will not take up the proposed Quarry Bluff development until February. Parent’s full perspective can be seen in a press release attached to the article at Door County Daily News dot com.

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Quarry Park LLC press release:

Obviously, we were disappointed with the final vote of the of the Town of Sevastopol Planning Committee regarding our conditional use permit application.  However, we were equally disappointed in the way the meeting was conducted.

Specifically, we were concerned how Jim Nellen, the most vocal member of the planning committee, carried on in the meeting in such a heavy-handed and extremely negative manner.  

He showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the conditional use permit process.  We were constantly criticized, and ultimately turned down, for having an incomplete application, because in his mind, we lacked among other things, state-approved sanitary, water, and storm water runoff plans. 

Wisconsin Act 67, and the amended Door County Zoning Ordinance, clearly state that the conditional use permit shall be approved if an applicant meets, or AGREES TO MEET, all requirements and conditions specified in the county ordinance, and those imposed by the county zoning board.  Approved plans DO NOT have to be in hand for the application approval...as long the applicant agrees to meet whatever stipulations are included in the final plans approved by the County and other governing bodies. 

We were also not allowed to correct misinformation that was entered into the record after our presentation.  We were under the assumption there would be a rebuttal period to reply to the opposition’s testimony. We had additional information to provide as well as a prepared closing statement.  Once our initial presentation was completed and before the opposition’s presentation took place, we were informed we would not be able speak again.  Obviously, by not allowing a rebuttal, numerous incorrect statements were not addressed. 

And finally, the morning after the meeting, we discovered (per their website) that Mr. Nellen is the Vice-Chair of the Board of  Directors of the Bay Shore Drive Property Owners Association.....the very group that is by far the most vocal and active against this project.  While Mr. Nellen has every right to his position within that organization and his personal bias towards the project, we find it disturbing that he didn't have the integrity to disclose that fact and recuse himself from the Planning Committee discussion.  In hindsight, it’s not a surprise that at the end of night, Mr. Nellen’s motion to deny the application had already been written on a document that he pulled from his folder. 

We're confident going forward that our upcoming presentation to the Resource Planning Committee will be handled in a more objective and professional manner, and that those committee members have a better understanding of their role in interpreting the conditional use process. 

Quarry Bluff, LLC