Kyle Geissler talks with Janesville Gazette reporter Kayla Bunge about an example of a conservation subdivision in Walworth County.
Sugar Creek Preserve near Lake Geneva, Wis. is perhaps the premier conservation subdivision in the state. Acres of prairie and full woods surround the subdivision.
Sugar Creek Preserve near Lake Geneva, Wis. is perhaps the premier conservation subdivision in the state. Acres of prairie and full woods surround the subdivision.
Sugar Creek Preserve near Lake Geneva, Wis. is perhaps the premier conservation subdivision in the state. Prairie flowers of all colors bloom around the area.
Miles of trails run through the Sugar Creek Preserve subdivision, providing residents with plenty of opportunities to enjoy nature.
LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP — Dr. Jon and Karin Woolever are surrounded by natural beauty.
Outside their front door is a wildflower meadow bursting with color as purple coneflower and black-eyed Susan reach toward the summer sun.
Outside their back door stand hickory, maple and oak trees that shade a natural spring at the bottom of the hill.
The couple take their 2-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son on walks through the woods, where they pick blackberries and catch frogs in hidden ponds.
The Woolevers live in Sugar Creek Preserve, a conservation subdivision of 52 homes on 260 acres in the Sugar Creek Valley in Lafayette Township. One hundred and seventy-five acres of the site are preserved as pristine open space.
Conservation subdivisions aim to preserve land instead of grading hills and obliterating wetlands, woodlands and other natural features to make room for streets and houses.
"I like the retreat this provides," said Dr. Jon Woolever, who moved into his home three months ago. "What struck me about this area was … the serenity of knowing in every direction things were going to be preserved."
Sugar Creek Preserve is a product of Keefe and Associates and Red Wing Land Company. The developers marveled at the striking piece of property, which began as a fish hatchery and evolved into a campground before sitting untouched until 2003.
They knew the crystal clear lake, mature woodlands and restored prairie would be attractive to potential homeowners.
"It's a unique enough site that it just suited itself to this type of development," said Rob Keefe, president of Keefe and Associates. "Aside from setting it aside as a county park, this is probably the best method of preserving this land."
Nature for people
Conservation development design is an approach to laying out subdivisions so that a significant percentage of land permanently is protected to create interconnected networks of open space.
"It's probably the only type of subdivision design that is consistent with a community's express desire … to retain its rural character, farmland, wildlife habitat and scenic viewshed," said Randall Arendt, a nationally recognized landscape planner, site designer, author and lecturer and a foremost authority on conservation subdivision design.
"Conventional zoning is about 180 degrees contrary" because it "allows every acre of ground to become a house and a street," he said.
That's because most communities zone by lot lines, Arendt said, and to achieve lower density, the lots are simply made bigger. But lower density can be achieved in a way that preserves land, too, he said.
Most communities have a zoning density of one unit per five acres and "translate that into five-acre lots," Arendt said. But through conservation development design, the density remains at one unit per five acres, but the lots are just one acre and the other four acres are preserved land, he said.
Arendt developed a four-step process for designing conservation subdivisions that puts preserving natural features at the forefront rather than building houses.
No. 1: Identify land to be preserved including wetlands, woodlands, ponds, streams and historic structures.
No. 2: Locate house sites with proximity to the open space to capture the added value that comes with it.
No. 3: Lay out streets to access the houses and designing trails for residents to take advantage of the open space.
No. 4: Draw lot lines.
Arendt designed Sugar Creek Preserve around the lake, woods and wildflower prairie. The homes are situated so they face the wildflower prairie and back up to the woods, and the streets only provide access in and out of the subdivision and to each home.
"It was a ready-made park," he said.
Doubly attractive
Conservation subdivisions not only protect sensitive natural resources, they are successful investments for developers, municipalities and homeowners.
Arendt has dubbed the design approach "twice green" because the subdivisions are successful both environmentally and economically.
Developers "push a lot less dirt," he said, and leaving the majority of a site in its original state is less expensive than building infrastructure. Open space drives up the value of the property, and homes sell faster and at higher prices, he said.
Some prospective homebuyers aren't immediately sold on the numbers, Keefe said. They think that if they're spending $150,000 they should get a bigger lot, he said. But the company explains to prospective buyers that they aren't just buying a one-acre lot; they're buying a 176-acre lot but can build only on one acre.
Keefe said when people see the site they're convinced. In fact, 15 of the 52 lots at Sugar Creek Preserve were pre-sold before advertising began, which was double the company's projection.
"It kept drawing us back," Dr. Jon Woolever said of the site in Lafayette Township. "My happy place is out in nature, away from the world. And to be able to retreat to the serenity of the natural landscape—it's beautiful."