Opinion ID: 2233517
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legislative Character

Text: [2] We held in Buhler v. Racine County, 33 Wis. 2d 137, 146, 146 N.W.2d 403 (1966), that zoning is a legislative function. The power to zone is delegable to a county board under Wisconsin Constitution Article IV, sec. 22. The delegability of legislative powers to the county boards does not prevent the simultaneous delegation of the same power to town boards. Wisconsin Constitution Article IV, sec. 23 authorizes the establishment of towns and in Milwaukee v. Sewerage Comm., 268 Wis. 342, 354, 67 N.W.2d 624 (1954), we held that towns could not function without local, legislative and administrative powers. In Milwaukee v. Sewerage Comm. we stated: Since the delegation by the legislature of local, legislative and administrative power is not prohibited by the constitution, the legislature may properly invest local units, including towns, with power to legislate in respect to matters of local character. It is a well-settled rule, supported with practical unanimity by the authorities, that the general doctrine prohibiting the delegation of legislative authority has no application to the vesting in political subdivisions of power of government matters which are local in scope. We endorse the statement of the court of appeals in Quinn v. Town of Dodgeville, 120 Wis. 2d 304, 309, 354 N.W.2d 747 (Ct. App. 1984), that: The power to prevent a change in the permitted uses to which land can be put is the power to preserve an existing zoning. The town's power to veto a county zoning ordinance amendment is as legislative as the power to zone. It is comparable in effect to a zoning authority's refusal to amend the ordinance, which, according to 4 Anderson, American Law of Zoning, sec. 25.08, at 214 (2d ed. 1977), most courts regard as a legislative act. We stated in Milwaukee v. Sewerage Comm., 268 Wis. 2d at 351: The true test and distinction whether a power is strictly legislative, or whether it is administrative and merely relates to the execution of the statutory law, is between the delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily involves a discretion as to what it shall be, and conferring authority or discretion as to its execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law. A veto of an amendment to a zoning ordinance is lawmaking and therefore legislative. It is not a judicial act involving the interpretation or application of law, nor does it carry a law into execution or implementation.