Court Opinion

ID: 9665904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:59:16.486919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:20.356217
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The majority acknowledges that sec. 236.45 grants a municipality, town or county a broad range of powers. The majority concludes, however, that a municipality’s power is restricted “when the legislature has granted specific authority to establish public improvement requirements for plat approval to the governmental unit within which the plat lies." Majority at 86-87.
The town of Algoma has the power to establish standards for public improvement for the plaintiffs’ subdivision because the subdivision lies within the town. Sec. 236.13(2)(a), Stats.
I conclude that sec. 236.45, Stats., enables the city of Oshkosh also to establish standards for public improvements for plaintiffs’ subdivision because the subdivision lies in the city’s extraterritorial plat ap*93proval jurisdiction. I think this interpretation of the statutes is supported by the greater weight of the applicable precedent, more logically harmonizes the incongruent sections of chapter 236, and is consistent with the legislative purposes stated in the law itself and in accompanying interpretive commentary.
Because the legislature has given both the town and the city the authority to establish standards, we should turn to sec. 236.13(4), Stats., to determine which standards are applicable. That section provides that “where more than one governing body or other agency has authority to approve or to object to a plat and the requirements of such bodies or agencies are conflicting, the plat shall comply with the most restrictive requirements.”
For these reasons, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice William A. Bablitch joins in this dissent.