Subdivision Regulations Update

The City’s regulation of the division of land is governed by Section 16.23 of Madison General Ordinance, entitled the “Land Subdivision Regulations” but known more commonly as the “Subdivision Regulations.” The City of Madison adopted its current subdivision regulations in February 1960. The ordinance has received mostly minor updates since; however, there has been no comprehensive update to the ordinance since its original adoption. Updating the Subdivision Regulations is identified as an objective in the 2018 Comprehensive Plan.

Part of the goals for the proposed repealed and re-created Subdivision Regulations is to provide technical updates to this ordinance to reflect contemporary submittal requirements and review processes for subdivision plats and certified survey maps, as well as to update the standards and criteria for approval to reflect recent practices and emphasize consistency with adopted plans. The updated ordinance also includes references to the street typologies in the “Complete Green Streets Policy” adopted by the Common Council on January 3, 2023 by Resolution 23-00003 (ID 74926) so that new streets created through the subdivision process may reflect the street types encouraged by the new policy.

This proposed ordinance incorporates Complete Green Streets policies as well as codifies current best practices of land division and current statutory requirements.  Additionally, this ordinance has several editing changes – including updating language to be gender-neutral, removing unnecessary terminology, and correcting statutory references.

 

Attachments:

Proposed Ordinance

Current Ordinance

Comparison of Existing and Proposed Language

Legislative File of the Ordinance (Link to Legistar File 78130)

Complete Green Streets (Dept. of Transportation): https://www.cityofmadison.com/transportation/initiatives/complete-green-streets

 

Proposed Schedule:

  • Introduction of draft ordinance: June 6, 2023
  • Transportation Commission review of ordinance: June 7, 2023
  • Plan Commission overview, public hearing, and discussion on proposed ordinance: June 12, 2023
  • Board of Public Works review of ordinance: June 21, 2023
  • Plan Commission hearing and recommendation on the ordinance: June 26, 2023
  • Common Council hearing and consideration of ordinance: July 11, 2023

We welcome your feedback and questions about the proposed ordinance. In addition to participating in any of the above meetings, comments can be sent to pccomments@cityofmadison.com. Planning staff will post comments received to the legislative file (link) as they are received.

 

Contact:

Tim Parks, Planning Division – (608) 261-9632 ; tparks@cityofmadison.com

Last Updated: 05/31/2023

Development