But Waukesha County changed its land use standards in 1998. The new standards said certain acreage, with soil categories that were not rated the highest for production, did not have to remain under the one-house-per-35-acre standard, and therefore could be subdivided.

Using the changed standards, and over objections of town neighbors who said the farmland in play had soil every bit as productive as theirs, the owner of the 77-acre parcel has applied for permission to subdivide it.

After first deciding to permit 15 homes on a portion of the property, the town finally settled on 10 houses, leaving the rest as an environmental corridor -- the same designation that proved less-than-ironclad in St. Francis.

Town chairman Joseph St. Thomas says that final approval for the proposal rests with Waukesha County -- where soil and land policy changes began the process that may permit the development -- but he rates the preservation of most of the land as positive.

He says the town board's approval of the plan in February -- and if adopted by the County Board -- will make it less likely that more homes under any later proposals will be built on the land.

St. Thomas says the development was "in-fill," not sprawl, on acreage that the county said was no longer prime farming land. "Our philosophy is: we're not going to allow residential development all over the place."

Jean Brown-Ama, whose property abuts some of the farmland on which the 10 homes may be built, says the spot nature of the plan is certainly sprawl and will lead inevitably to more residential building where none was projected.

She and others along and near Norwegian Road who are trying to prevent the development say they are inside a sprawl-inducing Catch-22 that goes something like this:

The more housing on farm land that that gets built, the more farmland that disappears.

The more farmland that disappears, the harder it becomes to farm productively, because the shrunken, less-contiguous remaining parcels are interrupted and obstructed by houses, driveways, garages and mowed bluegrass -- and that will lead to more farmland being sold for subdivisions, and so on.

A graduate of Marquette Law School, Brown-Ama reminded town officials in a Jan. 30 letter that subdividing the acreage in question was at odds with the town's master plan -- though special provisions to the plan, final county approval and an eventual rezoning to tie up the loose ends would pave the way for construction.

Brown-Ama took note of the bigger picture, arguing that "conversion of farm land open space" throughout Waukesha County was a major reason that Waukesha was embarking on its controversial plan to seek a water pipeline to Lake Michigan.

Communities throughout Waukesha County and northern Illinois, which have already sprawled out are lining up for Lake Michigan water -- speeding up the Catch-22 and accelerating the disappearance of rural living in this region.

"Planners need to start taking these issues seriously," she says.

With the town moving the subdivision plan forward, and county planning staff already giving it a thumbs-up, Brown-Ama and her neighbors see their lifestyle and land stewardship coming to an end.

From her 150-year-old farmhouse at the crest of the hill on Norwegian Road, Brown-Ama asks, "How sad would that be?"

Rowen is a policy consultant and writer who used to be an aide to ex-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist.

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.

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