Table 73
COMPARISON OF EXISTING AND
PLANNED RESIDENTIAL LAND USE IN
THE REGION BY COUNTY: 1985

Residential Land Use: 1985
Variance Between
Existing and
Planned Land Use
Actual   Planned
County       (acres)   (acres)  Acresa  Percentb
Kenosha . . . . . .  15,320  15,880   -560    -3.5
Milwaukee  . . . .  47,995  48,731    -736    -1.5
Ozaukee . . . . . .  13,694  14,873  -1,179   -7.9
Racine . . . . . . .  19,441  18,787   654     3.5
Walworth . . . . .  16,480   15,513    967      6.2
Washington . . . .  16,076   14,827   1,249     8.4
Waukesha . . . . .  55,597   51,384   4,213     8.2
Region          184,603   179,995   4,608     2.6

aActual 1985 land use minus planned 1985 land use.
bAbsolute variance as percent of planned 1985 land use.

Source: SEWRPC.

increase of 2,794 acres. The period from 1980 to
1985, the most recent period for which data are
available, saw a relatively modest increase in
residential land in comparison to previous
inventory periods. Among the seven counties,
Waukesha County experienced the largest
increase in residential land, about 7,200 acres
between 1963 and 1970 and about 18,000 acres
between 1970 and 1985, accounting for about
40 percent of the increase in residential land in
the Region since 1963.
Since 1970, the development of residential land
in the Region has proceeded at a rate somewhat
higher than envisioned under the adopted
regional land use plan. The plan anticipated a
total of about 180,000 acres of residential land
in the Region by 1985. The actual residential
land area of 184,600 is greater by about 4,600
acres, or 3 percent, than the planned area.
Actuall land use was slightly greater than
planned in Racine, Walworth, Washington, and
Waukesha Counties, and slightly less than
planned in Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Ozaukee
Counties. The variance between the actual and
planned residential land area was less than
10 percent for each of the seven counties (see
Table 73 and Figure 31).

Figure 31
COMPARISON OF EXISTING AND
PLANNED RESIDENTIAL LAND USE IN
THE REGION BY COUNTY: 1970 AND 1985

200
LEGEND
1970 EXISTING
160
1985 EXISTING
1985 PLANNED
< 120
0
U)
D:U 80
0
40
0
COz UN TY
Source: SEWRPC.

LUJ
wE

As previously noted, the adopted regional land
use plan seeks to stabilize the long-term trend of
declining urban density in southeastern Wiscon-
sin. To this end, the plan recommended that new
residential development should occur primarily
at medium density, with an average of four
housing units per net residential acre. The period
from 1970 to 1985, however, saw the continued
widespread development of lower density resi-
dential land. As indicated in Table 74, lands
classified as low-density and suburban-density
residential, which include residential areas with
lot sizes of one half acre or larger, increased by
30,400 acres between 1970 and 1985, accounting
for almost 73 percent of the total increase in
residential land during that time.
Further insight into the recent residential
development patterns' conformance to, or depar-
ture from, regional development objective may
be gained from study of Map 40. The heavy
concentrations of residential land use in the
Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Racine metropolitan
areas are obvious on Map 40, as are large
concentrations of residential land in and around
outlying urban centers including the Cities of
Cedarburg and Port Washington and the Village
of Grafton in Ozaukee County; the City of

186

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