Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has ruled that a conservation group has no legal standing to challenge a DNR land swap that would allow Kohler Co. to develop another golf course along Lake Michigan.
It’s the latest step in a years-long legal obstacle course Kohler has been negotiating as it tries to add another championship-level course in the Sheboygan area. It already owns Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits, which have hosted multiple major championships, and houses four top courses — Whistling Straits Straits Course, Whistling Straits Irish, Blackwolf Run Meadow Valley and Blackwolf Run River.
In 2020, the Supreme Court sided with Kohler on another dispute related to the golf course project, upholding annexation of the site by the city of Sheboygan to avoid a possible denial of a special use permit from the Town of Wilson.
Additionally, Kohler is appealing a judge’s decision last year upholding an administrative judge’s decision that the DNR improperly issued Kohler Co. a permit to fill wetlands. That case is currently before the Court of Appeals.
Thursday’s 4-3 decision reversed a decision by the Court of Appeals, which had ruled the Friends of the Black River Forest could advance its challenge of the land swap. The Friends say the loss of parkland would harm the group’s recreational, conservation and aesthetic interests.
Those interests aren’t clearly protected in laws, the court decided.
“None of the statutes or regulations cited protect any legally protected, recognized, or regulated interests of the Friends that would permit them to challenge the Board’s decision as “person aggrieved,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote for the majority.
Justices Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and Brian Hagedorn joined the opinion.
In dissent, Justice Jill Karofsky blasted the majority’s “textualism” approach as a “rhetorical smokescreen obscuring a result-oriented analysis.” Justices Rebecca Dallet and Ann Walsh Bradley joined the dissent.
The Friends of the Black River Forest, Inc., issued a statement saying it was “disappointed in today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision reversing the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which had declared unequivocally that active users of Wisconsin state parks may lawfully challenge the State when it gives away those park lands to private interests.
“Today’s decision sets a disturbing new precedent for Wisconsinites and their ability to fight arbitrary and oppressive agency actions that affect…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…