Kohler Co extension on conditional use permit for proposed golf course

SHEBOYGAN, Wisc. – Kohler Co. was granted a one-year extension of a 2020 conditional use permit for its proposed 18-hole golf course in the Black River Forest while it pursues plan revisions.

This comes after a handful of contentious court battles, notable of which ended last year with a Wisconsin court of appeals upholding an 2019 decision to deny issuance of a permit to fill 3.69 acres of wetland. Reasons amounted to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources not having sufficient information to grant the permit.

It was the last of seven lawsuits to resolve, six of which ruled in favor of the company.

The City Plan Commission extended the CUP until Dec. 4, 2025, at the Nov. 12 meeting. In the 2020 approved CUP, a tolling provision allowed for the resolution of the lawsuits to occur before having to take further action. Within a year of the final case’s resolution, the provision said Kohler Co. had to begin development or request an extension. The wetland permit case resolved Dec. 4, 2023.

City Attorney Charles Adams provided advice during the meeting, clarifying the City Plan Commission was not considering any existing or new plans of the CUP but rather determining if there was a basis to not grant Kohler Co. the extension, potentially if doing so would go against the interests of the city.

“The only basis that I could see for denying an extension of a permanent CUP like this would be if the Kohler Company were using this as a ‘stalking horse’ to basically prevent development around the area and had no intent to actually engage in the development,” Adams said.

Kohler Co. acquired roughly 468 acres of land along Lake Michigan in the 1930s, now including about 221 acres of state-donated land for the John Michael Kohler State Park, part of the Kohler-Andrae state parks. The remaining land has stayed in private ownership. Documented plans for a golf course have been in the works for about a decade.

Deborah Tomcyzk, attorney with Milwaukee-based firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, ensured the Commission the golf course project was not a “stalking horse.”

“We do have the intention to develop and to satisfy the conditions to our conditional use permit,” Tomcyzk said.

She added Kohler Co. thinks the extension is a “simple request” and wasn’t proposing any new site plans at the meeting.

A condition in the CUP says a new application must be submitted if there are changes to an already approved permit, plan or associated…