Duh?? the Janesville city Council had better look out for the Interests of the city of Janesville.
If you truly don't want to see the east side expand further, take whatever energy you are expending and use it to encourage infill development, west side and south side amenities to attract away from the east side.The growth will come after this temporary slowdown finally/eventually subsides. The key is to get families to recognize the benefits of living on that side of town. That is the solution to avoidance of using good farmland in this area. the other key is to minimize the single large lot rural mc mansions. It's these 35 acres fiefdoms in a township that is wasteful and only encourages leapfrogging sprawl, not the orderly and planned incremental expansion of Janesville borders.

East of Hwy 14 should be zoned "Agricultural reserve". No options. You don't build houses on the most fertile land on earth. If they want to develop, do it where the soils are not needed for future food growth. PDR program just put in place by the county will pay farmers for their land - to keep it in development, but this plan will bankrupt the County's (our money)plan before it even gets off the ground. If you read the plan, you will see that it has no meat, but merely fluff. Smart Growth and an eco-municipality and sustainable community does not build houses on the richest farmland on earth. This is a very short sighted council and planning commission, only watching out for the interests of the City of Janesville, with no consideration to our neighbors. Hope people vote out Steeber, Truman and Brunner

The plan (or Guide) did not need to be amended. if you would study the plan you will find a very strong emphasis on fixing what we have. rehabilitation and infill developments are high on the list of recommendations. Unfortunately the costs of doing this exceeds the costs of developing on the borders. This is where the public needs to speak out and support public expenditures that encourage rehab, remodel and infill developments. So far the public seems resistant to this.
A second misconception is that this plan encourages the taking of farmland away from farmers or at least pressuring them to sell. It does neither. The purpose of the plan is to indicate what areas of the city are appropriate for specific types of development over a long 20-25 year time frame.It provides protection for the citizens of Janesville (who the council represents) against border wars with adjoining governmental bodies. In the future, in cases of proposed annexation, The proposed project will be judged as to how consistant it is to the plan that was just adopted. If the council had pared back the land considered for development it would have given up control over those lands. They would not necessarily be farmland for eternity, but the neighboring jurisdiction (the township usually) could have allowed development on those same lands. possibly big lot subdivisions. This would have just caused further sprawl to use that dirty word.The landowners that border the city spoke through their attorney and basically said they want to be able to decide the use of their land and exercise the full rights of land ownership. They supported this plan and they plan on farming for many more generations.
Farmland preservation is extremely important. This plan is a fair and balanced (not in the Fox news sense) allocation of land uses for the foreseeable future. If not as a guide it can be amended if parts become unworkable. For now, we need to let it work.

I'm suprised they passed it without amending it. Smart growth does not equal new development of farmland. They need to focus on the infrastructure and the repairs that need to be made to what already exists.

Don't be ridiculous. The plan forces nothing on anyone. Development of farmland happens when farmland owners decide to sell it. The plan simply provides an outline for the city on how it will be developed.
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I do think it would be useful for the Sustainability Committee to continue to work on policies that will protect farmland within the guidelines of the plan. But expecting the plan by itself to protect farmland, and particularly failing to build this into the plan process earlier, is a bit much.

It better not force the farmers to give up their land! Without farming, there is no food.