Buying Land in Dunn County, Wisconsin

County Zoning Covers 16 of 22 Towns -- the Other 6 Are Not Uniform

Case-by-case / verify locally

Dunn County's Chapter 13 Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance applies to unincorporated land countywide except six towns: Eau Galle, Elk Mound, New Haven, Rock Creek, Sand Creek, and Springbrook. These six don't all handle land use the same way, either -- this research pass found that Elk Mound has adopted its own separate town zoning ordinance, New Haven withdrew from county zoning and issues building permits under its own ordinance without a confirmed full zoning code, and Sand Creek was described as having no zoning review body of its own (only DNR review for certain activities). Rock Creek and Springbrook's specific arrangements could not be confirmed in this research pass. See our dedicated zoning page for this county before assuming any single pattern applies to a parcel in one of these six towns.

Statewide Shoreland (NR 115) and Farmland Preservation Rules Apply Regardless

Generally favorable

Whether or not a town is under county general zoning, Dunn County's Chapter 14 Shoreland Zoning Ordinance implements the statewide NR 115 standard (1,000 feet from a lake/pond/flowage, 300 feet from a navigable river/stream) countywide, and the county's zoning ordinance separately incorporates Wisconsin's Farmland Preservation Program (Wis. Stat. Chapter 91) for enrolled agricultural land. These layers are worth checking independently of general-zoning coverage, especially given the county's numerous lakes (Tainter Lake, Lake Menomin, Lake Eau Galle) and its substantial dairy and row-crop base.

A Small Flood-Control Reservoir and a Real Frac-Sand-Mining History Are Worth Knowing

Case-by-case / verify locally

Lake Eau Galle, a roughly 351-acre impoundment created by a flood-control dam built 1965-1969, sits in southwestern Dunn County (interestingly, in the same general area as the Town of Eau Galle, one of the six towns outside county zoning). Separately, Dunn County was among several west-central Wisconsin counties (with Buffalo, Eau Claire, and Pepin) that adopted temporary moratoriums on frac sand (industrial silica sand) mining during the 2010s sand-mining boom, and the county maintains an active Nonmetallic Mining Reclamation Ordinance (Chapter 20) governing any current or future mining activity. Ask directly about a parcel's proximity to either the reservoir's flood-control pool or any permitted/reclaimed mining site.