Prairie du Sac Village Administrator Alan Wildman said that if the three municipalities approve an intergovernmental boundary agreement without amending it to allow 40 acres near the intersection of Highways 12 and PF where the hospital wants to build a new facility to be annexed into the village of Prairie du Sac sooner than 2014, as the hospital requested, it doesn’t mean the agreement can’t be amended later.

Wildman said the boundary agreement isn’t even the primary zoning obstacle the hospital will need to overcome.

"If the hospital still wants to locate out there before 2014, the comp plan itself would have to be amended for a different land use," Wildman said. "They would have to go through the process there; they’d have to make a formal request to the village of Prairie du Sac’s plan commission."

Right now the land where the hospital wants to build is zoned for agriculture and when it’s scheduled to be annexed into the village of Prairie du Sac in 2014, it’s zoned as a traditional neighborhood.

To be a hospital, it would need to be re-zoned in the comprehensive plan as an office-research park, which would allow a hospital to go there, Wildman said.

In order for that to happen, Wildman said the hospital would need to make a formal request at the village’s plan commission, and then the decision likely would be passed onto the town of Prairie du Sac and the village of Sauk City.

A public hearing would need to take place, and Wildman said he estimates the entire process would take a year, after which, if the municipalities agreed to alter the comprehensive plan, the boundary agreement could be amended at the time, too.

"I would think if (the hospital) is able to convince the three governing bodies the comp plan needed to be amended, they’d have a better chance of getting the intergovernmental agreement to be amended," Wildman said.