Community as a Factor in Environmental Documentation
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires agencies using Federal funds or needing Federal approvals to assess the environmental impacts of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. The Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act (WEPA) has similar requirements when WisDOT uses state funds or requires state approvals. Transportation projects have the potential to impact the physical, social, and economic environment of a community. A community for the purposes of assessing transportation impacts could be a municipality such as a city, village, or town. It could be a neighborhood or area within a municipality, overlapping two or more municipalities, or an unincorporated or rural area. It may have defined boundaries or ambiguous boundaries, which may be determined as part of the environmental study and impact assessment.
For projects using the Categorical Exclusion Checklist (CEC) or Environmental Report and Environmental Assessment (ER/EA) template, the community impacts and issues are documented in the community section on the factors matrix and using the community factor sheet, as needed. When the class of NEPA/WEPA action is an environmental impact statement (EIS), community impacts and issues are documented in narrative form.
Community Factor Sheet
Community Factor Sheet /
Factor Sheet Guidance
References and Guidance
FDM 25: Socio-Economic Factors