Lake View Nurses Dorm Down!

Done deal – Joe Parisi has decided. Well, except they are checking on a bunch of “details” like was the correct process followed, where was the legislative public process and are some important parts of the information they based their decisions on correct. Seemed to be a lot of confusion about everything except that they are tearing the building down – done deal. Is it? To me, is smells like lies. Can’t help it, have some BK Comments.

INTRODUCTIONS
Introductions by Sarah from the Parks Staff, Melissa Huggins has powerpoint on possible reuses. They hand out a list of the history of the nurses dorm. Lynn Green the Director of the Human Services Department is here, so is Darren Marsh the Director of the Parks Department. The go over some elements of the masterplan for the park. They worked with the Friends of Lake View Park to look at reuse of the site in 2010 or 2011. The neighborhood also had some meetings and then Urban Assets is giving us direction on the future use of the site.

URBAN ASSETS PRESENTATION
Huggins introduces herself and her company. She talks about her limited background in historic buildings. She says this was a hard project for her, she was hoping the results would be different. In 2012 she was asked to study what had been done and complete the process to find if there was a viable reuse of the building and what the next steps would be. She says she believes in public process and there was a steering committee. She reviewed all the plans for the sites, interviewed people and submitted a final report. She can send a copy if you want one. She talks about who was on the ad hoc committee. (Apparently she doesn’t have the committee members correct – at least one person on the list says they were not on the committee and couldn’t vote.) She shows list of 8 planning efforts and studies she reviewed, says there was poor response on the neighborhood study. She interviewed city and county staff and elected officials. She talked to real estate professionals (Gorman and Co, Alexander Company) that do Historic Tax Credits. She talked to some other and emailed Jason Tish from Madison Historic Trust. She says the building is sound, but the whole building would need to be rewired, HVAC system would have to be retrofit and it would be expensive, the hot water boilers need to be replaced, roof repair or replacement, the plumbing would all have to be redone. The building would need 44 parking spots for commercial and residential would need more and then an elevator may be needed depending upon use which is hard and they wouldn’t want to hang it on the outside of the building. She says there are site issues, neighbors are the big issue and they were mostly opposed to traffic and residential would create the most. City staff also said that the property is zoned conservancy and that is a stricter classification and hard to change. The only permitted use is gathering area and shelter and anything else would require rezoning. She says it is complicated because this is one parcel and they would need to split the issue. Site access is the other issue. She says the document review had some things bubble to the top – preserving and maintaining the park and providing greater accessibility to use the park and to recognize the history of the park. Preservation of the nurses dormitory is not as important as preservation of the park and the office building. Finally, the housing market might have supported single family in 2001, and now would support multi-family residential rental, but the neighborhood would not. It is hard to develop in Madison if the neighborhood is not supportive. On financial feasibility, banks are starting to lend for multifamily, but not condos. The building is too small to make it worth it to apply for Historic Tax Credits. Lack of neighborhood support and rezoning will take longer and that costs money. If the two developers in town aren’t interested, you need to consider this.
Recommendations – they had several recommendations, a nonprofit office might be feasible and not generate much traffic, a business incubator is hard to do and need to be downtown, artist loft is a lovely idea but how to you pay for it, residential, or bike hostel. Clear road blocks for 1 – 7. 8th ideas was a shelter. Rezoning being the hardest, financial feasibility is hard, parking is an issue and political support and neighborhood concerns. She says there was no champion for the project and that is the worst part. You need a champion. She went back to the ad hoc committee and they came up with principles for decision making. They had three principles of impact on the community, historic issues and feasibility. She says that there might be other uses. Her recommendation is the deconstruction of the nurses dormitory paying attention to reuses on the site. Additional gathering areas and structures and environmental education are important. Stormwater management issues need to be addressed on the site and moving forward there needs to be a collaborative process.

My opinion at this point was that the zoning issues were overblown and the financing issues are different now than they were when the work was being done. It feels really misleading. The dismissal of the other uses was quick and essentially, they later admit that the contract Huggins had did not include a broader look at who might be interested in the building. In short, they didn’t do their homework. Just like Annette Eisman is about to say.

QUESTIONS
Work is unfinished. Annette Eisman on the committee felt like they only got opinions of the realtors and concluded there was no money and no one looked at foundations supporting and education center, including nonprofits that might be interested and the committee ended and other options were not explored. She feels the work was unfinished, she feels it would be criminal to destroy the building if a use could be made of it – she doesn’t think we are that short sighted that we can’t collaborate and find a use. It hurts her heart to think we would do something like this without exploring every possibility. Huggins says her scope of the work didn’t include interviewing others, there was no champion. She wasn’t hired to find the champion.

Is zoning really that big of a deal? Jon Becker asks if a champion comes forward, for a bike hostel, the question is how does it affect the zoning problem, can’t the county lease the building? Huggins says you still need to rezone it. Huggins asks Darren is someone came with $10M if they would sell it. Marsh says that Parks looks at the landscape and they have issues with the maintenance of the building and the stormwater issues. He says the goal is to do something one way or the other and make a decision. Becker presses on leasing buildings in parks. Becker says when the towers go up, they don’t need to be rezoned and are leased. Lynn Green says she had the same hopes and dreams, her first office was in that office. There is no champion for the building, there is nothing profitable that wants the building and the neighbors have concerns. Green says they will look at anything. Becker says it was hard to be involved in the process.

What about the homeless. Ed Kuharski says that the building looks mighty attractive compared to the tents. He says that it appears the county wants to spin this off. Huggins says Green has been here since 1968. Green says the county determined it has no use for the building. We have no need or use for the building. The entire county. Kuharski asks if this went through the legislative process. Green says the County Executive is in support. So, no, there was no legislative process. Kuharski points out we are failing miserably to help people in this community – he is here to advocate for the restoration of the moral obligation the county has to those folks. What he sees that the study is probably valid, but the frame is not to try to get something done, but to tear it down. We don’t have a shortage of open space here, but we do have a shortage of shelter. He says the homeless wouldn’t generate a lot of traffic.

Annette Eisman says it would be a great Habitat for Humanity.

What’s going on? What are we deciding? Jim Powell asks where we are in the process. Marsh says the decision has been made.

Was process followed? Nelson Eisman asks if there was a resolution to demolish the building passed the county board, but there was money in the budget to do it. Marsh says that there were other arrangements that could have been made, the county wanted to move forward and it has resources in its budget to move forward. Green says they demolished Badger Prairie that way, with just a budget amendment. Eisman says that that is bad government, like the state government.

Zoning issues? Kuharski asks about previous uses and if it can be used for that again. Could it be used as an office again. Eisman says that it was residential at some point. They say, at that time, they rezoned it because everyone wanted it conservancy.

Information based on bad information? Eisman says that a spot in time decision based on a few neighbors opinions is hard for him to take.

Zoning Again. There is discussion about the new zoning code and the rezoning that occurred a few years ago.

Not suitable for the homeless? Is this a done deal? Becker says this is a poor place for the homeless, far away from work force areas and services. So if there are working poor or little salary, how do they get to work from here, he thinks there are better properties, even some owned by the county that are better. He talks about how steep the hill is. He thinks they should set aside these issues tonight. If it is a done deal and there is no vote on the demolition, then we need to know that. Marsh says that is where they are at. Everyone here has a passion about this property, they have gone through the steps to discuss the bulding, look at the uses, people will say we didn’t do this or that, but we tried. There are good ideas and a lot of passion, but where it has come to now, it has come to how it will blend into the park, if the building is removed, how will it blend into the park. They went over what they have done, what the consultant did and what the options were and now we have to move on to the next step. The next step is the conservancy of the land and if we deconstruct it how can we preserve some parts of the bullring to be used on site to talk about and present the history. If we can’t put people in the building, then maybe we can use the building to show the history. That is where we are, he knows people have a lot of passion and it is hard to let it go.

What they did conservancy. Is this a done deal? Maria Powell says that her understanding of the conservancy, wasn’t to wreck the building, but to prevent he building from being turned into condos. Is the decision to demolish a done deal or not?

Keep part of the building? Annete Eisman asks if they can keep part of it. We’re not experts. No architectural expertise to know how to reuse it.

Is this a done deal? Maria Powell says that she wasn’t on the committee but several people on the committee are expressing that they don’t like the idea of it being town down. Has the decision been made? Have we really explored every possibility. This is an asset beyond the neighborhood. Marsh says he is not the County Executive or the County Board supervisors, but the decision has been made and we need to move to the next stage. We need to figure out if we can reuse portions of the building.

Next Meeting: August 24th 10 – noon there will be a meeting to do that thinking and planning.

Public doesn’t have the expertise to participate. Annette Eisman asks if they will be participating because they, as citizens, don’t have the expertise to make those decisions and that was the failing of the committee. Huggins says they will guide them through the process.

The County Board didn’t vote to demolish this building. Heidi Wegleitner from the County Board says that she is not sure, and it sounds like the decisions have been made. She has not been aware of this issue being before the board since she was elected and there are new people on the board and she is not sure that they can change the administrative decision. She is new and learning, but she needs more information, how much was in the budget for demolition and what does it say.

No public process. Nelson Eisman says this didn’t go before public works or other committees, there was no public legislative process – they were not notified of any of that process.

The process was transparent and I will get more info we need. Melissa Sargent says she represents the area and she appreciates the passion in the room. The money for the demolition has been in the budget before she has been around. She says that there have been long and hard discussions and they have had countless hours of community input and involvement on what needs to happen and what is feasible financially. If someone could lease it for a $1 what could we do, those conversations have been had, they have been chasing themselves in circles. She would be happy to call corporate council and ask about properties being deconstructed. She says that the only one she knew of was Badger Prairie, but she is certain there were other buildings and here is probably a clear process. She will check on it, but she thinks it is the county executive’s purview. Parks and Human Services staff are here, she has invited Public Works committee members here and they haven’t shown up. Because it was in the budget before I was elected, every year the Personnel and Finance and Public Works commitees look at it. Poeple could have come and spoke. She feels it has been transparent compared to the state budget process. She will get the info on the process at the next meeting and will email people if they sign in.

I should just stop going to meetings and paying attention because it makes me ill. I hate being condescended to by being told “we appreciate your passion” (but we know better, you just don’t understand.) I hate being told, we’ve had lots of process and discussions (and you’re too late to the table, even when they didn’t do a good job of notifying the public about those meetings and a select few insiders were the only ones involved.) I hate it when they talk about what is financially feasible, as if they are experts, when we all know that there are too many variables in that to talk about it with any amount of certainty. I hate it when they say that they have done everything they could, when they clearly haven’t. I hate it when they say they had all this process, but then have to check with the attorney’s to find out if they did it right, they didn’t know? I hate it when the legislators defer to the executive branch as if they have no power. I hate it when they say things are transparent at the county level and that the public could have commented on. Really, that budget is transparent? Not at all! And the process is not transparent, amendments are often not available to the public until after the meeting, the agendas don’t clearly articulate what they will be talking about and the budget has so little information I will buy a beer or beverage of your choice for anyone who can find the portion in the budget where the money for this demolition is. Go ahead, I dare ya! (County Supervisors excluded). I’ll wait . . . let me know when you find it. I bet most readers can’t even find the budget, let alone find the part in the budget where this is. Really, I feel ill.

Becker asks about getting info about renting in a conservancy. Huggins says that she had long talks with Matt Tucker and they can’t do it. Weier says that she knows that they can’t do it there. BULL FREAKING SHIT! On the last Board of Estimates agenda there were two examples of leasing in conservancy zoned parks”
Cherokee Conservation Park, 6098 N. Sherman Dr. – Zoned CN, W (Conservancy and Wetlands)
Owen Conservation Park. 6021 Old Sauk Rd. – Zoned CN (Conservancy)
So bullshit. You’ve lost all credibility. Which makes me a little sad and crazy. I don’t like to see the public misled like this and I hate sitting in the audience with information like this. I stood up and raised my hand but didn’t get called on.

We’ve done our work. Green says that they have held off for a long time, they have break ins, animals in the building, the front wall is pulling away from the roof, it keeps flooding. She recalls that they had run a deconstruction track a few years ago and then the friends asked them to please give them some time and hold off on a year and they would write grants and at the end of the time if we all tried everything we could, we were in it together, she thought it was a clear message to neighborhood and community that they were trying their best, to get to this sad conclusion. Sargent says that is correct, the reason we put the breaks on was because of WCADV because there might be a champion that had the financial resources for the building, but there was concern about traffic. That champion didn’t have the resources, and there was concern about parking.

Times were different.Nelson Eisman says at that time it was hard to get financing, money is starting to flow, but someone says not on the commercial side.

It wasn’t clear.Annette Eisman says that as long as the building still had storage, the reality didn’t sink in that they were going to demolish the building.

Marsh says that Green and Sargent are right, DOA said everyone has taken their shot and we believed we have.

Was there and RFP or RFQ?I asked if there was a RFP or RFQ. They said there was something. Green says several developers said that several developers went through, including Gorman, they thought about doing a IT server farm there, they looked at using it as a nonprofit site. Green says it is millions of dollars to do renovations, the water has been turned off, metal all stripped out of mechanical and it is deteriorated and no one will. Becker says that Melissa asks about the RFP and what were the conditions, what were the responses and pieces of the puzzle changes since then, is that related to the RFQ? Sargent says it happened in November 2011. That is when they met with the gorups and stakeholders, she can’t find a copy of what Travis would have sent out, it was either December 2011 or 2012. Becker says there was another process in fall of 2012, why if there was a RFQ and there was no response, why did we do something else. Sargent says it was at the request of the Friends group, they wanted on more chance. ecker asks if anything changed in the RFQ information regarding zoning and leasing and other issues. December 2011 WCASA and WCADV were interested and the RFQ went out in 2012.

Demolition by neglect.Kuharski says that the description of deterioration is like developers who have market rate apartments that go from that to beyond repair. What you describe is not a proper mothballing of a building to preserve it. Trying to sell in the bad market is absurd, we should hold the assets until the market improves. He says that all you need to do is keep the roof repaired, that is the key. Green agrees that they talked about the building being mothballed for years and said it will deteriorate and it turned this corner. Kuharski asks where the facilities group is and why did the neglect it. Becker says it is probably a department communications issue.

Electeds will do the process again.Anita Weir says she will be happy to work with Melissa if we do this all over again. Sargent says that they will get the timeline, verify with corporate council the demolition of buildings and she will verify zoning.

Will it get torn down soon?Eisman asks if there is a contract to tear it down yet. Marsh says the contract has been set up, Huggins says not for deconstruction. They need guidance on what they can salvage and what the gathering area would look like. I wonder if Marsh was correct and not wanting to correct Huggins?

How did you determine costs of demolition?Annette Eisman asks how they knew how much it would cost. Green says based on their past experience. Public Works will have to do a contract for deconstruction. Marsh says that they had to come to them tell them the results of the study and move on to the next steps.

What about the trees?Jim Powell asks about conservancy and the trees and if the oak grove can be restored, no one is talking about the natural state of the land, instead of talking about buildings. He is worried about the damage that could be done during deconstruction. Marsh says they need to follow the master plan. They have tree inventories. I missed something Jim Powell said.

Why we are here?Green says they were here to tell them what they were doing and now they want to partner to find out what the community wants, roof, bathrooms, no parking, save an arch, etc. That is what the meeting was about.
Maria Powell says that the communication about the meeting did not make it clear about the demolition had been decided.

What about the asbestos? Maria Powell asks about asbestos. They say there is testing that has been done and they will do what they need to do. Kuharski says that would need to be done either way. Eisman says that only the pipes were wrapped. Green says that they have looked at it extensively and they are on top of that. Marsh says they have estimates on the removal. More questioning of where the money came from to do that, isn’t it expensive. Marsh says public works does that. Neighborhood meetings have been had where they passed on information. Public Works would know. Sargent will add the asbestos questions to her list. More in the weeds discussions about asbestos. Maria Powell talks about demolition issues and asbestos and how it impacts the environment and how this is an emerging concern. Marsh says they will salvage items as best they can.

Apology from the public for caring?Annette Eisman apologizes for being road block number 8, and her voice isn’t any more since she lives close and acquiescing to the demolition and is sad that is where they are at but it makes her sad.

Poor people can live here, they do.Kuharski says that whomever says that saying this is a bad place for the low income people to live, but this corridor is full of people who have limited means and transit was not a problem for people when Occupy was here. Nelson Eisman says we can’t afford the human services we have now. Kuharski says we have talked ourselves out of serving these people, and it is fiscally irresponsible, it costs $40K for each unhoused people. Becker says the elevation of the hill is an issue. We need to deal with the problem, but you would be asking people with disabilities to go up and down the hill.

They wrap up the meeting. Another meeting August 24th.

DISCUSSION WITH LYNN GREEN AFTERWARDS
We were out in the hallway talking about things and Lynn Green had walked down the hallway and through a door when she turned around and came back and said to me. “You know I know you don’t believe I care about the homeless, but if I don’t have to spend millions to renovate that building I’d have more money to help the homeless. You know we are looking for a building now.” I don’t know why she turned around but it right after I said something about feeling like the meeting was full of lies. And she just piled on. Here’s the deal tho, I don’t think she is a stupid woman, and she has been around far too long to say something like this, especially to someone who knows better. Again, statements like this make me sad, as they just destroy people’s credibility. Here’s why . . .

1. No one is asking her to spend her budget to renovate the building.
2. She could make money by selling the building, or at least break even and get rid of maintenance issues if the building was allowed to be sold or rented to another entity.
3. This is a capital budget issue – not an operating budget issue – saving money on buildings won’t free up any money for homeless services. Yes, there are debt repayment costs, but that’s not charged to departments. That statement is a HUGE stretch and its irresponsible to say that.

Her defensiveness about not caring for the homeless also bothers me. I get it, she has a $250M with a lot of moving parts and there is no federal or state money coming in to help pay for services for the homeless and it is hard. But, as Kuharski pointed out, we could say money by housing the homeless, up to $40,000 a year studies show. So, its not even about caring about the homeless, its about fiscal responsibility. I’m not asking her to care about the homeless or questioning if she does, I just want us to do the right thing (humane and moral) and the fiscally responsible thing. But I’m not even sure that was the central point of why I was there. I care about the historic preservation, the waste of money, the cost of destruction of viable building, the public process issues involved, etc, etc , etc. I didn’t really have a vision for how this could help those struggling with poverty when I went to the meeting, I was just interested. I still don’t know what I would do with the building if we had an opportunity to use it – no hidden agendas here. But, it is a roof and a shelter, not an illegal tent.

Here’s the audio if you are so inclined.