This makes no sense.People shouldn’t live next to a working power plant . . . unless their building is 5 stories or less?
MGE Statement on Proposed Development at 722 Williamson Street
Madison Gas & Electric appreciates the opportunity to provide comments to the Marquette Neighborhood Association’s Preservation and Development Committee regarding the proposed development at 722 Williamson Street.
For general background, MGE owns and operates the 100 megawatt gas-fired Blount Station power plant just to the north of the parcels in question. We actively participated in the development of the BUILD (Better Urban Infill Development) Guidelines and Criteria for the 600-1100 blocks of Williamson Street that were subsequently adopted by the Madison City Council in 2005.
We have serious concerns with this proposal regarding the suitability of use in context with adjacent properties including our own and the Capital City bike path, the proposed building’s mass and height, and traffic implications. We do not believe that placing residential units next to a working power plant is a good idea (imagine if the proposed building was already there and we were talking about locating a power plant next door). The power plant is and will remain critical for serving downtown Madison. Although we have discontinued coal use and taken measures to mitigate noise, it is still a working power plant. We don’t want unhappy nearby residents (and neither, we assume, does the neighborhood). We believe that commercial would be a much better and appropriate use of that property.
In terms of what would be an acceptable project envelope, we’d have to look at specific proposals but we do believe that something limited to five stories and more consistent with the buildings and mass already on the block seems like it would be more appropriate.
Thank you.
Well, my reading of this is “once people start moving in the pressure to close our plant will skyrocket”. They don’t say they want low-rise residential, but commercial and preferably low-rise.