The Mayor attended the Urban Design Commission (UDC) to have a discussion with them, it seems to result in a joint meeting of Plan Commission, UDC and Landmarks Commissions with developers and neighborhoods watching to provide feedback later. And a staff meeting.
Discussion with Mayor
Dick Wagner, the Chair of the UDC says that he asked the mayor to attend to meeting because of concerns they were having about conflicts between UDC and Plan Commission and how their recommendations were being treated or understood, there are written comments from someone that were handed out. Wagner says that they have responsibility to make recommendations on design, they take that quite seriously, but they don’t feel like their recommendations get carried through. He thought airing some of those concerns would be beneficial to them. He asks for comments from the committee members.
Mayor Paul Soglin says, if people are reluctant to start, he will, he has given some thought to this since he discussed it with Wagner. The way he sees it, they have 4 or 5 sources who feel they know what they are talking about when it comes to elements of design. They include UDC, the plan commission, the alder, the neighborhood (assuming there is just one) and city staff with may have an multitude of ideas. He says everyone of them ought to have their say. The challenge is this, how does UDC recommendations, without offending the others since they are the ones charged with making the public policy recommendation, how does that get conveyed to the plan commission and the council. The mayor says he doesn’t know that this is the problem, is the problem that since UDC is not staff and UDC is not there to present their position, is the recommendation being faithfully presented to the plan commission by a staff member if they don’t agree with it.
Wagner says yes, that is the issue. He says he doesn’t want to talk about one issue, but 330 W. Wilson illuminates the issue. They felt they worked long and hard, they heard the staff views about brick or metal, they came down on the side of metal and when it was sent back to them, they decided they still wanted metal, it was unanimous and the way it got back to Wagner was that it couldn’t be done. He had prepared the memo himself and he and Lauren Cnare went to the plan commission and they said they didn’t know that the metal could meet the standards since their recommendation didn’t meet the standards and the staff recommendation did.
The mayor says he will go back to the history of the UDC and see if he is making too much of a leap about what the issues are. He says they had a problem with some of the recommendations of UDC 3 or 4 years ago, when they looked at the ordinances and the UDC and there was a question about if UDC was following the ordinance or inserting their own personal opinions. It raises a question about the plan commission members, are they ignoring the ordinances to honor the UDC recommendations or substituting their own recommendation. Do they have that problem and the first problem conspiring to minimize the UDC recommendations.
(I wasn’t in the room, just recorded it, but I think it was Melissa Huggins) asks if the mayor has examples of the problems 3 or 4 years ago. Mayor says no. Wegner thinks it was longer ago than that. Wegner says when he first got on the commission it was in very bad shape and he likes to think it is better now. (Yeah, its essentially chaired by Downtown Madison Inc. – sigh.) The mayor says that he can remember a conversation having to deal with developer and architect having one view and a specific UDC member having a different opinon about the color of the door knobs. Huggins(?) says there was a time when we were in the weeds, but I think we try to stay up here. Mayor says yes, there is no question about that. She says the problem is that being the UDC, their standards are a little mushier, they are not as clear cut. If there is a design district they can be, but its hard to keep it all straight in their heads.
Mayor asks who is on the plan commission. Ledell Zellers is in the audience and raises her hand. (The UDC plan commission member is Lauren Cnare but I don’t know if she was there, she wasn’t when I was in the room). He asks if there has been any joint discussions between the two groups. Wagner says that there was on that one project recently, but that was . . . trails off. The UDC says they are often the first meeting and people come with all kinds of issues and they try to say that some of the issues are plan commission issues and they try to respect their jurisdiction, he is not sure that the same mutuality is coming back the same way. He realizes that commission members bring something of their own opinion to the meeting, mayor asks if he means UDC, Wagner says all commissioners, the mayor started Wegner on the Plan Commission back in the 1970s and you built this whole structure of citizen participation. Mayor says look where that has gotten us today. Wagner says that if there is problems, they can work it out. He says that everyone brings their own ideas to the table but by statute UDC is charged with weighing those against their standards and admittedly they might be subjective, but if there is a place for subjectivity, the ordinance creates this place for it, as opposed to plan commission or other places. They have all these professional judgements that are brought to the table because they are assigned that way, and we have all this work done and they are cavalierly overthrown. Is the ordinance wrong that they should be making those judgements as a public body as opposed to staff which is totally different?
Mayor says this is easy for him to say because he doesn’t go to the meetings. He was only thinking about UDC and Plan Commission until Wagner dropped the Land Commission bomb, but what if they had all three commissions meet together, it wouldn’t be a free for all, it can’t be a he said she said conversation, if he purpose is to learn on specifics, its not to rehash, but use them as a signpost for the discussion. Simultaneous to that he sees bringing the staff members to discuss their roles and what those staff persons obligations should be in presenting the views of the commissions to the others. I’m not into creating a huggy feely . . . Wegner says not yellow stickers please . . . but an academic discussion. Mayor says that to make it more interesting he would not invite developers and neighborhood groups to participate. But he would invite them to come and watch and process and give feedback to mayor, directors and commissions about what they see. That is where he sees this going, sounds like a Saturday to him.
Wegner suggests that this is a great first step, they revised the tour this year which used to be annually. He says there is another thing in the back of his mind is that they are all looking at development but they get it project by project basis as do the other committees and there is no one that looks at how they fit in into the city’s development strategy. It is not on any of their tables when they are considering the projects. Sometimes it is the developer that gives us the best data on things like vacancies by central park or the isthmus. He says it seems like there should be some consistency among the commissions and staff about how that strategy is working. That could be useful information at that joint meeting as well.
Mayor asks if it would get down to this discussion, when he looks around at other cities and the buildings that are 80 or 90 years old, even in small towns, he is tremendously impressed by what they have that we do not have, stuff that has withstood the test of time, but maybe we should not be judged by what remains, but the question he has is 100 years from now, what will the thought be? Are we approving something that will be torn down in 60 – 80 years, and in some cases surgically, or are we building things that people will be reluctant to part with in 100 years. He would like that to be part of the discussion. Since some of us are old enough to see buildings being torn down that were built in their lifetime. (He looks around to see who is in the room, I’m sure he didn’t see my recorder) Mayor says the reason he raises this goes back to a Wisconsin State Journal line on Sunday, we should be hassling or nitpicking developers, but he has no problem delaying it a month or two if it will significantly improve the project. In the scheme of 100 years, that is something that is significant. He sees some of the stuff built over the last few years that is a million times better than some of the things that were built in the 20 – 30 years. He doesn’t know if they feel that way. One person says they are prouder of some than others. Wagner says some projects are approvaable and others are really good, there is a range.
Huggins (?) says some things have shifted at the staff level, they have a great staff that do great work, but as staff gives recommendations to developers about design, they should be thinking about what UDC wants to see, not what they want to see. That is truly personal opinion and the kinds of things that we have been asking to see have been stripped by staff.
Mayor says that the issues between UDC and staff is the same with initial staff developer contact and UDC. Wegner says that developers come with projects in mind and sometimes they are improved on by the staff and UDC, but this is the public table for that for neighbors and others to have access to that conversation.
Mayor says there is no question that staff and alders will let the mayor know what they think but how many developers are here (Wegner says there are quite a few back there) he is curious what they think of the conversation, so he would like to hear from them too. Wegner says most of them are not shy. They meet again on the 29th, the mayor says by mid-February he can get back to them.
Someone says that they have had joint meetings that have been successful. Mayor says they have those meetings at the staff level.
Here’s the audio
Comments
Oooooo, I have lots to say after the tiny house village project. Here’s my horror story to add to the mix. We had a sign on the fence that was required by plan commission and council, but UDC wants us to come back for approval because we put the words “Welcome to” before “OM Village” and UDC feels they need to approve that sign, which of course required another application and fee. We took a piece of wood and covered the words. Absurd.
I was also in meetings with staff where they were actively arguing in front of me about what the process was and I really, really, really struggled with the online forms and instructions because there was differing information and I was told things differently in writing than I was verbally. I actually had to call other developers to ask them what to do. Of course, it took a while for them to stop laughing at me before they answered! 🙂
Also, I was talking to an alder about what this meeting was about and they said “I never pictured myself saying this, but I feel sorry for the developers” and I often felt that way too when I was on the plan commission because the harder I tried to figure things out and nail them down and be consistent, the weirder it got.
There’s also the whole Steve Cover problem . . . which has resolved itself to major rejoicing from several sectors, but I think there was a real crisis in leadership what only met with developers and not alders and neighborhoods. Plus, there are just some kornball ideas out there.
Looking forward to these meetings, but am most intrigued by the staff aspects of this. Not sure much will come of the joint commission meeting.
