The discussion went on for about an hour . . . and people weren’t happy. Mostly, the alders spoke up on behalf of their neighborhoods. Also interesting discussion on how the neighborhood plans and comprehensive plans relate.
Nan Fey, the very able chair of the plan commission, says there has been some confusion about what the plan commission will actually be doing on this item, so she takes some time to explain what they will be doing. They are only discussing the process for the changes, the staff have proposed a schedule and list of changes, they are not intending to discuss the potential 64 items or amendments. The time for feedback on those individual items is not now, you can help us create a process, input on items are not useful tonight, they will note the registrations tonight and the materials that were sent via email on those items and share them with the commission members. Everyone will have the information when they do the substantive discussion. Tonight they are discussing the schedule and timeline. They will not be discussing if the items will remain on the list. She thinks staff presentation will be helpful to them all.
Michael Waidelich, planning staff, did the staff presentation on the comprehensive plan changes.
Fey apologizes, they have been told the audio system could be erratic tonight and may cut out.
Waidelich says Fey gave a good overview. He explains the materials in the packet. Two items will be discussed tonight, the others will be discussed at a future meeting. This is an update of the proposed outline that they discussed in the spring. They updated it with the criteria they would look at. He says it is the same process. The schedule is in the back, it is similar except the times, but it eliminates the internal staff activities. First step is the list of potential amendments. They will post it on the website. That will be the major outreach tool for the changes for general amendments, meaning those without neighborhood plan changes. It would be those that need more neighborhood meetings and such. Then the plan commission would finalize the list, they would draft the amendments that would be considered, community review process December – February, then formal review and adoption of amendments. Schedule is driven by state statute, it requires them to be adopted by ordinance, it requires 30 days advance notice before adoption by council, requires plan commission adopt a resolution to adopt the ordinance. That is what is built in there, if the schedule is followed, the amendments wouldn’t be back until February 21st. The council would hold a public hearing and then the council would consider them. It’s a fairly long process. The outline says why they are considering the amendments, primarily they are so that we keep our plans consistent with each other and with the developments they want considered. The comprehensive plan is more general than more detailed plans (neighborhood or special area plans) those more detailed recommendations are the predominant recommendations and should be consistent with the comprehensive plan. It the plans are inconsistent one or the other of the plans needs to be amended and when they see the inconsistencies, that is the time to bring them up. He says the other reason is starting in 2010 some development approvals have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan, and even tho there is a relatively flexible definition of consistency, we still think better that it be consistent with the map and detailed plans that support it. The second thing you got besides the overview and the schedule, is the potential amendments for the plan. Preliminary list of potential comprehensive plan amendments for possible consideration. There are three different hedges int eh title. It’s a preliminary list of potential changes for possible consideration. You can’t get any more preliminary than that. These are the ones staff came up with that are worth considering as items you would take up. There are several categories, the first is omissions and errors. There are some mistakes that slipped through, the city is 70 square miles and the map covers it all, there are a few areas that had no designation. The second group are amendments that are changes form neighborhood plans adopted sine the comprehensive plan was adopted. Assumption is that since they were adopted, they would want to make the changes to the comprehensive plan. He notes that in many cases not necessary, but the plan is different enough, but as long as making amendments and they requested ti lets make them more fully consistent. The next area is the special area plans, all have specific recommendations or implied it when they adopted it. The next section is fro neighborhood development plans, the periphery, essentially corn fields with no development. They update the comprehensive plan when they do the neighborhood development plans. He says it is important to look at all the plans since something might say low density in the comprehensive plan then it might be more varied in the detailed plans. Then the last group, are the changes that would be required it you were going to accommodate a proposed development that would not be consistent with the comprehensive plan. There are three of those and then one situation proposed by staff because they are questioning what is realistic, it is the Crossing, they don’t know what alternative they would propose. There is a series of maps that go with these, some of the maps propose more than one change. They are grouped for ease of editing. There are two sets of maps, there is a citywide map with all the amendments. They tried to make it not confusing. On map D there is a little area that is an error but to the east there are two changes for the Royster Clark so there is one map that shows all of the changes.
That is the overview, and next you tell us what you think is the process and also early on will be looking at the list of changes. In some cases all you need it the map and the small explanation, in other cases, like the ones in the back, there is no map and there are several alternative ways you might amend the map to accommodate the development and in some cases the development is still in flux and we don’t know exactly what is being proposed. These are some alternative and at the next level we will talk about what type of amendment to bring forward or not to bring it forward at all. For any amendment you can decide not to support it. Being on the list, there is a presumption you want to support the neighborhood plans, being on the list does not mean you will support them. He an take questions on that part of it.
Alder Judy Compton, not on the plan commission, asks at what point, this was relatively shocking and there are many things in her district, at what point were the alders going to be advised, she would hope the alders would be brought in to give opinions about how we feel, at what point were we going to be brought in.
Waidelich says at this point. There is a preliminary list of things to react to. If anyone thinks something should be on or off or off the list, the next few weeks is when to object or make changes to the list. Most of the changes are from adopted plans that the council has acted on, so the presumption is that you supported those changes.
Compton asks if you realize that the alders are volunteers, most of us have day jobs and its very difficult to read every single piece of paper, and so this kind of sneaks in there and some of us miss it. She’s going to turn it over to Satya cuz I think she has some good things to say.
Satya Rhodes-Conway, also an alder not on the plan commission, apologizes, says she has comments not questions, if that is alright, but would defer to other questions.
Judy Olson asks Waidelich to reiterate the changes. The changes have to be made by ordinance, how will the ordinances get developed and get to council.
Waidelich looks at the schedule and says that this is the current plan but it might change, but an ordinance would be drafted by staff that would adopt the attached amendment to the comprehensive plan, like when the comprehensive plan, it would have whereas’s and then have this attached and that would be for referral introduced on January 4th, referred to teh appropriate referring bodies, a public hearing would be scheduled 30 days after that and then 30 days before a notice has to be sent out, so the way they drafted it plan would be the lead referral and it would come back to the on February 21st, about 7 weeks later or so and they would make recommendations regarding the amendments, the common council would have a public hearing at the common council on March first, there would also be a public hearing at the plan commission, but that is just your normal process. The common council public hearing is required by council and the notice for that would have to go out by January 28th, or 30 days ahead at a minimum. They would hold a hearing, adopt the ordinance at the following meeting and make any changes they want to make.
Kitty Noonan, Assistant City Attorney asked to speak as well. She says there was a peculiarity in the statutes that the comprehensive plan was adopted by ordinance instead of resolution, don’t let that confuse you. Really the adoption of the amendments is very similar as any other neighborhood plan, its just there are statutory requirements for public participation.
Brad Murphy, Planning Director says that in addition to the amendments, there are going to be some amendments that will need to be considered along with a neighborhood plan amendment and those would need to be considered simultaneously. There are several amendments that this is the case.
Waidelich says that is all on the schedule.
Rhodes-Conway thanks the commission for letting her speak early as she has another meeting. She says, for the record, she thinks it is entirely appropriate to amend the plan, we want to fix errors and make it consistent with neighborhood plans, that is appropriate. She has been asked and will do her best to speak only to process, when the time comes to talk about the maps she has plenty to say about that. For the record, the council has not been sent the information, we were not notified before the document became public. As you can imagine, that has caused quite a few problems. She wants to be clear these items did not come from the alders in whose district they are, they came from staff, and except the alders who looked at them today, they do not know. So, she thinks that is major error, to not at least send it concurrently when they sent it to you. So, her first recommendation is to send this to the entire council and explain to them what was just explained to the plan commission so we know when to weigh in and so we know who to talk to on staff if we think some of these map amendments should not be included or if there are others that should be and she thinks there will be cases of both. Secondly, she thinks that if staff came forward with omissions and errors and changes to adopted plans, she still would have an issue that you will hear about in the future, but I don’t think you would see the uproar on email that you saw today nor would you have the number of alders upset on this issue. She believes it is completely inappropriate to amend the comprehensive plan for proposals that do not exist yet, or consider it to reflect proposals currently under discussion or any person who walks in the door and says this is what I want to do on the property. I think we should amend the comprehensive plan to reflect our adopted plans, she could site several examples, but she won’t, some of these are contrary to the adopted plans. She doesn’t know what staff was thinking. She would ask that staff and the commission impress upon staff that they get alder input early and often. She would also ask the staff and commission recognize the importance of engaging with the neighborhoods, some might not require it, but for some it should be done as soon as possible. She is trying to get staff to a meeting this week yet because it frankly and understandably is upsetting to neighborhoods to see this come along with no fanfare and no explanation and no clarity about what is being considered and why. Outreach to the neighborhoods early and often is in order, and an apology, so they understand we are not trying to do this in the dark of night, that we are not trying to slip something behind the curtain. We are doing what should be routine, but there are several controversial items in there. I hope we can pull them out and talk about them in the light of day with full input from alders and neighborhoods so everyone understands what is going on and no one things we are trying to slip something by when people aren’t looking. Unfortunately that is how it looks right now. I know that was not the intention of staff, that was not the intention of this body, but because of what has happened to date you need to be extra clear and extra transparent in what is happening.
Mark Olinger thought it would be a great idea for Waidelich to talk about how often we are going to be doing this. If things come off the list when might they go back on, is this an annual thing?
Waidelich says that is another thing that the plan commission should discuss. It was originally in the comprehensive plan that there would be an annual evaluation, and then an amendment process, as noted, that turned out not to be realistic in terms of staff resources and it probably turned out not to be necessary in terms of keeping the plan current because of the way the neighborhood plans are structured. We an discuss how often but once we get the process down, we can decide how we want to do this. We could look at it annually to accommodate new plans, we have discussed that we don’t want to be in the position of every time there is a proposal that doesn’t fit with the comprehensive plan consider changing it right then. We would do it periodically, but that would require telling people they have to wait and see how the commission and council feel about amending the plan. That choice requires telling the developer that they just can’t do it and that has been hard for the political bodies to do. The other choice is plan amendment and then they ask how to amend the plan, we have told people we were going to do this in 2010 and that is why you see some proposals, there are others not on there because the project itself fell apart. There was no other reason to amend the plan. Ideally the plan would anticipate every project and make a recommendation that would deal with it. But the reality is that there are projects out there that don’t fit and how are you going to deal with it. There is a lot of flexibility in the neighborhood plans, and the comprehensive plan, but that flexibility is written in, that they would consider changes “if” but sometimes the project it totally out of the blue. We have amended neighborhood plan a few times a year to respond to a project, but there is notice, neighborhood meetings, and process and sometimes the idea is so good, you make the change and it is good even if the project falls through. But you need to give us guidance. It probably should be less than four years, but maybe not annually. In terms of what happens if something comes off this list, well then it comes off and stays off and we won’t draft it for council and plan commission. That is what this list is for, to decide what to look at.
Julia Kerr says that if we are adopting neighborhood plans, we should concurrently change the comprehensive plan. It’s a basic housekeeping thing, but it avoids confusion for neighbors. We went through a planning process and if I go back and tell them we are amending the comprehensive plan, they are going to ask what are you doing differently, what went wrong here? It just makes no sense, if you’re going to do it, just do it. As to her friends and colleagues who are dealing with controversial things, she feels badly. She wants to suggest that staff was kicking off the effort with the plan commission. You should have one on one outreach with the alders, not just emails, I’m sure you can appreciate we get about 150 emails per day, there should be affirmative outreach, what is ok and not ok and how is this going to be a problem. Third the schedule here is find for the uncontroversial things, its November and December is cut out for doing these kinds of things, for the alders with controversial things, this schedule is not realistic, getting it resolved in this time frame is not realistic. She says staff should bifurcate the list and those could go through this process. You are asking the alders to do the heavy lifting because they are the ones that will have to have the neighborhood meetings and stand up in front of folks and explain this. The other one we should figure out a longer schedule for better public input that lets them do their job in a reasonable way without killing everyone.
Judy Bowser suggested that we amend the plan as we adopt neighborhood plans. How would that affect the development review process, could it happen concurrently? Easily?
Murphy says he heard it for the neighborhood plans but missed the part where it is done with development proposals.
Kerr says she was looking at neighborhood plans not developments. But its ok with her.
Murphy says it is possible, and some of those on the list of amendments are just that, its a matter of whether you want to do it that way, but there are some development plans that will come forward that are not consistent and should not be approved. Or the comprehensive plan needs to be amended. One or the other.
Bowser says its a chicken or egg.
Noonan says that process is more drawn out than the process to adopt a neighborhood plan so it would be difficult for the two to do together, the statute requires more process, its more lengthy. There are many more statutorily related steps that make it hard to do on a regular basis.
Kerr says, respectfully, that she does not accept that. I’m sure that attorney Noonan is correct that there are more statutory things, but we have to make sure that government makes sense to people. Ordinary people go to the neighborhood meetings, charettes, maps and color and then come back in three years and reopen it, and it doesn’t make sense. We need to set the neighborhood plans up as if amendments to the comprehensive plans, that might limit how many we can do, but how do I go back to my neighbors after they spent months working on these and say we’re going to do it again. That doesn’t make sense to people and its not efficient with our resources. Cuz any issue that was controversial in the neighborhood plan or someone doesn’t like it, then they get another kick at the cat and that creates more and more instability and less predictability and that is exactly what we don;t want in my mind, If this is the statutory situation we are in, then we should adjust how we do neighborhood plans.
Murphy says it is certainly possible to do, its just additional steps in the adoption process and notification but it can be done.
Kerr asks if you understand what I am saying form my perspective and the perspective of my colleagues?
Murphy says yes.
Kerr says Alder Compton did a whole Stoughton Road that was a huge effort by her neighbors and now she has to go back and say oh we forgot soemthign and we have to do something else.
Murphy says it can be done, more time and steps and process to get the plan adopted cuz it would require concurrent comprehensive plan amendment.
Kerr says maybe they can look at magnitude, if its a tiny area then don’t do it and save it but if doing Stoughton Road, Vilas, Greenbush and bigger areas, then you do it on that basis.
Noonan says it is possible to adopt neighborhood plans that way, but one thing to keep in mind is that the comprehensive plan sine January requires subdivision regulations, mapping amendments and text amendments be consistent with the plans. Our neighborhood plans have been done over the years with more neighborhood involvement and some are more detailed, and if you look at them right now, there are some in conflict with the comprehensive plans. As long as the neighborhood plans are just guidelines and not subject to the consistency requirements you can do that, but if you want to pull the neighborhood plans into the comprehensive plan, and be adopted as part of the comprehensive plans then you have to be more careful so you don’t adopt plans so detailed that they conflict with the comprehensive plan. These are questions that go to how you want your plans to operation, you do plans over the years, the people doing the plans change, and some are more detailed, there are pros and cons to how you consider the plans and you should consider both options.
Fey suggests that before we make a decision, we should get some feedback from your office on the pros and cons and what would be necessary to meet the statute. This is not a subject for tonight.
Olson asks what are the consequences of not following the comprehensive plan.
Murphy says easier to challenge the council decisions and have them potentially overturned. If they are making decisions inconsistent with the plans.
Waidelich says that they way it is structured now and described in the comprehensive plan, it says very specifically says at a number of points that changes in land use and density should be consistent with more detailed and special area plans and that is how you get at the nuances in the neighborhood plans not in the comprehensive plans, so you want to keep that. On the other hand, because it is not in the comprehensive plan its arguably a little more guideliney and not as absolute, at your peril, politically to not pay as much attention to the neighborhood plans. That difference is important. Think about density, a lot of difference between 4 and 15 units per acre and neighborhood plans may split it out. So you do have vlaue in the neighborhood plans, if what Alder Kerr was saying that you would only make general amendments at the same time, then that sort of leaves that difference available to you. You might be amending it alot, and its a 600 page document we need to send copies to everyone, and that all has to be updated and we’d just as soon not give the impression it is easy to amend. But if you want we can consider it. If you look at the changes for neighborhood plans, they are pretty modest. And personally there should not be a big deal if it was already adopted, it is not intended to reopen it. We had almost no comment on the maps that are in there and that is part of the reason we are first noticing things despite over a year of review. All of the comments were on the narrative, nothing on the maps which is surprising because that is usually what we get comments on.
Compton asks if this needs state approval?
Waidelich says that they get notification, they had to review our comprehensive plan, but they just get the amendments.
So it doesn’t need approval?
Yes.
Compton says that many neighborhoods were already in place and had plans when the comprehensive plan was adopted, there were also many blank fields, where speculation was in place as to what would go on. There is nothing you can do but speculate. On a change to a neighborhood plan, there should be a formal application because it might fall through and if it falls through we are back to speculation. So she thinks that one item must be addressed – speculation vs actual approval.
Kerr asks Murphy if they can do an outreach effort to the alders, does it make sense to bifurcate the process. The alders are talking amongst themselves.
Murphy says we an consider that, its up to the plan commission if they want to do that. Ultimately the plan commission will need to tell us which amendment belong in each category and which ones formally considered and which ones should not. In order to provide additional time to reach out to alders, the first thing they should do it move the date to consider the list back considerably, from November 22nd to something much later so if you want us to meet with each alder infdividually, scheduling those meetings would take a month or more.
Kerr says it is a heavy workload.
Murphy says they can do it.
Kerr asks if he needs a motion.
Murphy says its up to plan commission, if you want us to meet with them individually or we could send an email and ask if they think it is necessary to meet, after they get the info they can decide if they want to meet.
Kerr says that he doesn’t need to meet with them, she doesn’t want to. I’m fine.
Murphy says that we meet often enough.
Kerr says get the on the phone, make the offer of a meeting, and then once a sense from them, come back to the plan commission, there may be controversial items, and use that to come back with a two stage list by January 15th? December 30th?
Murphy says that he just needs them to recognize the date of November 22nd won’t happen and with thinking about a two stage process – they will come back as soon as they can, it would likely be a month and a half, they think they can be done by the end of December.
Kerr asks if it makes sense to people.
Fey says she prefers not to have motions, but to have people weigh in.
Compton says that comprehensive plan affects more than just one district, changes on borders could impact more than one district, if its on the border all the alders should be considered.
Fey asks for other input.
Olson says that the idea of dividing the list is a good idea, contacting alders is a good idea, some will want to meet and some won’t, not sure how long it will take, suspects it will take until January.
Bowser agrees, makes sense to have staff set the schedule, not the plan commission.
Mike Heifitz, echos that bifurcation and meetings with staff make sense. We might be being too harsh on staff. Alders don’t like to be surprised and neither do I, but there is a way out of this, to make sure neighborhoods are involved, rather than what some are thinking here tonight. He says this does look like an aggressive schedule, is there something I am missing, is there a deadline conceptually or at the state level? To that we have a healthy list of items that could be classified, we can go through this with the alders, but we might miss some. Does that get into the how often we do it, do we take them one at a time if a development needs this.
Muprhy says some do it annually, some do it a certain time of year. February – July. Others amend the plan when they do a significant plan, like a neighborhood plan. There is no one way, we can develop our own timeline and number of times we want to consider it. We could amend the plan for a single development, but we get into the situation where is the development proposal really going to go forward or is it speculation, that was a good comment on Alder Compton’s part to amend plan for perspective development proposals. There are lots of options, its just a question of managing the work and determining the number of times and frequency you want to do it.
Heifitz says that we are doing this because of a change in state law, correct? We would have to still address some of these issues conceptually, but the state law is forcing us to address them more comprehensively?
Murphy says that you don’t have to amend the comprehensive plan, you probably should to deal with many of the items that we provided tonight, the errors and omissions and technical corrections and bring neighborhood plans and comprehensive plan to the point they are consistent, but there is not a requirement that you do it. There is a requirement that future developments (lists them) that those decisions be consistent with the comprehensive plan. Consistency was defined last year by the legislature for the first time and it is rather broad, “those that are not in contradictions with the goals objectives and policies of the plan.” So you need to determine on a case by case basis. There are things to talk about, give it some thought about frequency and how you approach them in relationship to the neighborhood and sub area plans, not everything has to be in the comprehensive plan, but those are things that we will need to consider together, but for this evening, we have a pretty good indication of what you are looking for. In terms of next steps we will contact the alders, meet with them if they would like to meet, consider a two track schedule, and bring back revised schedule and process after they completed that work.
Fey says there are four individuals registered to speak on substantive issues, 3 on Grandview and 1 on Cherokee, knowing what you know now, do you still feel a need to speak.
Brian Munson from Vandewalle left.
John Driscoll doesn’t speak.
Alan Sweet does, from Grandview area, involved for a long time, familiar with development process, these emails and what happened in last 72 hours made my head spin. Here to ask for transparency from a resident neighborhood perspective. Keep it simple and understandable, likes the changes to the process. In terms of process, the charrette for big grocery store on Cottage Grove road it is a disappointment. The concept is appealing but this event as described by Alder Cnare was a farce, the issues we cared most about we not allowed to be on the table. Those of us who thought it might be cool are pulling out. I hope that she and Brian Munson are able to make the process a little more open, transparent and so on. He’s been college, was a state employee, and on a committee, I get government. What has happened in the last few days has been incredible and I hope there is a significant change in how things are done.
Jon Becker was involved with Cherokee Marsh. It is extremely hard to hear Mr. Murphy when you are sitting off to the side, just so you know, cuz of the fan noise. Second, the notice of this coming so late meant he had to skip another meeting for the county. There may be others in the same boat. The alders covered a lot of territory. He talks about Cherokee. This area is not represented by an alder. Some of you might have that impression, but he is not going to be running for alder next year. You are talking about it as district 18, but it has been in 12, that is where they put lands from the Town of Burke. He keeps talking about Cherokee. He says they are not getting notified because there is no alder, we need to find out things on the side, he never hears from the alder from the 18th. [Schumacher] Talks about Cherokee and the compromise, the amendment quadruples the density. Asking formally to add another amendment to the list from CRANES, take it back to 0 density and add it to the park.
24 other people appeared on the Grandview issue.
