Catching back up with what is going on with the Economic Development Commission report on the Development Process revisions and the landmarks ordinance and procedures. This is typed as it happened, little (if any) editing.
DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCESS REVISION REPORT
You should probably read the report if you haven’t seen it.
Staff presentation
Steven Cover, the new Director of Planning and Community and Economic Development and Aaron Oliver, the new Director of Economic Development came to the table. Cover gave a brief overview, very brief. Highlighted that he thinks neighborhood plans should be updated more frequently and the development review permit center that will have budget implications.
Stuart Levitan asks about page 31, Goal G, 7e. He says he doesn’t understand it, a lot of weasel words in it.
Cover reads it.
Levitan asks who the recommendation is directed to.
Oliver says they are at a disadvantage cuz they didn’t draft it. Susan Schmitz from DMI tells Aaron Oliver to ask others. Brad Murphy, Matt Mikolajewski and Mark Clear all go to the table.
Murphy says that there is a similar recommendation for the Urban Design Commission, he thinks it was more targeted to them. these recommendations are to encourage commission to take action instead of referring and move the project forward so Plan Commission and Common Council can make a decision.
Levitan asks about another recommendation on 33, G 10. He says they are advisory on a demolition permit, but they grant or deny certificate of appropriateness, is there a difference. Murphy says that is the way he reads it. Levitan says for advisory capacity, they should make a decision in one meeting.
Murphy says 10 on page 33 is very different, that requires that they act in one meeting and that is different. Erika Gehrig points out they are different as well. Murphy says 10 is a more affirmative statement, that the drafter wants them to act in a single meeting, don’t refer anything. Levitan says 10 says “recommend” and that is different than “grant”. Murphy says he wants to be clear that is not what he is recommending, but it is the collective recommendation. Murphy says this is the result of work of many groups. Levitan asks if it is only recommendations or sloppy in the language. Clear says language on 31 is where Landmarks is final and 33 is for recommendations, but the general recommendation is to take action in the same meeting. Murphy says practical implication is to deny if you don’t have the information you have and Levitan says that most applicants would want a referral. Murphy says 99% of the time this happens with items that have to be approved in 90 days, they prefer referral rather than rejection. Oliver says that there are other recommendations that work with these recommendations, and those recognize that it is hard to get adequate recommendations. Cover says we should not be taking in incomplete applications. (can i get an “amen”)
Levitan asks about item on page 29 (f. 1.) and 31 (7. c.) that refer to order in which Landmarks and UDC need to approve who goes first. Mikolajewski says Landmarks goes first. Levitan says if f.1. you don’t need 7.c.. Mikolajewski says that some need to go before both. Christine Slattery asks who decides. Mikolajweski says that is a good question. Murphy says that some of the recommendations need more work. We would need to answer some of those questions before ordinances are written. Murphy says intent is to eliminate overlapping jurisdictions where possible, but the language would have to be drafted and the examples have not been fully considered by city attorney’s office and the commissions they affect. That is still work they need to be done.
Levitan says that their ordinance revision is on hold pending Edgewater litigation, is that the same for these other items as well. Murphy isn’t aware of what city attorney’s office is and is not willing to draft as it concerns the Edgewater, that may be true.
Levitan asks about the supermajority appeal to the council, but there are some items where the council does not have authority, is the supermajority required to reverse conditional uses and demolition by ordinance. Murphy says demolition is by ordinance, has to check on conditional uses.
Levitan says that it would be nice for the draft to acknowledge the things that are already done. They have empowered staff to make decisions, p 25, d2. Clear says there are a number of examples. Mikolajewski says it is acknowledged on page 31.
Levitan asks about page 28, reviews and tours, what is that recommendation. Mikolajewski says on a regular basis UDC, Plan and Landmarks would review projects and talk about what went well. Levitan says we might find out that “we didn’t approve that floor”. Rosenblum indicates they have done that. Murphy says it has been sporadic. UDC and Plan did it once and it was fascinating.
Clear says they are interested in their input. They talked about it in committee and they are interested in comments before Wednesday. Mikolajewski says UDC and Economic Development take it up on Wednesday, Plan Commission Monday, April 13th is when they will take it up again. Board of Estimates wanted more comments. Murphy says that their recommendations go to EDC and Common Council and other committees can pick up on their recommendations. Levitan says that is just the report and then they create ordinances. Murphy says the implementation schedule that all items are near term 2011/2012 and they will have to create a work plan, we can’t do them all at once. Some will have to come first and its a body of work to move it forward.
Levitan asks Clear about the inconsistency on page 29 (Clear says and elsewhere) where it says Landmarks alone should decide on demolitions and below that they take away supermajority. Give us authority and then make it easier to overturn us.
Clear says more authority is about streamlining and making the process efficient. The supermajority is a separate issue about appeal. He says the subcommittee struggled with the supermajority. It’s a hot button issue and not easily resolved fairly when look at the various projects.
Robin Taylor asks a questions about the mission statement. Clear says its not to change it but repeat it.
Levitan asks if there is data on how many projects went to landmarks and UCD and the time implications of that. Murphy says that he’s not sure. He says he doesn’t have it with him, but they could dig it out. Cover and Oliver ask what the concern is. Levitan says if they are eliminating going to UDC or Landmarks is should be based on data. He’d like to know, they think they got the info and it was very small. Clear says they had a lot of discussion about all projects being unique.
Levitan says no one is in favor of overlapping jurisdiction. He says Landmarks is massing and scale and UDC looks at particulars and that is different. The jurisdiction and authority are different. We don’t want to make architectural calls that UDC decides. That is the distinction that needs to be acknowledged. But agrees if going to Landmarks and UDC it should come here first.
Rosenblum says the draft is comprehensive and it doesn’t impact how they function now.
Public Input
Pete Ostlind from Capitol Neighborhoods Development Committee. 10% of the projects reviewed are in their area. They were at all the meetings where this was discussed. He has extensive comments for the group but the highlights are: The intent was to make the process easier to attract investment. He says G10 is to get rid of referrals. That was the intent he heard. Up or down. Connected to that is nothing come before you before all the information is there, but that is currently not the case, that is not enforced absolutely. He says the overlap examples are to eliminate going to additional committees regardless of what your standards of review are. To do only one of them, is to shortchange what Madison is. If we do this, you will wondering if you should pass it because it is “good enough”, will that be the new standard because you don’t want to refer. Ostlind says lots of good ideas esp to improve information flow and many have budget numbers attached to them. F1 is most important, thinks they should comment on F2. He thinks if 11 votes are needed, 14 votes isn’t a huge burden.
Levitan asks about facade improvement grants, why does the fact that city money is involved a threshold. Ostlind says if city spending money to enhance the urban development, to remove Urban design from ti is inappropriate. If commission feels staff can take care of it that is fine, but the committee brings expertise to the table. Levitan says why the staff that makes recommendations can’t have authority to approve cuz of city funds. Oslind says that they are responding to the recommendations as they came out. There are many of things that property owners can do without city involvement, but if the city spends money, it should add to the urban environment.
Ostlind says that H, it would help everyone if there was a layman’s version of the standards, especially for landmarks, so you don’t have to jump back and forth. Similar to guide staff has already put together. He also comments on G5, but I missed it. He says that they should think about not supporting some items or suggest re-wording. Gehrig asks which ones. Ostlind says F1 and F2. In other G 7e and G10 are the same type of items and they might comment on them. H should also be looked at. He also notes they should be expecting improvement to have complete materials. He also says the annual review is useful, especially to look at what is built. They did this, some were images they were shown and what actually got built and in many circumstances it was not as positive as it could have been.
Discussion
Levitan moves recommend to approve with the following amendments:
AMENDMENT ONE: page 29, amend F. Goal to read “reduce overlapping authority and conflicts.”, change jurisdiction to authority and delete two sentences in paragraph one and all of paragraph 2. They recommend not going to plan commission for demolitions, eliminate examples and make clear there are complimentary not conflicting roles at UDC and Landmarks. They do some more wordsmithing that I missed. They spend some time re-reading it and figuring out the motion. I missed some of the details (in my rush to get this done).
No further discussion. Passes the commission unanimously, but Bridget Maniaci is not here.
AMENDMENT TWO: page 33, amend bold face to read – for those acting in advisory capacity they (UDC and Landmarks) would make recommendation in one meeting unless developer requested otherwise. It would essentially deal with development next to landmarked properties and other items referred to them outside demolitions (if its not longer advisory) and certificates of approval.
Levitan says they should make it clear they only looked at items related to the Landmarks Commission. They recommend approval of the aspects related to Landmarks Commission as amended and it passes.
ORDINANCE REVISIONS
Update, since litigation is pending, how do they move forward. Do they talk about items not impacted by the lawsuit. They refer until they can talk about it more fully.
They decided to name the Landmarks Commission “Bob”. j/k
ORDINANCE PROCEDURES
They made some changes to the document, they and the public members interested agree with commissioners that the document accurately reflects what they wanted. They discuss which kinds of projects would come before them. Levitan is concerned about neighbors being notified when something impacts them, they are talking about garden sheds in particular. I stopped listening to find out what their solution was, but they made the language stronger for staff, I think.
Thanks. We hardly need minutes now!