Mike Ivey and Paul Soglin would have you believe that we have to grow up or grow out and the downtown neighborhoods are standing in the way of progress. These current comments are about the East Washington BUILD plan. However, it’s much more complicated than talking simply about heights. I think that is a false way of characterizing the issues that remain. And, finally just because there are 20 meetings, doesn’t mean they were good meetings or that they offered an opportunity to discuss the outstanding issues.
On Saturday, Alder Rummel and I, the Marquette Neighborhood Association and the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association and Downtown Madison, Inc. held a meeting about three outstanding issues on the East Washington BUILD. The three issues were:
1. What is the transportation/parking plan for this area?
2. What do we do about the heights on Main St.
3. What do we do about the mis-match of heights between Baldwin (3 stories) and Ingersoll (10 stories)?
We spent the most time on the first issue. This is the issue that everyone wants to characterize as the neighborhood being opposed to heights. To me, that is a ridiculous notion. At the moment, most of the avenue has buildings that are 1 – 2 stories tall. The neighborhoods support heights that are 3 to 12 times those heights.
There is actually quite a bit of agreement, on the North Side – Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association (TLNA)
- 600 block – Agree on 8 stories
- 900 block – Breese Stevens Field
- 1100 & 1200 – Agree on 3 stories
- 1300 & 1400 – Agreement on 8 stories
Here’s the discrepancies between the neighborhood recommendations and the BUILD recommendations on heights:
North Side – Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association (TLNA) and Plan
- 700, 800 and 1000 block – TLNA 8 stories, BUILD 12 stories
- 1600 – 1800 blocks – TLNA plans for a transit complex, no height recommendations, BUILD is 8 stories
South Side – Marquette Neighborhood Association (MNA) and East Rail Corridor Plan (ERC)
- 600, 700, 800 & 900 blocks – ERC is 8 stories, BUILD is 15 stories
- 1000 block – ERC is 8 stories, BUILD is 12 stories
- 1100 & 1200 block – ERC is 5 stories, BUILD is 10 stories
- 1300 & 1400 – ERC is 5 stories, BUILD is 12 stories
On Saturday, about 20 neighbors and property owners discussed approving the lower level of heights until a transportation/parking plan is established for the area, then revisiting the heights to make sure that the transportation/parking plans mesh with the land use plans. The major concern at the moment is that there is a whole lot of discussion about transportation options that affect this area, and yet none of the alternatives are included in the plan. No planning for transit (bus) stops, no planning for train or trolley stations and we may have parking designations that don’t work with the rest of the land use and transportation plans. I think people feel more comfortable with the taller heights if there is a clear way to get people in and out of the rather narrow Isthmus, but until the transportation and parking plans are at least considered in conjunction with the land uses, there is a great deal of unease.
Clearly, we don’t want to wait for the great trolley vs commuter rail debate to be settled, but we do want to include various ideas in the plan. We need some sort of plan that brings all the transportation plans together with our land use plans. In fact, the Mayor did agree to put $200,000 towards a consolidated transportation planning effort for the Isthmus, unfortunately, no one knows what he was thinking when he made that offer. The idea discussed at the meeting on Saturday morning was to create a transit overlay district that would take the current thinking in transit and parking plans and incorporate them with the land use plans.
The alternative, seems to be everything developers do not want. The alternative is to do a traffic impact study project by project (i.e. more costs to the developer) and have the Plan Commission and Urban Design Commission impose various parking and transportation alternatives to the projects on a case by case basis (i.e. no predictability). Clearly, the better alternative for all involved is to settle this now, instead of on a case by case basis, project by project. Because then, we may get no projects at all.
