I’m a little hesitant to say what I think should happen to all this property in the district I represent on the City Council, as the council has a very poor record (for the past 11 years) of listening to the alder or residents of the 2nd district regarding matters in our own backyards . . . but I suppose I can’t stay silent much longer. So here are my preliminary thoughts as I am still asking for input from neighbors and want to hear from them at several upcoming neighborhood meetings . . . .
- Sell the land. (Yup, I agree with the WSJ editorial board.)
- Use part of the money to provide services in and fix up the park.
- Put land use restrictions on the building to protect the historic building & requiring anything rebuilt has to have the same footprint and be generally the same (or less) mass
- Put in an option for the city to purchase back the land at assessed value if the building is destroyed – tho I doubt we will ever purchase back the land because we won’t have the money at the time.
- Have the same level of affordability in the building as was initially required.
A few myths to address:
- This doesn’t include lakefront property, it is only the land under the building which is on Gorham St.
- There will be no inclusionary zoning units and even tho the Parks minutes say this, its not true, I never said this or anything like it:
The Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance would not be triggered by the conversion of apartments to condos. However, the Alder is adamant that she would only support this sale if it has IZ units in it and that number would need to be determined.
- The Parks Commission minutes also have the following statement that isn’t true, in fact, I believe there are two errors in their statement that said they “. . . don’t support selling land in order to support the city’s Affordable Land Trust.” Well, a) we don’t have an Affordable Land Trust and b) I believe they are talking about the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and that fund only gets money if the City of Madison sells over $1M in properties this year.
- The MINIMUM amount of money the city will get is $600,000, but it will be based on an appraisal (or three) and will be the fair market value of the land. (Several downtown developers and a realtor have been outraged by the $600,000 price and say it is worth twice that amount.)
COLLINS HOUSE
- Sell the house, not the land.
- Keep it some sort of public use. By public use I mean a business that is open to the public (coffee shop, bar, restaurant, bed & breakfast, bakery, etc.) not a private residence. After all, we placed that restrictions on the Pratzel’s when they wanted to purchase the home after running a business there since the 1970’s.
- If the house is destroyed, allow the city to buy the rights to return the property to unencumbered parkland.
- If the city doesn’t buy the rights, rebuilding must be done in the same style as the historic Claude and Starck building that is there now.
- Anything rebuilt has to be on the same footprint and not have a massing that is any larger than the current building.
ZIEGELMAN HOUSE & WORDEN HOUSE
- Sell them to the highest bidder. (i.e. no preference for the current tenants.)
- Keep them on site. (i.e. don’t move them.)
- Require new owners to either have some type of public use (see above for definition of public use) or require the right to public viewing of the historic houses.
- If the houses are destroyed, allow the city to buy the rights to return the property to unencumbered parkland.
- If the city doesn’t buy the rights, rebuilding must be done in the same style as the historic Claude and Starck buildings that are there now.
- Anything rebuilt has to be on the same footprint and not have a massing that is any larger than the current buildings.
