First off, Tenney-Lapham is doing an awesome job of collecting information about the process on their website here, with supporting documents and agendas. I was also able to record this meeting. My notes below are from my real-time typing during the meeting, and I often paraphrased or just waited for the discussion to get more interesting. The meeting audio runs for one hour and 53 minutes if you’d like to get the exact flavor of the meeting.
David Wallner is chairing the meeting. Attendees included Alders Mark Clear, Joe Clausius, Bridget Maniaci, Mayoral staffer Ray Harmon, and committee members Bob Shaw and Wallner. In the audience, Joe Brogan, Richard Linster, Ledell Zellers, Gary Tipler, and someone I didn’t know behind me. City staff was Dan Rolfs and Heather Stouder from the planning department to talk about zoning issues.
First up, and only speaker, Joe Brogan. He has a prepared version of his testimony, which was slightly revised from his Winter 2011 TLNA Newsletter article. He’s also distilled it down to a shorter version.
Joe: His position is not the popular position, but he believes it to be the right position. First, he’s asking to specifically send the RFPs to building movers to get a realistic estimate of the costs, so we will know what is feasible. The underlying premise is that city planning is going to increase downtown as it develops and as we grow more dense, there is a recognition in our planning, since the days of John Nolen, that we need to develop park space to keep up. The problem with the current proposal on the table is that there is a minimum of 132 years (two turns) that there will not be any opportunity to expand park space. Even at that point, there’s no reason to believe the buildings will be ready to be demolished. Park advocates shouldn’t be content with plans that puts park expansion 100 or 200 years into the future.
The second problem is that we don’t know the political leadership and ideas of future generations, and their commitment to park space. Someone 50 or 100 years down the road could sell that land and it’d be lost forever as park space.
Third, he keeps hearing the idea that it is not valuable park space. No, it really is valuable park space. He references a map in the packets [There is no handouts to the public, so it’s hard to be sure exactly what he’s talking about.] The city acquired all of the land from a line to the Lincoln School. That entire additional expanse would expand the park by 80%. This part [the houses?] would expand the park by 15%, and is also lakefront access.
Finally, we’ve been besieged by misinformation about the costs of moving these houses. Could be much less expensive than has been tossed around They could have a better life on the 800 block of East Mifflin [The Don Miller Lot]. The houses aren’t vital to the neighborhood and don’t look that good where they are.
Joe is supporting moving the houses. Closing thought: Individually, have been very generous to our children, to our grandparents. Collectively, we have been dreadfully complacent – national debt is a good example. This generation is going to have to fight for the things that we have taken for granted. Most recently, we collectively gave up the rail line, knowing that future generations will need that rail line. Collectively, for 7 million dollars a year, we were too complacent, we gave that up. That’s why this committee can’t be complacent here, and we should not repeat that with these houses.
Bob Shaw: What do you think about moving the houses near the Collins House?
Joe: Yes, but an even better home is the 800 Block of E Mifflin, we can establish New Urbanism by combining old and new – the public market could go there, these houses would be a good compliment to what else goes on that block.
Maniaci: You’re talking about the Don Miller lot? Even if things on that block can get up to 10 of 12 stories?
Joe: Yes. Didn’t know it went up that high, but even so, it could establish a new urbanism and little historic district. Plenty of examples of moved buildings that are successful – Gate of Heaven, Michael Matty’s House on 500 Block of E Mifflin.
On to the agenda item. Maniaci asks Rolfs to go over the material he put together [which is not is available to the public, boo! I didn’t get a chance to check the TLNA site, but it was not on the city’s website before the meeting]
Wallner: We know the issue [moving the houses]. Do we keep them on the table or take it off.
Bob Shaw: Make this succinct. Both NA want to keep the buildings where they are, structures are historic structures. Precedence that historic structures exist in the park. In his mind, the land between these houses and the lake is public land and that’s not affected by this process. There most important issue is improving the park. There’s very little money to improve the park in the budget if we have to spend the money to move them. Also, the previous committee has looked at this extensively and voted to leave the houses where they were.
Wallner asks is that a motion, Shaw says yes, Maniaci seconds, and suggests the actual language to recommend to the council that the houses not be moved.
Clausius: There is a question of maintenance on the structures. Is that beyond this committee’s charge? Wallner mentions that new management company, Maniaci mentions that there is money in the budget to repair the houses, but not really the focus of the committee.
Clear: Just a clarification, our focus is on coming up with language for the RFP. Is your motion to take moving the houses off the table with the RFP?
Shaw: Yes
Clear: I’m not ready to rule that out yet, would rather leave it in the RFP and see what sort of proposals come in. As Joe points out, the cost of moving the houses is substantial, and it should be included in the proposals. The RFP is silent on the issue, and we can look at them.
Ray Harmon: Agrees with Mark Clear, we should consider moving them [Shock!]. Joe Brogan stepped forward with his comment, agree with some of them, but doesn’t want to rule anything out.
Maniaci asks how would an RFP work? Two RFPs, one with movement and one without, or one RFP with wording that allows both options.
Dan Rolfs explains that they can do anything they want, and that a single RFP can accommodate both options.
Harmon cites the example of the library where they didn’t limit themselves and then got back a spectacular proposal that was outside of their original thinking. [And then the Mayor blew the library process, but oh well]
Bob says he is willing to leave it in the RFP, so long as we can use the points criteria to decide, and we should make a decision now if we’re in favor of moving the houses
Dan gets into how they could weight the criteria differently in the RFP with points.
Maniaci makes it clear that moving the houses is off the table from her perspective. District is overwhelmingly in opposition to moving the houses.
Clear asks Wallner what his position is. Wallner tries to avoid it and stay neutral. Has looked at this for 20 years, in 92 tried to convince his neighbors and constituents to consider that moving one or both of the structures or even demolishing one for parkland is a good idea. He lost that fight. Has a hard time imagining that anyone would buy one of these structures, with its most spectacular lake view in the city, and move it. With the costs for moving it, why anyone would do that? However, he understands the mayor’s point of view: sometimes, park space is more important than historic buildings. Doesn’t see any downside to leaving it in, Mayor won’t take any political hits for ending this conversation.
Maniaci discusses Steensland House and the experience at Landmarks, which has been holding up development of the church looking for a house. References data Dan has put data together [not online, either at the city or at TLNA, so no idea what she’s looking at]. 35 available lots downtown, two in district 2. Where would we put these two houses? First priority is to find a home for the Steensland House, not these two houses because its holding up a substantial redevelopment project, plus the neighborhood is so opposed to moving these houses.
Harmon: We don’t know those things for certain. We will if the RFP goes out and we get no responses
Clear discusses the move of the Conklin House to 500 E Mifflin.
Maniaci references the handout from Rolfs, which includes a detailed study from the movement of the Conklin House. Thinks this is foolhardy to even include it.
Clear: Foolhardy suggests there is something to lose, and if we get an RFP back and it proposes a move, and we don’t like it, we can reject it.
Maniaci: This is a continuation of the previous committee, and its important to respect their work and conclusions. Their recommendations and other bodies supported their stance of leaving the houses in place. To move the goalposts and reopen that discussion is disingenuous.
Clausius: Just another Last Word. Whatever RFP we approve there should be some wording into moving it. Doesn’t want to slam the door on a move.
Harmon calls the question, Harmon, Clausius, Clear vote against the motion, Shaw and Maniaci support. Fails, no language in the RFP to restrict moving 640 and 646.
Wallner moves into looking at the draft RFP. Using a basic city template, similar to what they used for the library. Pulling criteria that they’re going to judge proposals on, comparing to the library’s version [Also not available to the public, though I suspect I could find it somewhere on the web]
Shaw: Is there the same criteria for Collins House versus 640 and 646?
Maniaci: We shouldn’t, they’re some different ideas about Collins House as a commercial or public or institutional use.
This next part gets a little boring, but it gets back to looking at some sort of public access to the structures.
Maniaci: We may want to consider this structure by structure, to look at different goals for each structure. There’s one that’s set up nicely as a single-family home, but she could see a restaurant there. Someone might come to the table with us an idea that we hadn’t considered. Doesn’t want to be so tight that we couldn’t see good ideas.
Harmon and Clear say that sounds familiar. [No, it really doesn’t. The earlier motion was here is the one thing we won’t consider. Maniaci is cautioning not to enumerate the only things you will consider.]
Wallner: Can we find some language that talks about structure reuse and public access?
Maniaci: Public Access isn’t quite the same thing – we’re looking at potential commercial use or institutional use.
Maniaci: This might be a good time for Heather Stouder from the planning department to talk about what is permissible under the zoning.
Wallner asks what she’d like to see these structures be used as, and Stouder does great credit to city staff and diplomatically answers that either of Wallner’s examples are allowable uses under the zoning.
Harmon: What is zoned as now? Stouder answers R5, but they’re all historic/landmarks, so there is a secondary list of what’s permissible beyond what would ordinarily be permissible in R5. [It gives more options to the use of historic structures to give more incentive to own them, so they can have more economic life than just residential uses]. Hands out a list of some (but not all) allowable uses. It includes the list of what’s only allowable to Landmarked buildings. During the zoning code rewrite, pretty much any district is going to be similar. [This is on a handout, not for everyone in the public to have one]
Clear: Instead of criteria, maybe we say “we’d prefer something permissible under the current zoning instead of something that we’d have to rezone”
Maniaci: There is at least one idea is floating around about using it as a botique hotel, which would require rezone.
Clear: Would still think that we include a recommendation of things that are permitted, others that are conditional, and finally things that we’d have to rezone. Stouder isn’t sure she sees any value to differentiate between allowable versus conditional
Rolfs: If you would like to see something that requires rezoning, you can include language in the RFP saying that you would support changing the land use
Clear: What other ideas have floated to the top?
Maniaci: Collins House as a botique hotel, 640 as a restaurant, 646 is likely a single family residence.
Wallner: We can fantasize about what it would be, but we need to focus on the RFP language
[Here’s what they ultimately came up with, though it took most of the rest of the meeting to do so. Having a final version earlier in the notes just makes it easier]
Criteria for 640 and 646 and points:
1. Commitment to create an environmentally responsible rehabilitation and adaptive resource of the structure. – 10%
2. Integration of public accommodation – 10%
3. The proposed use is a permitted or conditional use under the current zoning code – 5%
4. Proposed use is compatible with the neighborhood 10%
5. Financially sound proposal that will not require City funding. 20%
6. Development schedule that is mindful of the City processes that will be required (referendum) 10%
7. A proposal that keeps the structure in its current location. 15%
8. Development team qualifications and experience. 20%
Collins House criteria and points
1. Commitment to create an environmentally responsible rehabilitation and adaptive resource of the structure. 10%
2. Integration of public accommodation 25%
3. The proposed use is a permitted or conditional use under the current zoning code 5%
4. Proposed use is compatible with the neighborhood 10%
5. Financially sound proposal that will not require City funding. 20%
6. Development schedule that is mindful of the City processes that will be required (referendum) 10%
7. Development team qualifications and experience. 20%
Wallner wonders how do you clarify what’s compatible with neighborhood – doesn’t being allowed under the zoning code implied? [Please look at the neighborhood plans!]
Wallner: For a restaurant, what’s the obvious problem? Parking.
Maniaci and Clear wonder about the shoreline referendum ordinance. Can we do this in a way that doesn’t require it?
Harmon: No, any change to the status of the property requires a shoreline referendum vote
Rolfs: Actually, Any change to the status requires a referendum UNLESS the Council adopts an exemption/change to the ordinance.
Shaw: Is this a good point to add a category for the movement of the structures? Yes, they do, and they add one so they have something they can add points.
Harmon: Don’t we have to give the opposite category?
Maniaci and Shaw try to explain why they don’t, and then Rolfs tries to explains why they don’t.
Harmon continues to argue for a way to rank proposals that move the houses higher. [Oh Good Lord Ray. It is not a priority for anyone but you and the Mayor to move the house. No one is going to get points for moving the structures]
Wallner explains that this is because we are putting this in to respect that there is a neighborhood preference to leave the houses here, and Clear concurs.
Clausuis: He’s with Ray on this. We may scare people away if we include this. Didn’t we just vote against this? [No, you didn’t. You voted to allow the houses to be moved. There’s still a preference to leave the houses where they are. A proposal that wants to move a house does not get extra points because they move it]
[This starts at about the 1:08:25 mark, it’s great, Maniaci comes out swinging for the houses]
Maniaci: This is our charge, the more we waffle on this, the worse we make the process.
Clear: clarifying what vote we took. Collins House, we won’t accept it. On 640 and 646, we will consider it, but we have a preference for leaving the houses where they are. [Thank you, Mark.]
Harmon continues to not get it. “If you include that, it’s going to weed out people and limit what you get back. It’s telling people that you get more points if you leave the house here.” Clausius quickly adds “That was my contention”. [Yes! That is what Maniaci is trying to do, and that is a good thing, not a bad thing. That is exactly why this criteria is there. If you and I both want to use one of the houses for a pizza shop and submit identical, with the only difference being you move the house and I leave it as-is, my proposal gets more points.]
They have a vote if it should stay – Maniaci motions, Clear seconds. Passes, 3-2 (Maniaci, Clear, Shaw),Passes – there will be extra points given to proposals that leave the structures in place
They continue to discuss a bit of criteria, and get them on the list above.
[The remaining bit of text covers the last 40-ish minutes of the meeting. There wasn’t a lot of interesting stuff to write down]
Rolfs discusses the process, and how he imagined it working is that he’d take this draft and list of criteria, create a final version of the RFP, and then at their next meeting they’d finalize that language and start the process. Interesting point – the committee can disregard their point totals in the end and select anything they want.
Maniaci discusses how she imagines the public process to work – we get the RFPs in, the city staff validates them, the committee ranks them, then the committee invites the top 3 in to make public presentations, maybe as a neighborhood meeting, or maybe as a public hearing.
Rolfs: Different buildings will get different numbers of proposals – Collins House might get a lot, others might get one.
Maniaci: How are we advertising and getting the word out about the RFP? Lots of people waiting for this to come out. [This is a good question]
Harmon: Briski is not here, is there any language we need to include to re: shoreline upkeep? – yes, that will be part of the agreement.
Rolfs: Does the committee want to include anything about the term of the land lease? The last committee left it at 66 and 2/3rds of a year.
Maniaci wants to consider the length of the lease yet, and its impact on mortgages. [This should have been in the memo they got from City Real Estate]
They approved the criteria above.
To determine the points, they started out with everything equal.
Maniaci: Ranked #3 (zoning) down to 5%, ranked 5 (financially sound) and 8 (Development Team qualifications) up to 20%, proposals that leave the houses in place to 15%
Collins House identical, except public accommodation is moved to 25%
At the next meeting, Dan will return a draft RFP that they can vote on, including a projection out on dates.
While working out the meeting dates, they’re a bit concerned looking at the referendum calendar – the next opportunities are February and April of 2012, so while it seems like there’s no urgency there really is once you start counting backwards.
The next meeting is Wednesday, January 26th at 4:30pm, to discuss and vote on the final RFP and the timeline for the rest of the process.
