The Mayor visited the Economic Development Committee yesterday to talk about his State of the City Address and his charge to the committee to look at the development review process. He answered questions and they discussed how they would get this done by Labor Day. [With BK comments]
BEFORE THE MAYOR GOT THERE
– Sandi Torklidson resigned for personal reasons. They will elect a new vice chair at the next meeting.
– They voted modify Robert’s Rules to allow chair to vote and participate fully in discussions.
– They say that Cooley, Boucher, Stone and Clarke will meet with Susan Schmitz from Downtown Madison Inc to talk about their recommendations on the Downtown Plan.
– They talk about upcoming issues on their agenda including survey results (attitudinal survey of large companies and sample vertical clusters but its difficult because we don’t require business licenses so we don’t know what we have), zoning code rewrite, hiring process for new director of Planning, Community and Economic Development, high speed rail and economic development, presentation by high entrepreneur initiatives.
– Update on BioLink and BioAg
MAYOR’S PRESENTATION
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz says thanks for inviting him, today is the day he gave his State of City speech and he focused on economic development, they hand out speech (which is also here). Some of things that he talked about is that it is important to get the Edgewater and Central Library in the ground. They are through the city process [Except the library doesn’t have a design or land use approvals.]. He says they demonstrated city government can move quickly with the library, the new decision is to build a greener, less costly, bigger, quicker proposal, and they turned it around in a few weeks. Edgewater showed can work slowly when we want to, it was too arduous, slow, complicated, and we need to address that. [So, he’s comparing apples and oranges since the Edgwater has land use approvals and the Library doesn’t.] We need to think about high speed rail station as one project but part of re-imagining of a district on this side of the square, including this block (Madison Municipal Building), Government East Parking Ramp and maybe 1 W Wilson. This area needs a new hotel , new parking ramp underground, a bike parking facility like he saw in Europe and should have public market. He thinks the public market should be the focus. Think of it as a public market square, to draw activity to this side of square, it should be an exciting public space, you can get off the train, come out of station by DOA building and have public market right in front of them, there will be the convention center, a hotel, you can hop on bus there – because it will be inter-modal, you can quickly get to the UW or once the RTA is here, you could get anywhere. You can rent a bike. It will include a rethinking of Pinckney St. Parking will go under Pinckney and Goverment East and the back of this building. It could be a pedestrian mall. They are putting out an RFQ this summer requesting proposals from a master planner to think through the possibilities of those elements. Public subsidies will be required. BioAg Gateway they just got an update on, it is moving forward and that is important. They will continue to work on East Isthmus corridor, there we need a large scale development to create a spark, at the moment, that is not happening, so need to look at options to make that happen. The real problem is that is has exciting potential, but the real estate plays there are big and risky and lining up the stars for something with a developer has a wherewithal and ability to take risk for long run is the problem. He wants to go back to the development process, he would like business community and labor to take the lead. They are already working on proposals, Bill White is leading the effort, in the next few weeks a document will be issued and he would like the Economic Development Committee to vet that document over the summer, along with some things to revisit, like the Mark Bugher report, and he wants them to look at best practices of cities of our kind. Portland, Denver, Ann Arbor, Seattle, etc with progressive traditions, not Houston, then coalesce those things into resolutions and ordinance amendments that alders Joe (Claussius), Mark (Clear) and Chris (Schmidt) can bring to the council, and make he wants them to make recommendations to me as well for things that can be done internally and administratively. He would like you to do that by Labor Day or at least September, do it quickly. He says the Edgewater gives us some context and focus, it shone a light on the failings of our process, use the energy from that to get something done, by the same token, don’t just focus on that, there were some things about that process that were unique. Use the energy, but not get caught up in it, it was unusual – he points to a map of the development process, he says he compares that to the to human genome – and that looks easy in comparison. He wants them to make the process uniform, predictable, expeditious, but not lower standards, he is not settling for lesser development, make the process more friendly, predictable, easier to work with from the start. [His presentation takes 12 minutes]
QUESTIONS FOR THE MAYOR
There is a pause where no one says anything.
Doug Nelson asks if he thinks of anything as easy fixes or if there are specific cities to look at?
Mayor says he is interested to see what you want, Bill Whte’s early indicators but seem kinds of general, he needs something more than the UDC proces needs to be reviewed, specifically how should it improved. He says if you look at other cities make sure they have comparable political cultures it will be more persuasive.
Vicky Selkowe asks if it will be more more predictable, uniform consistent for whom? Are you talking about taxpayers or developer or neighborhoods?
Mayor says they really need to focus on the neighborhood process. He says the architect for the library talked about how the neighborhood process has to be linear, once you have covered things you need to move on and not go back to items already discussed. He has designed over 150 libraries, he has worked in cites with similar political cultures. They don’t want to exclude neighborhoods or lower their voices, because the neighborhood has to live with what is built. We just need more need more structure, he is open to specifics.
Ed Clarke says the confusion is who is a neighbor, it is not the same neighborhood to neighborhood, the issue is representation and who speaks for the neighborhood, that is not part of development process. [Neighborhood activists take note, this committee and according to the next comment, many others want to tell neighborhoods how they should represent themselves and what their process should be. Of course, they aren’t asking the neighborhoods their opinion, which will be a running theme as well.]
Mario Mendoza, the Mayor’s aide, says that is a theme merging out there.
Al Zimmerman (from Danisco) says he has been though the process, when you talk about similar political culture what the does that mean? He says if you take ideas from different cultures, even foreign cities, you would get a different result and we may be just as satisfied, but it might be more amenable to all parties involved, he wants to know why that focus, we need to challenge the paradigm in how we approach the process.
Mayor says he has an inkling that if you look at cities with same profile, ones with a large university, strong green component, he has an inkling that a city like ours that does it better than us then anything we propose that comes out of those cities will be more acceptable than if they (alders) don’t see things in common with Madison.
Matt Yonkers asks about the public library standpoint, are they going to revisit the concept of modern public library?
Mayor says yes, the architectural team has designed 150 libraries, they are very impressive in being cutting edge about what a modern library is, its not just stacks of books, it is meeting facilities, computer access, a lot that the traditional library wasn’t. He says it will e a state of the art library useful to city for the long haul.
Zimmerman asks when they will see the advantage of RTA and High Speed Rail?
Mayor says that high speed rail puts us on the map, we are one of first in Midwest, he would like to see it go to Green Bay and Twin Cities, but the fact that this is literally the first place on map and the only community in country where feds funding 100% of the project, $125M is going to the corridor, this will create jobs in short run, 1000s of jobs and there will be a ripple effect from those trades jobs as they spend money in the region. He says once we are on map, and here he stops to talk about a book called “Caught in the Middle” by Longworth which talks about challenges of the Midwest and what he identifies as a key challenge is the economy of present vs. the future. The future is all about ideas, it’s a knowledge base economy, not manufacturing and in Midwest we are largely manufacturing, primarily auto, so question in book is what to do about it. Places that are going to thrive are large metropolitan areas, especially those with universities and one of things keeps popping out is that he keeps talking about Madison, Ann Arbor Minneapolis and Chicago cuz they have major universities, that is our saving grace. He talks about the need to cross pollinate, to invent new products and services, is there anything we can do that brings us closer to make a metropolitan area. High speed rail gets us closer to Chicago, Twin Cities and Milwaukee and that is good. RTA is about workforce transportation, the current system not good, the city owns Madison Metro and if we want to provide service to Fitchburg or Middleton, they only buy as much service as they can fund, so we don’t serve Monona. That is crazy, but we don’t cuz there is no contract agreement, they don’t want to spend enough money. RTA would erase all that, within RTA they can send buses where they need to go, people who live in Madison and have jobs in Sun Prairie can hop a bus and get there, people who live in Fitchburg can get to work in Middleton, this would erase the boundaries. It will also be great to get commuter rail, he doesn’t know when that will happen, but he is supportive of it, but even if don’t get it, if increase bus service that will be helpful.
Clarke asks about Overture?
Mayor says I did miss that, he talked about it in his speech, MCAD has been talking to banks to retire the $126M debt. City will not be involved in retiring debt, but once debt is retired. Overture is an important economic engine, it creates jobs, it has increased values in downtown and in a less tangible sense, people workforces and ideas are mobile and people can select where to live with freedom, it’s a important amenity to get people here and sometimes people who bring jobs and businesses with them. It has a psychological impact on the city. Once the debt is settled, city will take over the bricks and mortar of the building, we take care of it in the long run, that will put more pressure on the capital budget. There will then be a separate 501c3, they will program the building and raise money.
Selkowe says big projects get all the attention, what about small locally owned businesses, that make Madison special, are there one or two things to work on what would they be?
Mayor says that is fine grained, Monroe St would tell you their issue is that they are going to tear up the street, they developed a program with the Chamber to help them survive street reconstruction. That is what we need to focus on, he would like to hear your ideas and talk to the Small Business Advisory Council. A lot of jobs are created in 2s and 3s and 4s in small businesses and make up fabric of the community. [So, that was a no. He doesn’t have any ideas to help small businesses, he’s more worried about large legacy projects.]
Peng Her says that as the East Isthmus Neighborhood Planning Council Executive Director, they are working on economic development on the east side, especially the Capitol East corridor. He says Jim Bower and other folks did a report on what others have done, he pointed out that St. Paul invested money to be the spark so other developers would invest, he would encourage they Mayor to to go beyond the public square and go to Capitol East, with high speed rail this is the gateway to Madison and public square market but it has red letter news and the Union Corners empty lot, people may have heard good things about public square but they will be wondering what they got themselves into before you get there, the city should be the spark.
Mayor says can’t agree more. He says they invested $10M in overture, they made a like investment on Allied Drive, we have experience doing that. [He said he agreed, but doesn’t seem inclined to work on it or have a plan. Or perhaps he does but isn’t sharing it yet?]
Julia Stone says she works with tech and science recruiting agencies, mostly start ups – she says there is a huge lack of support for incubator space for small to mid size businesses and that is really hard, they have to work with landlords who are not flexible, in a lot of communities that is supported at better level. Here they have put all the eggs in the BioAg basked. She says these are people she talks to every week, it is very hard for small business, it’s the leases for 4 -5 years that is very difficult for them.
Mayor says they have not put all the eggs in the BioAg basket, it just has gotten a lot of attention lately, he is very interested in startups and tech start ups, East Rail corridor place for that, they have a small start with UW incubator, they are trying to provide the spark. [That doesn’t seem to be true given that he had no ideas about how to help small businesses and that he didn’t have any concrete ideas for the Capitol East corridor that we are spending $300K on with no results.]
Stone says she entertains higher level people, they don’t have the opportunities, people don’t leave the companies, this is a good opportunity for us, we have a lot of talent.
Clarke says that with the hire of new Planning, Community and Economic Development Director, they need someone with strong involvement and experience in economic development, is that where we are going?
Mayor says they had 83 applications, initial screening is done, they pared it to 6, members of business community have been on all the panels [and neighborhood representatives?] and will be on interview panels as well, they will look for the broadest profile possible.
Mendoza says that there was some that had a breadth of experience, they will need to look t the skill sets that come to the table.
Stone asks how many local, regional people applied?
Mario doesn’t know, some from mid-west originally, but doesn’t know.
Zimmerman asks about the master planning side for high speed rail, what looking for on planning skills, are they looking for civic style planning or high tech and advantageous to the city, less on public works and more what we are talking about here, will we get someone who will work on a public mall and college campuses?
Mayor says we know the elements we want in the 4 block area, a new underground parking ramp, bike facility, high speed rail station, intermodal connectivity, hotel and market, question is how they all work together an d where fit on landscape.
Zimmerman asks about expertise, there is a broad spectrum of people who do that, some just design golf courses, some focus on engineering, some focus on civic planning, where are we falling on the spectrum, as he hears it with high speed rail, he has lived in many countries, they have high speed rail and intermodal connectivity that is much more extensive than we have, as he thinks about what we are planning and thinking about and bringing idea culture in to play, what are real ramifications to a person who buys ticket and has to make way around the city, how do we make that work, what expertise do they need to have?
Mayor says he is asking questions they are wrestling with now in thinking about how to construct RFQ (Request For Qualifications), they will not get the right answers unless we ask the right questions. He likes the work around Villager Mall and Public Market, that work was very good, it combined community and stakeholders with pencil on paper planning with market truthing of what they came up with, they need a vision, but need it needs to be tempered with the reality of how we pay for it.
Mendoza says that master planning services are the few blocks, not the mass transit rail picture, it connects to the planning effort with multi-modal facilitates, but some of the broader questions wouldn’t be part of that process, its master planning but has its limits.
Nelson asks if this is a subcomponent of that.
Mario says RTA will deal with it.
Mayor says station is somewhere by Monona Terrace, could be by DOA, feds require parking, we already want to take down Government East Parking Ramp, we already had plans to put it underground, we can add another tray or two of parking for the train station, but we need to know what will go above parking if it is underground, the elevator shafts are different if it is a hotel or office space, its like pulling a thread on a cheap suit, we need to know what above it before we build parking for train station. We need to think about it comprehensively.
Nelson asks if RFQ is open invite to come up with ideas.
Mayor says expertise is not likely to be one person or firm, thinks companies will come together to submit the bid.
Selkowe says a lot of jobs are coming and will benefit region, how will we make sure Madison residents get the jobs and how will we develop workforce that doesn’t have skills and education or does he not care about that?
Mayor says not much we can do about that [Sigh, the council just passed the Community Services funding priorities that include a new category of workforce development and we were in a meeting the other day for United for Funding where I asked him directly if there would be additional money for that or if the money would come from existing programs and he said he’d have to look at that in his budget. Has he forgotten all that already, or didn’t it sink in?]. He says we give money to community services and that money doesn’t always stay in the city [???! Really, what is her talking about? That’s a pretty primary concern for most of the funding, I’d bet 98% stays in the city], he wouldn’t object if money goes outside the city. Allied has the START program, we can tap into those programs. [Wow, I know he wants higher end people to come to Madison and low income people to be “spread out” throughout the county, but this isn’t dealing with reality. And, if he’d look at the bigger picture, we could spend less on policing (not that the poor are criminals, but police end up dealing with issues when there aren’t community services) and community services if we address the root problems. But I guess that isn’t sexy and doesn’t leave a legacy so it doesn’t matter.]
Schmidt asks about the development process, one of the questions that has come up many times with the neighborhood part of it, how do neighborhood plans work into this. The standard answer was that they were advisory to the comprehensive plan, now that we have the Smart Growth law and we have to follow the comprehensive plan, that will have an impact, neighborhood plans have a lot to do with the comprehensive plan, how do you see us dealing with that paradigm?
Mayor says short honest answer is I don’t know, that is a level of detail I want you guys to look at, you raise good question, don’t want to answer off the cuff. [HOLY CRAP, didn’t the dude write the state Smart Growth Law??? Doesn’t he have a better answer than that? Haven’t they looked at that in his office? Pesky laws just get in the way of getting things done and he doesn’t think about them? I know its apparent to me, but I rarely see him admit it.]
Nelson says they will roll up their sleeves and get back to you and if you have other things for use to work on, we stand ready.
Mayor thanks them for serving since they are all volunteering their time.
[The Mayor spent about 40 minutes talking to them. Do you think he would ever do the same with the Plan Commission or Urban Design Commission?]
DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCESS
Cooley says they have a short deadline, he talked with staff and mayor and others and they talked about how to get it started [i.e. this is all for show], a number of groups are reviewing input now, staff in planning and the Economic Development Department will sit down and pull it together and come up with straw man to lay on table to put up for comment, they will have a public session for feedback. [Wow, we’ll just tell you what we want you decide and then you and the public can tell us if we got it wrong instead of asking the committee and the public what their ideas are?] Planning can work on ordinance changes, we will see if we can put a straw man on the table with options for recommendations to get it moved off the dime, they have received document from Bill White, DMI is looking at their final tomorrow morning to present to us and mayor would like us to engage labor, Smart Growth Inc (developers) will be putting things together, we need straw man, may have a number of commonalities to bring back to EDC in July, they can process through it, they have open meetings and can get through it in August and provide it to mayor in September. [This is kind of stunning, apparently the development and business community have their recommendations almost all worked out, staff will tell the committee what they like, hold public meetings when many of the public are on vacation and then have it all wrapped up by September, without any plans to talk to neighborhood associations or the Plan Commission or Urban Design Commission. They apparently have it all just about worked out behind closed doors and now they just need to make it look like they asked for public input. It’s a growing trend with how things are done in the city, I just don’t see it so blatantly done. That’s one thing I like about Cooley, for as much stuff as he tries to cover up, he’s strangely transparent in the end.]
Clarke says when they did the Economic Development plan, they did a pre-final version meeting with council, that was very helpful, we were kicking ideas around. It will also take a while, we need to identify a set of com parables in terms of communities and do the research on their process, in original report form EDC there was a list of 5 to 10 communities and lists of what they did. THRIVE compares Madison to other regions with common economic development measures, there is a set of 7 or 8 regions, they would be economically similar.
Cooley says the Chamber of Commerce is looking at their role, they would look at comparable areas. [Wow, they have it all worked out.] Cooley asks if the Lafollette study had comparables in it.
Clarke says yes.
Cooley says if staff takes first stab at it it will be something for them to look at.
Stone asks about development process today, she needs more information.
They point to a chart on the wall, they says that is the scaled down version of the process. [The chart is a flow chart that doesn’t look all that complicated, but they don’t look at the details to see that.]
Cooley says every neighborhood has their own process, if they break it into two processes for neighborhoods and then look at city process, it will be easier. Its convoluted now. [I don’t think they want the neighborhoods to look at how they are being cut out of the city process. They want to distract them with other issues.]
Zimmerman asks if they have given thought about incorporating the planning and urban design further, have you given any thought to parsing out areas with more streamlined process since it is not a neighborhood with residential interaction?
Cooley says some of that is addressed in the zoning code, some can be decided at staff level and some can be decided at council and committee level.
Clarke says Bill White, DMI and others have recommendations, will the committee get to see them?
Cooley says they will be addendums to everything they do. [Do the neighborhoods, Plan Commission and UDC also get to have addendums?]
Nelson says would be good to have before the meeting. He says the Mark Buher report is already available, maybe we could see the buildup in advance of the meeting.
Cooley says not sure if ready by July, depends on feedback from other groups. [Except he already said he has the Bill White document and will say DMI is voting on their version tomorrow morning.] Some other things happening where they can vet it and get feedback. Skidmore is meeting with developers to talk about development process, that will be a good chance to get good feedback before pre-final briefing with the council, before have final recommendations. [All done in private, of course.]
Nelson says July and August meetings should be devoted to this, to hit the time line.
Stone says they already have a paper from Bill White, is already out?
Cooley says they got it last week, Smart Growth coming out with theirs soon, DMI tomorrow morning.
Selkowe says that getting them at same time as staff recommendations is going to greatly narrow scope and content.
Cooley finally gives in and says they will do packet and put it in legistar to go to the public soon.
Schmidt says the neighborhood part of the process, it tends to have challenges because we have different experience and background, and our process they way we have been is that we step back and let it work itself out in a big fight, we should think about neighborhood plans, instead of having it happen whenever people get it together, get it consistent citywide, some are more of a battle or others.
Clarke says a couple years ago, when they were working on the East Washington Build someone asked what plans to look at and they were told there was the E. Washington BUILD plan, Central Park, Marquette, Tenney-Lapham, East Rail Corridor Plans all in place and when they asked which one of these has the greatest weight, we were told was the most recent developed, that is chaos. [This is brilliant, ask a bunch of people who don’t understand the development process what should be done to change it. This ought to be good.]
Cooley says that answer Stones process question, he just answered it.
Nelson says it needs to be predictable, timely, we don’t get to the outcome with that process.
Cooley says money and effort are spent by developer and there are city costs of staffing, it adds tremendous costs to the project and it doesn’t come out of their pocket it gets passed on, we need to be more productive with our time, so he thinks its more beneficial, but this is going to be difficult.
Nelson asks how to come up with consensus and implement it.
Cooley says comprehensive reform package will be sent to council, some areas will have options, there will be different categories, council should be able to pick from those options, the council will have an up or down vote, we will have public input in our process and council deliberations, in this timeframe it will not be referred a whole lot back and forth to committees, he might be wrong, once it gets to council, if get it there in month one, they might pass they package by month three. Right?
Joe Claussius says it’s a crap shoot.
I missed something here.
Selkowe asks if there will be a larger scale hearing or testimony in a more planned way on this issue, we need to plan for that quickly.
Nelson says that got the sense that had a lot of public input in past and groups got public input as well, hopefully, that will be enough. [I looked up to see if Selkowe’s head exploded, it did not.]
Selkowe calmly disagrees, says if they don’t have concerted effort to hear form people, while she agrees they have things from past but for us not to hear directly from people, we haven’t heard from people in timely way.
Zimmerman and Her agree, community input can open eyes and get ideas.
Selkowe says they should do public input separate, outside of meeting structure so they can debate at the meeting, they had listening sessions with strategic planning, this is more focused, Selkowe says will have more weight.
Nelson says didn’t know about listening sessions, that is something they can look at.
Stone says its more efficient, more time listening when listening and discussing when discussing. And she doesn’t want to pull and all-nighter,
Cooley reviews the process and says they will have a meeting where they review the straw man, create a draft, take to council, create a final draft then go to council.
Stone said that sounds like 5 meetings.
Clarke says hearing is another meeting.
Nelson says they will chart meetings in July.
Cooley says that neighborhood process and city process can be separate, some interested in neighborhood input and some more interested in committees.
Clarke says that should look into if these will be referred, if we make a recommendation about commission process or membership, its hard to imagine plan commission won’t want to have input on that recommendation. [Ya think?]
Cooley asks if referred to them or discussion through us?
And that is about it. They go on to discuss the public market, but I left. Can’t wait to see the Plan Commission, UDC and neighborhood responses to this!
