Sept 16th EDC Public Hearing on development process

EDC Public Hearing of September 16th.

The EDC had a public hearing on the development process review that they’re undertaking. The City Channel was there and recorded it, below are my notes. It’s a little late, but I’ve still got 30 minutes before the next EDC meeting on the subject.  Please forgive all of my terrible guesses at spelling names.

Here’s the “too long; didn’t read” (tl;dr) summary: The process isn’t broken, everyone agrees that the neighborhoods should participate, and that the neighborhoods need more training/and or support to be effective partners, and that above all, we need to do better on keeping everyone on message that “Madison is a good place to do development”.

A second point: no one could point to specific instances or examples of how the process has gotten worse. Instead, it’s all “this is what we hear” and other anecdotal “evidence.”  Hopefully everyone keeps that in mind before proposing radical changes.

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Speaker 1: Joanne Kloppenberg. Regent Neighborhood Assoc, has sent in written comments. Here to emphasize citizen participation in city’s growth and development. Mayor’s budget proposal recognizes the importance of neighborhoods being strong and assertive, and how critical that is for the cities economic and civic well-being. It would be a regressive mistake to limit that participation, especially since the city’s own data shows that it mostly working well. Focus should be on improvements where deficiencies have been identified. Mullins proposal on the end of University Ave as a good example of what’s working.  Facilitator helped set dates and process to keep everything moving, had “open house” to identify issues, then a few weeks later brought some development options. Training is important, many of the written comments focus on this issue. Place a premium on better and earlier notice of development to neighborhood associations. There’s a case to be made for scaling for smaller, simpler projects.  We believe that maintaining super-majorities to overturn commissions is critical.

Question, from Mark Clear: Neighborhoods don’t always speak with one voice, different opinions. Do you have any best-practices for building consensus between one group that speaks with one voice (the developers) and another group that may have many different ideas (the neighborhoods)

Joanne: Key is communication. Facilitator asked for concerns early, before we saw any development proposals, helped people talk about what really mattered to them.

Speaker 2: Michael McKeentez. I’ve recently become educated about development process, Mark Clear is my alder. No civilization has been stable/viable without clean environment and clean water. Planning process is being done in silos, and no one is looking at the entire environmental footprint of a plan. Erdmann project is over a wellhead-protected area, if there is any contamination, it will affect 17,000 people. When I talk to planning dept, developers, traffic engineering, etc: no big deal. When I talk to Water Utility – it’s a big deal. Various departments have little or no coordination between themselves. Zoning department knows that redevelopment proposals have different environmental regulations than an undeveloped/new development (e.g. – 90% of sediment runoff protection from a new development, only 40% for a redevelopment). Would like to see the environment issues addressed in design phase, not the build phase. I’d like to see new planning process act as a gatekeeper.

Question from Vicky Selkowe: First, can you give us some background on yourself?

Mike: Madison resident 1951, photographer/video producer. Produced water quality video for DNR, has done some magazine articles, documented 2007 flooding. Don’t have time to get into weather/climate changes and all the upcoming regulations from the state and feds.

Vicky: Are there specific changes in the process/cities that you can point us to that do this well?

Mike: Glad you brought up “well” Boston – a good example of very clean water. 100 years ago set aside watershed, free of development. Not proposing that here, but we should start thinking of that. Water utility millions of dollars in debt, 4x too high salt content. Water Utility doesn’t have the resources to find new clean water (and on the east side, probably simply can’t find new well sites) if a new development adds more salt to the water, which the Erdmann project would

Mark: Moves to change 5 minutes from 3 minutes. Some confusion if they legally can. Mark “Lets do it, and we’ll get in trouble later”

Bob Holloway: Thanks, first, a question – downtown plan and zoning rewrite is still in progress. Part of the idea behind those efforts is to reduce uncertainty for developers. So, wondered why we don’t wait until this happens to see how the process works. Would encourage the EDC to wait until these two projects are completed and review the process then. Second point: former member of CNI. Has seen developer come to the neighborhood, process worked great. (Mullins project). Has seen other process where a dozen meetings and no one ever moves. If the goal is to get to some mutually agreeable result, should be thinking of a way to hold neighborhood and developers feet to the fire to get people to come to some resolution.

Remember that the key point of any govt agency – plan commission to police dept, the whole purpose of these efforts is to enhance the quality of life for residents of Madison. As we revise this process, we should think of ways to measure “are we making life better for the citizens of Madison”

Joe Clausius: Can you give us some background on your self?

Bob: Teacher, in public school, then at UW Comp Sci. Moved downtown 7 years ago, got involved in downtown issues. Development was a bigger issue here than anywhere else. Live at Metropolitan place, plenty of issues there with the developer, and aspects of the development process as he practices them. Involved in Capitol West, and on the 400 block of W Wash at the Optometrist. Also in Mansion Hill, First Settlement

Joe: Would you care to comment on the Edgewater, if I dare ask?

Bob: [Laughs heartily] I was involved a fair bit at the beginning, but I stepped back from it – I lived in a different district and was busy with other things. I think that the Edgewater was in sad shapehad been let go for too long, needed something. On the one hand, I think that development was a good thing there, but on the other hand, the way it turned out, I think there was a perception that it was steamrolled. However true or false that may be, that’s too bad, because it means we’re fighting each other instead of working together, and as a community, I think we’re best served when we can come out of the room and say “I listened to you, and I disagreed with you, but we followed the process”

Julia Stone: How can you hold a neighborhood’s feet to the fire?

Bob: Wouldn’t focus on just the neighborhood association or the developer. Part of it depends on the alder, how interested or involved they want to be. The boards and commissions should ask questions about how did things go, when did processes start, make sure that they can discover if one side is just stone-walling. Would be ideal to have a disinterested 3rd party, who can judge is one side just stalling, but that might be too expensive. Everyone needs to know that light will be shown on the process. Important that developers don’t go way past what they really want or what is responsible as their first move, and then gradually compromise their way into what they really want. Same thing with the neighborhood, can’t say that absolutely nothing is acceptable. Would like more people to work together, build trust.

Julia: wasn’t trying to pick on neighborhood association, – it’s clear how to hold developers accountable, harder to see how to do so for neighborhoods.

Bob: In any discussion, all parties need to be putting a good-faith effort into it, and need to know that they’ll be held accountable.

Delaura Newton, Executive Vice President, Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce. Chamber was involved in 2004 report to make Madison more business-friendly. Whether or not that was a real issue or a perceived issue, felt it was important enough to address. Development process was part of that. Still support ‘04, would like to bring some of those development ideas forward again. Want development process to be predicable and simple, more efficient, and timely, and consistent.  No matter what neighborhood it is, it’s a predictable process.

Two key ideas: Presumptive Approval. Want to clarify what that means, think that some people are confused about what that means. We’re not suggesting that presumptive approval means “Just get to Yes” [compare this to DMI testimony coming up later]. Create a 180 day clock, starts only at first formal submittal to city. Pre-approval process doesn’t count. If the clock reaches zero without action, then it’s approved. The clock is important, that’s how you hold people’s feet to the fire, also gives the neighborhood some predictability. If the developer makes substantive changes, the developer can ask to stop the clock, but only happens if the city agrees to stop the clock.  To get to Vicky’s question, Dubuque IA and Lincoln, NE has a good example, but theirs is only 60 days.

Other key idea: consolidate UDC and Plan Commission. Streamlines the process. Do agree that there are valid reason to have design expertise like you have at UDC, but could be better served by expanding Plan commission by adding  design professionals.

Was going to get into neighborhood stuff, but ran out of time.

Jim Carrier: Lives in Brentwood, co-founder of Wild Warner, advocate for Warner Park. Would like to see Madison adopt an Environmental Impact Statement requirement. Fundamental trigger: Needed if a development significantly affects the quality of the human environment, so doesn’t necessarily apply to things like eagles, etc.  Can be anything from air, water, noise, and character of the neighborhood. A full-blown EIS can be very expensive, so several different levels, may involve no action. Most important thing is that someone thinks about the impacts of any develop, puts them down on paper, and then measures them. Should be required of everyone, burden bared by developer. Levels the playing field, makes everyone have the same impact. Should probably scale with size of project.

What should trigger an EIS? Groundwater, air quality, environment justice, social justice, viewshed, historic preservation, or some combination of those. If it’s triggered, that should be appealable.

Also refers back to the silo issue. Need someone to stand back and look at the whole process. The environmental impact is a tool to do that

Vicky: Is your environmental impact statement a tool because of your worldview, or do you have a different reason?

Jim: Want to emphasize that it’s impact on humans, not necessarily air, water, and critters. For example, a project may create 200 jobs but also adds 200 cars. It’s a look at the entire impact of that project – anything from an apartment project to a PUD impacts people, should list all of those impacts.

Pete Ostlind: Chair of CNI Development Review Oversight Committee. CNI involved in many developments over the years. After the 2005 Best Practices development guide came from the city, there was a suggestion that neighborhoods create a process. CNI took up that challenge, with assistance from city staff, developers, and even members of the EDC, created a development protocol, it’s been favorably received.  Continue to get feedback from all stakeholders on how the process has worked.

City staff has pulled data; CNI has had 10% of all development proposal for the city – 67 of them. Only 2 have been rejected by plan commission. It’s been suggested that neighborhoods are interested in obstruction. However, if that’s the case, then by the data, neighborhoods aren’t very good at obstructing projects, or more likely, the statement isn’t true. We’ve had periods where 4 committees have been working on seven projects simultaneously, that takes a lot of dedicated neighbors.

Process is often long and arduous – had developers threaten him, developers and residents raging mad, and sat through hours and hours of incoherent and irrelevant testimony at city commissions and boards, but that when he reminds himself that  but democracy can be difficult. But, to make the process work best, we want to have a considerate discussion and ensure policy makers have the information they need. That should be the guiding principle of what you’re looking for: how do we make sure that we do have a considered discussion, and that the information is there for decision makers. CNI has given you 8 pages of comments, be happy to discuss any of them.

Ed Clarke: CNI’s development protocol is probably most complete. What do you do if a neighborhood and a developer just disagrees when it goes to the city?

Pete: Neighborhoods only advisory, a yea or nay isn’t useful. Neighborhoods don’t make decisions. What do you do if neighborhoods don’t speak with one voice? It happens, deal with it. Neighborhoods bring forth information and perspective to decisions makers – UDC, Plan, Landmarks, Common Council. We don’t come forward with simple answers, Yea or Nay isn’t useful from neighborhoods, better to bring forward information and perspectives.

Vicky: CNI’s comments identify that ‘economic hardships’ are always not real. Can you comment on that?

Pete: Nothing except for maybe TIF fully analyzes the economics of a proposal, and not really sure we want to have neighborhoods try do to an economic analysis of a project. Neighborhoods don’t have the expertise, developers have good reasons not to disclose that information. Not the neighborhood’s role to make a project economically viable. We can work with you to improve it, but our issue is land use and impact on the city.

Julia: Process question. How do you feel the communication has been with the developers at the start of the project.

Pete: Varies by developer, varies by personality and previous experiences. Sometimes developers come forward really early with concepts, “is this viable?”. Other developers, “I’ve got this idea, this is what I’m doing, the Alder is forcing me to meet with you so here I am”.  Some developers hate it, treat it as “running the gauntlet” Neighborhoods are typically reactive, though occasionally look at  an area and give suggestions for what we’d like to have happen there.

Matt Younkle: Tend to agree that there’s a problem with perception. Lots that goes through fine, yet still a perception that things are difficult Do you think that something like presumptive approval might change that, even if it’s not changing anything?

Pete: Would change perception of neighborhood, that a project is presumptively approved just by waiting long enough and running out the clock. .  What happens if a developer is stonewalling, and doesn’t give any of the needed information. Does the developer automatically get across the finish line by not participating? That’s the inherent difficulty of presumptive approval, can you set up enough restrictions along the way to make sure that they’re participating? Does that make the developer feel better – for presumptive approval, most of that happens in the front-end before the clock starts.

Matt: I’m just looking for ways to change the discussion

Pete: Stop using that line! Why does everything start with that line? Stats from the CNI districts – of the 67 proposals, only two were voted down, and one of those came back with a new proposal on the same site.  We have a lot of successes, lets talk about them. We keep getting high ratings – you don’t get that happen if you just let anything through. The way we change that perception is with ourselves.

Ed Clarke: We’ve gotten a lot of comments about make up of neighborhood association. Can you talk about that?

Pete: Volunteer organization, people who live in a geographic area and active interest. In any given neighborhood, probably small number of people involved. Madison has a huge number of neighborhood associations. Takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to be involved. For the most part, small number of people working on something, but for a public meeting we get 50-60 people who show up, try and bring forth ideas. You work with the bodies you show up, we don’t go out and poll people.  Unfortunately on development projects, you sometimes get people who are more concerned about something instead of getting people who join up because there’s something that’s positive about a project. Neighborhood tries to bring forward what we hear.

Second part of your question usually includes something about should neighborhoods be required to have standards for membership? No. There are business groups in Madison that have the same requirements on notification. There are people who are stakeholders in downtown, and we invite them to be part of the process for ideas and input. We try to avoid voting on issues, we gather information, and so voting and excluding people isn’t something that we want to do.  But, if push comes to shove, neighborhood associations represent residents. We don’t mandate memberships for other groups.  Remember that we’re all advisory to the decision makers

Doug Nelson: With the perception/reputation, do you have any concerns about lost opportunities? We can’t measure it, but do you have any concerns about things that could have happened?

Pete: Look at what’s happened downtown so far. Clearly not everyone is running away. Are there some out there? Maybe so. However,  we have a rigorous process, but it produces good results. Perhaps if you’re not willing to be part of the process, then maybe you don’t have the right kind of ideas.

Vicky: One recommendation is that notification should be changed from 30 days to upon filing. Any thoughts?

Pete: By the time you get to proposal, a developer will be well down the way with their ideas. If you want an efficient process, it seems like the earlier you involve people, the more efficient you be because you don’t have people showing up late in the process. The general process works well, it gives people the sense of what’s coming. For simple things, where there’s been an oversight and its not a big deal, CNI has advocated for waiving the notification deadlines.

Will Sandstrom! [At the 1:00 mark of the video, if you really want to see it] Not sure how to start this. Heard from an attorney: “Will, you’re right, you’re brilliant, but people don’t know how to take you”. In 1961, invented the first biochemical process to create mutation. Sent it to Nature, referee stole it, won the Nobel prize. Left science, pilfer, publish, or perish. Then ran against Dave Obey, colorful, powerful man, retiring to play harmonica.  What a ding-dong.

…Something about the 1940s and 50s, living downtown, west side….

– Our alder has a sticker on their car that says “I Love Men.” I have a picture, can you imagine that?  San Francisco of the Midwest.

– Our election is in February. Who gets elected then? Who goes out and votes then? They’re the ones who work for the city, so they keep their jobs. If I go there, I get drowned out by the Alder.

…Some more randomness, something about a conspiracy theory of neighborhood associations and the Alder – calls it a ‘nut association’…

Now, what I’m concerened about is in our neighborhood has a terrible flooding problem. We’ve been trying to get the city/mayor to do something about that, but we can’t get anywhere about it, because the people who belong live on the other side of the commercial ave.

Then a payday loan place tried to get moved.

Carol Schafer: Last time I testified I got to follow a tornado. Representing Smart Growth Madison, representing real estate developers in Dane County.

Two stories about trying to gather comments for this hearing. First, talking to a developer, they didn’t want to help make it eaiser, “would rather the process be complicated, I know how to navigate it and others don’t, so the process keeps other developers out and keeps the competition down.”

Another developer’s answer: “I used to think that way, but I think that we’re cutting our own throats. If we don’t look at the fact that we may be prohibitive in our process, and we don’t look at bringing in other job creation and making the process simpler and easier to navigate we’re hurting ourselves in the long run.”

“Not saying get rid of the neighborhoods, or give every project that comes in the green light at all, it’s just saying that making the process a little more streamlined and little easier to navigate.”

One of the most important things – reasonable timeframe. Certainly seems that there are a lot of projects that got through in that timeframe, but a big piece of why we get bogged down is our zoning code and reliance on PUD for big projects.

As a member of ZCRAC, [Zoning Code Rewrite Advisory Committee] thinks getting the zoning code rewrite is important, and that we should wait on reexamining some of this process and roles of committees and commissions until after that’s done.

Know there’s been some talk of making UDC and Landmarks advisory to Plan, but thinks that we should wait until after we finish the rewrite, because the code will include things like building forms and standards, not just use-based code.

Second issue: Not a problem going before all of these bodies – commissions and neighborhoods, it’s that each committee gets so many “kicks at the cat.” Going back and back with committees (really UDC – tells a story about multi-round process with UDC, where a committee member asked why a change had been made that had been requested at the previous meeting.) Would like a linear timeline, common council at the end gets a ‘yea or nay’. The back and forth hurts our reputation.

Would like to see more collaboration. Cites an article in Kiplinger, 10 great places to live, places that have smart people, great ideas, and collaboration between govt,  business community, and educational institutions. ED workplan called for a toolbox for collaboration to bring people together and collaborate. Talking to Mayor of Middleton – “I love Madison’s TIF policy, just look at Middleton.”

Can we make things easier and more user-friendly?

Julia: What do your developers feel is an appropriate length of time for the process?

Carol: don’t think there’s a universal number…

Julia: What’s too long

Carol: When you start talking 18 months/ 2 years, especially as circumstances change in the market, an idea that might have been feasible at 6 months no longer are. Not all of that is something you can point a finger at the city for, there’s other things that happen. But you do hear a lot of “well I had to go back this many times” for things that could have been handled more administrative review and then council decisions.

Peng: When you talk with developers, you hear that the concerns aren’t really with neighborhoods, but more with the formal process.  What can we do more to improve the perception with the neighborhoods? Can we bring everyone in to talk about it?

Carol: A while back we did a “developer financing” session for neighborhoods, when there were no projects pending so no emotional attachment – what are holding costs, hard costs, soft costs, etc. Maybe we could do that again at the Neighborhood roundtable. We’d be happy do to his again while we’re not looking at a project. Increase communications will help be able to make us partners and not adversarial.

Vicky Selkowe: Can you talk about the two-tier system, or a streamlined process for smaller projects?

Carol: Haven’t had a lot of discussions about it, but hopes that zoning code rewrite will help, because it will include building forms

Joe Clausis: How would you feel about consolidating commissions?

Carol: Are you talking about the Chamber’s suggestion about adding design professionals to plan? Could have some merit, but really need to look at this after the zoning code rewrite.

Sandy Torkelson: Representing Greater State St Business Association. BID sent something in, we agree with those recommendations. As much as I think about having a streamlined process is important, and simple processes, there needs to be flexibility. Signage in older buildings, for example – can be hard to modify older buildings for modern uses while meeting existing rules. May mean needing a longer processes. Know that we have tried very hard to rewrite sign ordinance, but it just doesn’t always work with older buildings, especially small businesses. If we want to keep a historic downtown and historic districts, this flexibility will help that.

Susan Spring: speaking for myself, but has worked in the development industry, both public (with city) and private. Works for Mullins now.  Know the needs of public policy and know the needs of the neighborhoods. However, interesting that we’re having this discussion in front of EDC but not the Planning Unit. Needs to have more integration between the Planning department and the economic development interest.

Working with the neighborhoods – a good idea all around, never had a problem thinking there was anything wrong with it. It’s the process within which we work with neighborhoods that becomes an issue – if there’s one thing that I’d suggest we do, its that the city develop and perhaps requiring that all neighborhoods a consistent framework and timetable in which a development is reviewed, commented on, and then moved into the city process. We have a good idea how the approval process works, but none of that exists in a neighborhood and every neighborhood is different.  CNI’s protocol might be a good model. We would know ahead of time that we’d have to have a certain number of meetings and a set of information to lay out. When you go before a neighborhood, you always have a good idea of what you’re going to do (otherwise you wouldn’t be going to the neighborhood) – you’ve determined the type of project you’re going to do, but there are always tweaks that you can have and good input you can get, so you work through all the issues you can work through. You have a certain number of meetings. Neighborhood is advisory – whats the point of a vote? At the end of the process, we try to address as many of the issues as they can. Then enter the city approval process, neighbors can still add input there. They go through the process and eventually make a decision. In some neighborhoods, it’s like a black hole – you don’t know when you’re ever going to get out.  A good process can help, and the city should take the lead on that.

Moderators can be helpful, but very expensive. Maybe staff can perform that role. A moderator can help keep things positive and ensure that all sides respect each other, and keep it a conversation.

Mark Clear: Followup on the lack of role of ED in the development review process? Right now there is no role, are you suggesting that there should be?

Susan: Lack of an understanding of economic feasibility is a problem. It’s a problem when they say “It doesn’t if it’s not feasible or if the bank won’t finance it.” Neighborhoods, city staff and commissions, Mayor’s office, common council – all could use it.  The world has changed dramatically, with regards of finance.  Can’t build an office building on spec, or build condos downtown.

Mark: Help me understand how knowledge of financing affects the review process.

Susan: The issue that comes to mind the most is density. “Why do you need this many units or this size or this many parking spots.” There’s a feasibility – market, financing, economic, and a public responsibility. They all have to come together, and there’s a vast gap of knowledge that makes it difficult for that to happen. This would be a good time to bring everyone together for an education effort because the world has changed so dramatically. Most of the future development in Madison is going to be redevelopment, because we don’t have a lot of vacant lab. Redevelopment is a heck of a lot harder, and there aren’t a lot of developers who can afford it or have the stomach for it, so they go elsewhere. One of the thing that has made Madison stable is that we don’t have a lot of national developments coming in and messing things up. We have a lot of good developers in this town, who have been here a long time and care about what they build.

I was up next. I’ll skip my comments, but just read my written comments.

Susan Schmidt, representing Downtown Madison, Inc. Has sent written comments, but have learned a lot from the process as its been unfolding, we’ve been looking at what’s come in from other people and adjusted our proposal, and resorted – what are our real priorities.

We do not and have not ever said the process is “broken”, we’d just like to improve it. We’re also going to stop talking about “streamlining” and start saying “efficient” – streamline has a tendency to make it seem like it’s going to be shorter.

Want to highlight what’s most important to us.

Work harder to get a customer focus, and make the city welcoming to people who want to invest money. We’d like to change the attitude, and in particular city staff, to think about making a focus on “how do we get to yes” for developers.

We’d like to improve the function of city committees with increased education.

Sharing a thought from TIF session put on by THRIVE in Middleton, a thought from Middleton city administrator Mike Davis –  “it’s very simple, when a new council member comes in, I spend time with that council member, and make sure they know what TIF is and they understand it, what TIF districts we have, what’s in the project plan, the vision, and that works. When TIF comes up at council meetings, they have all of that information.” Not sure that we [Madison] do as good a job with that education.

To the neighborhood associations: We enjoy working with neighborhoods, we work with CNI all the time. We’d just like to see a little more inclusivity. But, we’d like to see CNI change its bylaws to allow property and business owners to vote.  That’d hopefully bring more people to CNI, and be a sign of more inclusivity on the part of CNI.

Peng: What would you think about a neighborhood division in the city?

Susan: Anything that can work to bring more people together and education will help. Wouldn’t consider that a new layer, would see that as a best practice. Anything that would improve dialogue and process is good. Things are changing, so we have to work more in partnership – neighborhoods, school districts, all parties.

Vicky: The June document had some pretty strong language – “the increasing evidence that the current review process consumes an undue amount of scarce resources: time, money, and mental energy”. What is the increasing evidence that DMI is seeing that the process is getting worse?

…looking for the page, Vicky reading the entire paragraph…

Vicky: To my reading, it makes it seem like DMI believes the process has gotten worse recently, that things are taking too long.

Susan: I don’t know if it’s long as much as it is cumbersome. The referrals back are a problem – that’s part of the efficiency part that we had talked about, keeping the process moving forward in a line – we have “OK, this isn’t working, go back to the neighborhood” again and again and again – very often, 4, 5, 6 times. Shouldn’t there be a process where you work with the neighborhood, and they say what they’re going to say, and then you move on to the city process.

Chris Schmidt: Just to clarify, so are you saying that city committees have referred things back to the neighborhood?

Susan: Well not being a developer, just hearing this from our members who are, sometimes its city staff, and I don’t want to bash on city staff, but they’re saying “well, you’d better go back to the neighborhood”, again and again.

Chris: So, this is more that there needs to be clarity that on the neighborhood process.

Susan now has a handout from Bill White

Lynn Pittman: President of Dudgeon-Monroe NA. Submitted comments in August, wanted to answer questions and reiterate a few points. One point: discussion and even conflicts indicate that a process is happening. Neighborhood associations have a valuable part to play, and they make an area worth living in.

Neighborhoods would like more time and consistency in the process.

Neighborhoods struggle with questions that raise broader impacts than just the developer. That must be frustrating for developers, but it gets beyond plans for just one neighborhood.

Wishes that we could have plans that looked at issues like height and density and traffic, and looked at it from a multiple neighborhood association perspective.

Bert Stitt: Long history with neighborhoods, in MKE and in MSN. Was President of CNI for 7 years in the 90s. Wants to address a couple of different things:

1. Unalienable right of neighborhoods to determine their own membership. Early experience with a developer who packed a meeting with their friends, who had nothing to do with the neighborhood, so forever thereafter we have a round of introductions – who are you, where are you, and what is your interest in being here. Everyone in the room ought to know who else is in the room, especially true with newspapers in the room.

2. Voting in a neighborhood association on a development project is a bad idea. CNI voting requirements have nothing to do with development projects, instead focuses on matters relating to CNI. Encourage neighborhoods to shift from position statements to advisory statements.

3. Shift from vocal comments to written comments. Use colored stickynotes to write notes and post them – pick different colors for different groups, so you can see what people’s comments are and what they say/think, and you can see the origin of the thought. It’s a matter of efficiency, it’s most more efficient to write than to speak.

4. Not thrilled about a public hearing tonight, think we’d be better off with a facilitated conversation. Public hearings are not welcoming – How many people said “Thank you for allowing me to speak”? – that’s not what this should be about – this should be inviting.

Ed Clarke: Membership requirements, seems like renters get left out. [How can Ed be so wrong about this?!?]

Bert: No, it’s a residents association, not a homeowners associations. We welcome renters [I’m a renter and a member of CNI!] and have lot of renter members.

David Waugh: Treasurer of TLNA. Developments he’s seen: City Row on E Johnson, The Colony on Mifflin/Blair, and the Don Miller project at the car lot, that didn’t actually happen. In all three cases, we had good outcomes. Developers in all cases approached neighborhood. Colony – met twice, approved, sailed through. City Row – conflicted with the new neighborhood plan, took a few more meetings, worked with developer to improve it, and to update the plan to reflect the change. Don Miller project ultimately failed, but that was over TIF projects, not over anything with the neighborhood.

What is key is that the city fosters neighborhood development. Sending everyone to the city first, perhaps the neighborhood isn’t well formed, so the city can help organizationally develop the neighborhood at the same time. Focus on making sure all neighborhoods are well prepared. At the same time, we want to make sure that developers are educated and know what they’re going to be looking at. For some neighborhoods, there may be a lot of unknowns if the neighborhood isn’t well-formed, and that may cause delays. City should help developers know that up-front.

City does a good job with planning, planning is key to predictability.  TLNA does a good job with this. Middleton and Verona has a lot of development – is that good planning or smart planning. We don’t’ know, but Madison taxpayers are going to be on the hook for major road expansion for Madison

Joe Clausius: Any examples of a failed project?

David: No, but Stonehouse took a while, in particular because there were 11 houses that were destroyed, that upset people. But we ultimately worked it out because we were well-organized. We document well the process. Important to organize the neighborhood so people don’t show up at the last hour as a squeaky wheel, and anyone who shows up at the last minute we can point them at the process. Important to put resources into neighborhoods to make sure this is possible.

Julia Stone: How much longer did your longer processes take?

David: About 6 weeks. Neighborhood wants things to happen and wants the developers there. We all want it to happen so we put for the effort to make it happen, even as unpaid volunteers. Developers were good about meeting off-hours, TLNA is well-organized, but key that the city helps neighborhoods get organized. If the project doesn’t fit period, then that’s where the city staff should say “this is not going to fit, if you want to try to force it to fit, it will be very expensive, and the outcome is not guaranteed.” If they know that upfront, they can try it. Is that hampering economic development? I don’t think so. The marketing of the perception of the development process is huge – public officials and city staff should be staying positive.

Vicky Selkowe: Have you seen an example of where a commission has referred something back to a neighborhood?

David: No, it’s because we’ve had neighborhood people at the meeting ready to engage with the commission. That means we can resolve issues quickly. Don Miller went right through UDC, because we had at least 3-4 people there.

And with that, we called it a night.