Housing & Water in Waukesha

This Daily Reporter article (via The Political Environment) discusses Waukesha's thirst for water. Before I get into that and its impact on housing, let's quickly review what's happening here (keeping in mind I'm no expert).


As some of you may have heard, the Great Lakes Compact is a pact between the Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces to protect the water in the Great Lakes. Part of that pact is that "...it also requires that member states of the Great Lakes Commission to begin regulating their own water use, and to promote conservation of the lakes."


Since Waukesha lies on the border of the Great Lakes Basin and with water quality woes, many feel that Waukesha should be allowed to draw on the Great Lakes water. The city government apparently is planning with the assumption that they will receive the water (despite the fact that other states & provinces can veto any diversion plan). Toward this end, they're spending an impressive amount of money on studies & lobbyists to justify the diversion plan.


Waukesha is planning on drawing significantly more water-an amount enough to add an estimated 21,900 people to the population! Their logic being that they only want to go to the Great Lakes Commission once, so it's better to ask for a lot now than to try & get incremental increases down the road.


The City of Waukesha's current plans call for mostly more residential development, and with a current ban on multi-family housing, we're going to see more subdivisions of homes with large yards (requiring more water), ending up with more sprawl. This does not offer more housing options in Waukesha for those who are older, have disabilities, or want to reduce the amount of driving he/she does. With sprawling subdivisions, the obligatory big-box stores and strip malls, this sounds like the exactly kind of thing the Great Lakes Compact was designed to contain.


And the depressing thing is, the money spent trying to justify this could've been better spent on actual programs & services that would help the people in the community.