City of Waukesha Meeting

Last week on Feb 24th, I attended a City of Waukesha Plan Commission meeting, and in many ways, it was an infuriating meeting. There were originally supposed to be two items on the agenda related to affordable housing; one related to Hebron House which was removed, and another on a request to rezone 9.5 acres of land into a Planned Unit Development (PUD) near the Goodwill building.

This rezoning request should not have been controversial given that the planned use in the land-use map for much of that land was medium to high density residential which actually was lower (6.3 units/acre) than the current use of the adjacent residential zones nearby (7.0 units/acre to west, 8.2 units/acre to south).

Many of the objections to this use came from neighbors who objected on the following basis:

1) Increased traffic on adjacent roads
2) Safety issues (crime, I'm assuming as other issues such as ponds & kids can be corrected)
3) Impact of students on school district
4) Existing apartments for rent in area
5) Not what they would prefer to see in that area
6) Unfair share of apartments compared to other areas
7) Housing Mix Ratio study



Keep in mind I'm being kind and assuming those are actual objections not thinly diguised rationales for objecting to "affordable housing" and irrational fears on who would live there and the impact on property values.

To those objecting on basis of traffic, safety and impact on school districts; I say: 21, 000! You live in a city that plans to add up to 21,000 people by 2030. This is just a drop in the bucket compared to that. So this is NOT a valid objection.

Some pointed to the fact there seemed to be many existing apartments for rent in the area, which do seem like a valid reason. However, I'm told that the majority of those apartments are two-bedrooms while the new townhomes have 3 & 4 bedrooms. Additionally, there are ALWAYS some turnover in apartment rentals, so there will always be some apartments for rent. In those difficult economic times, there's probably more turnover than usual. There was an apartment manager who testified that there was a need for more larger apartments; that he had to turn away families that were too large for the 2-bedrooms.

Others complained that they were somehow led to believe that a senior housing development would be the eventual use of that property, and strongly stated that this should be how the property is used. Some also said they'd prefer to see either lower-densityresidential housing or even office buildings. Others also talked about feeling it was not fair that so many apartments are in their neighborhood compared to the rest of the city. To this, I say that the City developed a land use plan that evaluated what the appropriate land uses and zoning for parts of the city were. Because high-density residential is seen as a way to provide buffer to commercial areas & busy roads, that's how they anticipated this land being used. The City of Waukesha's land use plan shows this being med-to-high density residential with a portion being commercial. When you zone something, you cannot say specifically what kind of building will be in there.

Plus the market for senior housing is really soft right now. That's what happens when communities allow affordable housing only when they're for older people.

Most of the property is currently zoned as T-1 meaning it's a temporary zoning until a zoning request is made. As the city staff pointed out, the owner & the developer are making the zoning requests; there is the issue of property rights. The City should not tell an owner that he/she cannot develop property when it matches what the land use plan says it can be used for.

But ultimately, a big part of the discussion was the ad hoc housing mix report which suggested increasing the target from the current ratio of 55% single-family to 45% toward 65% single-family to 35%. With the current slump in the housing market, it will be a while before there are many new residential developments. With a projected addition of 21,000, again, this proposed development is just a drop in the bucket, so it is not realistic-or fair-to ask owners of property that are medium-to-high density not be able to develop their property.

My criticism of the ad hoc housing mix ratio is that it virtually guarantees that very little accessible housing units (in the form of multi-family units) will be added to the market, making it very difficult for people with mobility disabilities to find housing in the City.

Some of the discussion by the Plan Commission focused on the appearance and content of the proposed building. To that, I say; really? REALLY? Does the Plan Commission review every single-family home to make sure they have adequedate storage space, to make sure sure the appearance was to their liking? How did they ever get anything done, reviewing the single-family homes one-by-one? Oh, I'm sorry? What's that? They don't? You mean they're holding multi-family housing to different standards than single-family housing? Oh, my!

The Mayor was the only one who ultimately voted in favor of the rezoning request. So the developer is out of thousands of dollars on this effort because the City Planning Commission decided to not allow a use for the land that was permittable under the land use plan. There's really very little explanation for this other than the fact this was a tax-credit housing development. This despite the testimony of a realtor that the standards for housing funded by tax credits are actually more strict than your average apartment building.

By contrast, there was very little discussion on approving a privately owned apartment for Carroll University students. I don't remember the words "housing mix ratio" being used during this agenda item.