Eric Murphy
March 12 meeting on draft West Area Plan at Vel Phillips Memorial High School
Hundreds of people showed up for a public meeting on a draft plan for Madison's west side.
Inflamed by a draft of a new west-side plan intended to prepare Madison for future growth, residents at a public meeting Tuesday night shouted over city staff and groaned and booed to show their displeasure.
So many residents showed up for the meeting at Vel Phillips Memorial High School that city staff set up maps and other materials from the draft plan in the hallway for residents to view. Inside the meeting room Ald. Bill Tishler eventually took the mic to bring some order to the room, acknowledging that the accommodations were not ideal for the one-on-one feedback between staff and residents that had been envisioned.
“We’re gonna need a bigger room, we’re gonna need a much bigger auditorium,” Tishler told the crowd. “Clearly we have to have this conversation continue. It’s clear that this West Area Plan has some elements that have touched a nerve.”
Tishler posted a video of the meeting to his YouTube channel.
Madison adopted a new planning framework in 2022 that divides the city into 12 planning areas. The plans are intended to be wide-ranging in scope and, once adopted, updated every 10 years. The West Area Plan, one of the first to move forward, covers most of the area between Midvale Boulevard and the Beltline, home to about 30,000 residents.
Some of the residents at the meeting seemed irate over the suggestion in a recent Cap Times opinion piece by publisher Paul Fanlund that a cherished private neighborhood pool could be in danger of redevelopment due to the draft plans.
“So basically what you’re telling us is that in the future if someone wants to buy the Hill Farms Pool area, that you’ve already got it set up [so] a developer can come in and do what they want?” asked one resident.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” replied Ben Zellers, a planner with the city, trying to speak over the din in the room. “People still have to go through a rezoning process that’s outlined in the ordinance.”
To manage expected growth, the city is undertaking “proactive rezoning” — implementing zoning changes before any new development is proposed. These changes are meant to align certain areas with future land uses identified in city plans, often allowing for more density.
“A big consideration over the past years that we’ve been planning is, where are all the new people going to live that we anticipate coming to the city?” urban planner Linda Horvath said.
But some residents worry that would make certain parcels, like the Hill Farms Pool, more enticing to developers. The city is hosting an additional virtual meeting on proactive zoning March 18 at 6 p.m.
The contentious nature of the meeting reflects the clash between competing interests as Madison’s population grows amid a severe housing crisis. City staff say they’ve heard feedback from other residents who support the zoning changes in the West Area Plan — but none who spoke at the meeting were supportive.
The session in the meeting room lasted about an hour and then city staff brought in those in the overflow area for another presentation. Chris Carlsen, a homeowner who has lived off of Whitney Way for 40 years, stayed through the messy first session and the somewhat more orderly second session. He says he and the neighbors who turned out to the meeting were “concerned that [city officials] are just going to run right over the top of the neighborhoods and don’t care what we have to say.”
“They’re looking to proactively rezone a block in our neighborhood,” Carlsen tells Isthmus. There, near the intersection of Whitney Way and Regent Street, two churches sit among a scattering of single-family homes. Noting that churches across the country are increasingly shutting down or being redeveloped, the West Area Plan calls for a change to “neighborhood mixed use” zoning to cover the block.
But Carlsen says he doesn’t want to see what happened at the corner of Whitney Way and Old Middleton Road, where a four-story mixed-use building called the Whitney Reserve was recently built next to smaller homes and opens May 1.
Residents at the meeting also expressed strong opposition to plans for a potential paved and lit pedestrian and bike path through the Sauk Creek Greenway. Some argued that the path would cause the removal of trees and harm wildlife. Zellers responded that the city has also received feedback from residents who are uncomfortable biking on High Point Road, where a painted bike lane currently puts bikes between traffic and parked cars. A Greenway path would provide a place to bike away from traffic.
Zellers noted that there was substantial opposition to the Southwest Commuter Path when it was first proposed. “There were meetings larger than this one — several of them. Neighbors absolutely hated that idea,” he said. “We have some of those projects that have really faced significant opposition, but then become part of the fabric of the community.”
The March 20 deadline for residents to provide written feedback on the draft West Area Plan will “certainly be extended,” says Horvath.
