Tommy Washbush / Freepik assets
An illustration of an F-35 with a soundwave behind it, near some construction.
In my eight years as mayor I learned that there was one unquestionable truth. In any dispute between the city of Madison and Dane County, the city was always right.
But sometimes the city was less right than at other times. A case in point is the current disagreement over housing development near the Dane County airport. The Raemisch Farm project would provide about 900 units of much needed housing, some of it owner-occupied. City policymakers and staff believe the need for housing outweighs the noise problems associated with the new F-35 fighter jets that come and go from the airport. The county believes the noise makes the housing development inadvisable.
I don’t think there are any bad guys in this story. The city is right that we need a lot more housing and the county is right that the noise is no small problem. But on balance, not surprisingly, I come down on the side of the city.
The F-35s are indisputably very loud. While I wasn’t a strong opponent of the F-35s, I did think that on balance we would have been better off without them. I also didn’t think it mattered what I, or anybody else, thought. The Pentagon had reasons for wanting them here (which they weren’t going to disclose) and they were going to place them in Madison no matter what anybody said. So, it was always going to be a question of managing the noise, not avoiding it.
And, in truth, the noise comes in bursts over short periods. It’s not great but it is manageable. The developer has promised sound insulation for the new units, which should help when residents are indoors, but of course residents won’t be huddled up in their homes all the time. So, when a resident is outside and an F-35 takes off, that won’t be pleasant.
On the other hand, according to an ongoing noise study, only a small part of the development area is subject to noise levels that are considered unhealthy. And, of course, nobody will be forced to live there and there should be full disclosure about the noise. Every buyer and renter should go into this with their ears wide open. We should expect that the market will work and the developer may need to lower prices so that rational consumers can weigh the noise versus price. Theoretically this should produce more affordable housing.
I suppose we can get philosophical here. How much of a nanny state do you want? Do you want to say that there will be no housing here at all to protect consumers from themselves or do you want to produce housing and let fully informed individuals weigh the costs and benefits? For myself, I’ve become more of a free market guy and somewhat less enamored of regulation. I’m not quite Milton Friedman, but I’m more attuned to free market arguments than I used to be.
There’s also the environmental considerations. While the Raemisch site is good farmland, it’s farmland that is in the city and is no longer viable in terms of production. The development will be relatively dense and served by city water and sewer and, crucially, by transit. Better to develop here than in most other places in the county.
Here’s the main thing. Within Dane County we need to produce something like 7,000 housing units every year just to keep up with demand and we’re currently producing only 5,000. Not keeping up with demand means higher prices and, for those who can’t afford to buy a home, it means they delay the ability to start building long-term wealth. So, if we’re going to produce more housing we’re going to have to make hard choices — including more density in currently sprawling neighborhoods, taller buildings in places that haven’t had them before and building near the airport.
This is a closer call than usual, but once again the city is right.
And on a related matter...the city council voted 10-9 last week in support of the Plan Commission's recommendation to deny demolition permits that would have allowed a mixed-use development to move ahead on State Street next to Elizabeth Link Peace Park. Even if a simple majority had voted to overturn the commission it wouldn’t have been enough. The elected council shouldn’t need a supermajority to overturn the recommendation of an unelected commission.
[Editor's note: This post was corrected to note that the city council vote was in support of the Plan Commission's recommendation.]
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
