Neighborhood opposition to a proposed Walgreens on Monroe Street ultimately led to a project that benefits not just the neighborhood but the whole city.
Ken Kopp just wanted to retire. He wasn’t planning to destroy the near west side.
In the winter of 2002 I attended a crowded neighborhood meeting in the West High cafeteria. Ken Kopp had announced that he was closing his iconic neighborhood grocery store on Monroe Street and was planning on selling the property to a developer. So, a meeting was set to hear about their proposal.
Basically, they were pitching a small group of stores anchored by a Walgreens drugstore. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but my neighbors were at their entitled worst. They were rude and sarcastic. There was much clucking and many deep sighs. You would have thought the proposal was for a toxic waste dump and a stockyard.
Needless to say, the proposal was dead on arrival. There were a few other furtive proposals, but nothing the neighborhood approved of, so Ken went ahead and closed his store and the property sat vacant. The neighborhood wanted its grocery store and they would not accept anything less.
A few years later, I was mayor, and a new proposal came in that would include a Trader Joe’s with housing above it. The neighborhood wanted the grocery store and the developer wanted a taller building than would otherwise have been allowed. They agreed to a compromise, but there was still a problem: the numbers just didn’t add up. The per foot lease costs demanded by the development were too rich for a grocery store. So, I supported a tax incremental district to fill the gap. The project got done.
On the one hand, you could view this as a powerful neighborhood, filled with confident people who knew how to fight city hall and developers, getting its way. That would be true. But here are the things that are also true:
The neighborhood got its grocery store and casual meeting spot back, which contributes to neighborhood cohesion.
The Trader Joe’s is the only one in this part of the state and people come from all over to buy stuff there. It’s fair to say it's a regional draw.
The added foot traffic has benefitted all of the locally owned small businesses on Monroe Street.
Because a Walgreens was not built, the independent Neuhauser Pharmacy is still there.
The TIF district paid off in record time, and all that new value went on the tax rolls, benefiting the city, the county and, mostly, the school district.
A tired, single-story building with a parking lot was replaced by a more attractive building.
Over 50 units of owner-occupied housing were added, which gave empty nesters who wanted to stay in the neighborhood a place to land. (It’s where my wife and I landed a couple of years ago.)
Because the building was built when the city’s inclusionary zoning law was still in place, some units of affordable housing were included.
So, while I didn’t like the attitudes of my neighbors, I can’t deny that their unwillingness to accept the first few proposals — and their ultimate willingness to accept more height in the building — led to something that benefits not just their neighborhood but the whole city. And, I wouldn’t be surprised if it also was more lucrative to developers than the original idea would have been.
Why do I bring this up now? Because a proposal before the Madison city council might take away the ability to make it happen in the future. The ordinance amendment would give automatic approval to developments of up to 60 housing units that meet basic zoning requirements. After city staff reviewed the development against the ordinances, permits could be issued without any need to go to the Plan Commission or to meet with neighborhood groups.
The ordinance is being proposed by Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and some of the council’s most progressive members, which is surprising since traditionally the most progressive alders (including the mayor when she was an alder) have been some of the most vociferous advocates for neighborhood input. Less surprising is that it is being supported by the development community.
Why the change? Well, I take the mayor and the alders at their word. They want to make it easier to build more housing and they figure that shortening approval times will cut costs that will be passed on to renters and condo owners. In fact, these proposals are recommendations from recent city reports regarding the city’s housing challenges.
City staff estimates that the proposal could trim 10 weeks or more from the approval process and in the development game time is, most certainly, money.
But how much money and will those savings be passed on to consumers? There’s little way to know. And here’s the most significant issue: Once the ordinance is in place, won’t developers tailor their projects to avoid neighborhood input?
Maybe that’s okay. Maybe what will happen is that this will open up the spigot on a lot more housing developments and all the new stock will have the effect of driving down prices, accomplishing just what the ordinance intends.
But had this ordinance been in place during the Ken Kopp’s controversy, the initial developer would almost certainly have tailored his proposal to avoid that contentious meeting at West High. He could have gone ahead with three stories, 48 units of housing and a Walgreens. Not terrible, but also not nearly as good for the city as what we ended up with after that long and contentious neighborhood process.
Introduced in late January, the proposal to limit neighborhood input is working its way through the process. It is, no doubt, a sincere attempt to meet the city’s workforce housing needs. But we have to ask ourselves if what we might lose in terms of neighborhood input, and the better projects that sometimes come from it, is worth what we could gain in terms of housing. I don’t think it’s a clear choice.
