You hear me? Everybody, I'll call to order our Monday, June 2nd, 2025 uh special meeting of the Madison Plan Commission. And we have observed that um everyone is here. So, we decided not to call roll since we this is our informal meeting. So, thank thanks everybody for being here and being on time. Um, our first agenda item is a time for public comment for items not on the formal agenda. And I think we don't have any registrance for that item. Um, so we will move to disclosures and recusals. Does anybody have uh disclosures or recusals to make regarding any items on the agenda today? All right. Seeing none, um, we'll do our reminder of the schedule of meetings. We have a meeting next Monday with a tight quorum. So, if you didn't already call out, make sure that Megan knows if you suddenly can't come. Um, and then we'll meet again two weeks after that on June 23rd. And then our July meetings are Monday, July 7th and uh Monday, July 28th. And um all of our regular meetings are virtual meetings at 5:30. Um, our next special meeting in person will be Thursday, October 16th at 5:00 p.m. and we should plan to meet here um in the same room. All right. Um so this is our special items of b of business and our um item two on the agenda is legisar 88387 and um Kate from our council's office is here to give us some updates on land use law in Wisconsin and other legal refreshers. And I will, in case anybody is bored by any of this, I will totally own that this was my idea because I always want to know what the legal standards are. And um so I hope that this will at least be enlightening for everybody as we um continue with our work and and make sure that when we make decisions that we're clear about the reasons that we're making them and we're um creating good documentation for members of the public to understand and our process in a transparent way. So, that's that's the goal. And uh you can yell at me afterward if uh if you don't like it. So, thanks. Thanks, Kate. Hi, everyone. Um for those of you who I haven't had a chance to meet yet, uh my name is Kate Smith. I'm an assistant city attorney. Um I've been with the city attorney's office for about 13 years now. Um I actually started in law school as a legal intern and continued my career afterwards. Um I have been doing land use law with the city for about 3 years now before I was the um a municipal prosecutor and I ended as a lead prosecutor um with the team. So we are doing a lot of information very shallow shallowly. Um so please feel free to to stop and ask questions um or or ask any follow-ups. I'm always available to all of you as a resource um even if I'm not at the meetings. Um, I usually come to the special meetings and then to um the regular meetings as requested or if I anticipate that I'll be needed at the request of staff. Um, and so typically if you think you might need me or or checking in with staff to see if I'll be there, Megan is usually the first person to ask. She coordinates with me about when I'll when I'll be at the meetings. Um, but yeah. So, and then otherwise I'm available probably the easiest to reach over email. Um, the other thing I will say just in case I get to work with any of you over the summer, we have a um law school intern who might be appearing at some meetings or coming to plan commission. Um, she's doing about uh she wasn't able to make it today, but she's focusing a lot of her time um on planning and zoning. So, she may she may pop into meetings or if you have if we have a Zoom call set up, she might be the other person in this screen. All right. So, let's go ahead and get started. Like I said, we're going to cover a lot and uh we expanded it a little bit past and talking um to Megan and when she spoke with Emily um beyond just kind of the legal landscape to include some refreshers on um the the training that we do for most boards, commissions, and committees. So, it may be a repeat for some of you, but it never hurts to have a good refresher. Um, especially since, as you are probably aware, plan commission is a board that gets appealed a fair amount. So, it's never it never hurts to have a have a reminder for some of the general BCC information. Um, so let's do a quick overview. Um, just a quick seven topics. Um, first we'll talk about the kind of general land use legal framework in Wisconsin, the role of the plan commission. Um, one of your jobs and jobs I think is often the most challenging is acting as a quasi judicial body. So, we'll go over what that means in the best practices and then we'll end with more general knowledge which would be ethics um the ethics code I should say, Robert's rules, refreshers, open meetings law and very briefly on public records. Um, so think it's important to to understand that as well. So, um, I would like to start by grounding how Madison is is able to enact land use regulations. So, for those of you who um didn't get the the privilege to go to law school um and may may not have remembered your history, so in the United States, each state is considered a sovereign entity and with that comes inherent general powers. For example, the power to tax or in most relevant to you, police powers, which is generally the ability of the state to compromise an individual's rights, such as their property rights, for the greater good of the community. Cities exist as creatures of the state, which means they have the powers granted to them by the state. These are called enabling laws or the specific statutory authority to do x, y, or z. Wisconsin is also a home rule state, which means that in the state constitution, there exists a presumption that unless specifically prohibited, regulated, or preempted by the state, cities are free to determine their own local affairs. Um, and a notable example of preeemption that often comes up here is um and impacts the work that you are in this case unable to do is municipal rent control, which is explicitly prohibited by state law. And so while the home rule constitutional provision reads quite like a broad grant of power, court cases in Wisconsin have slowly eroded municipal autonomy in favor of the state. Now um this is kind of generally speaking a trend that you saw through more of a more conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court as the balance of the court has shifted that may become less so. But at least um in the work that you do and when you think of we think about zoning or land use, we ground our land use authority in specific enabling statutes because they are substantial grants to local authority in Wisconsin. So what and as a reminder, those are um specific state statutes that give you the authority to do the work that you do. There are separate enabling laws for comprehensive planning, zoning, and subdivision regulations to name kind of the three big ones that interact with your work. Um, and so I'm sure that you all know this, but as a good refresher, I would like to just kind of touch on what each three are and how they are different. So, first planning, and you'll get a real good primer on this for the second two items on your agenda, is a look at how the pieces of a community fit together both for its current residents, but also for forward-looking development to achieve the policy goals of the community. So, when you do that function, you might that's when you discuss ideas behind the comprehensive plan and things like that. Um, zoning is a specific set of rules and regulations that identify different districts within a community and regulate the use or form of property within those districts and it is one tool used to implement a larger community plan. Finally, subdivision laws are regulations that address the quality of development. So to explain how zoning and subdivision are a little bit different, zoning relates to the type of building development which can take place on a piece of land and subdivision laws relate to the way in which a land is divided and made ready for the building development. And between the two there is no hierarchy. They come from two different enabling or sources of authority within the statutes. Um, all right. So, land use regulation and zoning in particular is interesting to me and hopefully to all of you because it is an area of law and regulation that directly interacts with the tension between personal liberty and the infringement of the government on individual rights. And I think that that is often why you see so much litigation in the land use space. So foundational to our country's founding was the elevation of individual rights. The constitution protects property right through the fifth and to the state the 14th amendments. And of course I would be remiss here to not acknowledge that very few were afforded individual and property rights of the country's founding and how those exclusion have lasting impacts today and often policy decisions that you all re um wrestle with when you make zoning um and and planning choices and recommendations today. So in other words, land use regulations allow the government to infringe on personal rights for the greater good. And so as society and culture evolve and change, so does the understanding of the greater good. And so when zoning lives in the tension between the individual's rights to do what they want on their own private property and the state control over private property, I think you'll understand why zoning is really did and continues to play such a large role in major cultural and societal movements. The development of zoning in of itself was a response to a major cultural and societal movement which was the response to the rapid growth of cities during the industrial revolution. Rural zoning also developed in response to to movements and stressors as well. And some of the first land use laws in Wisconsin involved rural land development. Earliest in fact predated state formation. But since we are a city, I'll focus on urban zoning. And in Wisconsin, urban zoning began in Milwaukee. By the late 1800s, Milwaukee was one of the major US urban centers. And by I think this is interesting, so I'll make you all learn this. By the 1920 census, Milwaukee was the 13th largest city in the US and ranked the second densest city after New York City. And during so during this period of rapid growth in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, there came challenges with sanitation, safety, and all the things that come with urbanization. But there was little urban land use regulation at the state or local level. So what folks would do is they would have residential development next to a slaughter house or an industrial development. And so by the late 1800s, the Wisconsin legislators started drafting limited laws that let local municipalities control some land use. This is the beginning of the enabling laws, right, that we talked about before. Um, in 1889, in response to the problem of urban fires, including the Great Chicago Fire, Wisconsin legislators enabled cities to regulate buildings in respect to their fire safety. And in 1914, Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to adopt a statewide building code. Um, but no residential code or zoning codes or enabling laws existed at that time. Rapid and unregulated residential growth in cities and the issues around urbanization were happening all over in the US. In 1916, New York City was the first city to adopt a zoning ordinance. Wisconsin quickly followed and passed a law in 1917 that allowed municipalities to pass the local zoning ordinances. So, this would be the start of the enabling laws for zoning. I should note that at the time zoning and planning were considered the same thing. there wasn't didn't really break off to two separate fields until after the World War II building boom. Then it kind of became two um fields of study. Um so when Milwaukee adopted 1921, shortly after it was adopted, a landowner sued the city of Milwaukee alleging that the um ordinance violated the state and federal constitutions or the authority of the state to regulate private property. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was one of the first state supreme courts to uphold the constitutionality of zoning. In their opinion, the justices said that the general welfare was the permissible reason to overcome individual property rights. The opinion, which I think is quite of the time, also discussed the role of zoning to preserve property values, something we all wrestle with still today. the and the greater good of allowing fresh air and controlled density which is interesting to note came only a year or so after the Spanish flu pandemic which was understood to be exacerbated by dense urban living conditions. So I think you can see through that history that zoning is responding to the cultural forces that are being shaped that are happening at the time. Um and so three years after the Wisconsin case, the US Supreme Court tackled the issue. They cited the Wisconsin case for the support of the constitutionality of zoning. And just like this kind of very brief story about how zoning became a concept of law, you see zoning in tackling the industrial revolution, the public health challenges, the postworld war II building boom and redlinining, the 1970s rise of modern environmental movement and how zoning is can save or not save green spaces. Zoning plays a major role in all of these. So I think you won't be surprised when you think about how crucial zoning is today to issues about housing, affordability, environmental justice, and also why there is so much tension in this because individuals don't like to think they can't do what they want to do about their property. They don't want the state to do it. So um with that, let's move on to the role you all play in this in this. All right. So, like I said before, um this uh Wisconsin statute 6223 is the enabling law that um and the role in the scope of the plan commission is determined by both state statutes and Madison ordinance. Um I'll I'll go over the state statutes first. Um so under state statutes, a municipality may form a plan commission and if it chooses to, there are requirements about the formation and composition of that commission. Um, and the state outlines several responsibil the state statute, excuse me, outlines several responsibilities and powers the commission has listed in the slide and that you are all familiar with as well because you are used to doing these things during your regular meetings. One of the major functions of the plan commission both in our ordinances but under state statute which our ordinances copy is to help develop a municipality's comprehensive plan and continue to make recom and um continue to make recommendations for land use actions after the adoption of the comprehensive plan that have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. Under state statute, there are very specific requirements for what a comp plan must include and how a wider community participates in its development. Um, and beginning in January 2020 under state law, new or amended zoning, land use, and official mapping ordinances. So, the change to the zoning district must be consistent with the comprehensive plan. That language is also echored in our statutes, but um it uh it's grounded, of course, in in the state statute. One of your other functions is in land divisions. Um, another state statute that interacts with the work that you do. Um, under state law, a municipality can choose to regulate its own land divisions or not. If they choose not to, the state statutes has requirements for how the land divisions proceed. um if they opt to have local control, they are able to enact more um uh more restrictive land use divisions than those are in the state. There are some exceptions that don't really interact here that that they we can't be more restrictive of. Um but really there are very few requirements from the state level other than uh timeline for how quickly a municipality must act on land division um applications is the primary one. You're often told about a 90-day clock that comes from the state statute. We can't um change the timing on that. Um and so in ter for for your purposes the requirements and processes are contained in MGO623 and the plan commission uses those standards to either make a recommendation to the council or act on it themselves for some applications. Uh so those are the principal enabling statutes that you work under. Um and then in addition, the Madison general ordinances assign um plan commission powers. So in Madison, the plan commission reviews and approves conditional use applications. Uh there is some statutory guidance here which I'll go over in a later slide, but um the Madison chooses to assign that role to the plan commission. In some communities, the zoning board of appeals reviews and approves conditional use um applications. Um, and then there are some other ordinance specific functions including the demolition ordinance which I won't go over unless there are questions since you all were recently involved in it. Um, the creation of the UDC as a subsidiary creation of the plan commission. There also some work that you do with the landmarks commission. Um, and of note the landmarks commission also has its own enabling statute separate from zoning. there is um enabling statutes about local control over historic preservation. So in some respects so landmarks commission has its own draw of power that is separate from the work that um that zoning the separate from the draw of power for zoning. Um so in the performance of your duties you undertake two types of government action. The first where you are given the most discretion are the legislative functions. These are adoptions of policies and ordinances. So for example, the recommendations you make to council about the text and map amendments and comp plan changes. The other category is quasi judicial actions which while you still have discretion, you have less than when you are functioning in your legislative capacity. um quasi judicial functions I think most notably to you all include the approval of conditional use applications. So in in terms of most discretion to to least discretion um you have the most discretion in deciding what the standards are. Those are you make the recommendations to council, they adopt them by ordinance and then you have less discretion when you are taking those adopted standards and applying them to a specific set of facts and circumstances. Um so when you are asked as a body to act in a like a judge apply the law to the facts or the facts the law think I flipped that um you have less discretion than when you are deciding or making a recommendation about what that law says. So, your primary legislative function is to make recommendations for zoning text and map amendments. Um, those are contained in uh Madison general ordinances. Um, the I'm sorry, the standards are in 28.182. Um, zoning text amendments are the ones that you actually see when you look up in chapter 28. We haven't really described these that well, but they're actually what like the law says. So like the demolition ordinance and then map amendments are also ordinances that are adopted by council but those are changes to the official map or changing to the zoning districts. Um there is uh um and like I said generally speaking the council is the deciding body there but you make the recommendations. So now we're going to talk a little bit about conditional use approvals because for that you are the deciding body for this and you act in your quasi judicial function. Um so as you all are familiar for every zoning district there are list of uses that are not um excuse me there are a list of uses that are not suited to all locations districtwide but may be allowed if they meet the specific conditions set out in the ordinance. Those are the conditional uses and you review the applications to see if a proposed use in a specific location can meet the approval standards laid out in the zoning code. Um, this is separate from other standards like the supplemental regulations which lay out requirements that have to be met independent of the plan commission's review. Um, there are also often nonzoning requirements that need to be met like storm water regulations, fire safety regulations, and those are applied to the use outside of all of your jurisdiction. So, um there could be um there often will be information presented to you during the staff report, but there's often a separate list of regulations that come from from different agencies. So what is challenging um and I say that because I don't I've heard a lot of lawyers in a lot of like planning conference and and and continuing education try to talk about conditional uses um and not have a lot of great explanations for it. is that since 2017, there is increasingly less discretion afforded municipalities from the state over local CU approvals. Um, this stemmed from a uh legislative response to a Wisconsin state supreme court case and for the first time put into state statute the when and how municipalities should approve conditional use applications. The challenge is that often the statutory language has a little bit of something for everyone and not a whole lot of clear direction. And so, uh, but generally speaking, conventional legal analysis of this and also how court cases have interpreted the law post 2017 is that this is considered a significant curtail of municipal discretion for conditional uses. Um, and the way that the law was written, and I should have given this to Megan for this meeting, but I've written a kind of a pretty I think digestible memo about this that we upload for things, and I'll have um you circulate it if it's not already in all of your inboxes from the other times I've mentioned over the years. Um, but the when the ordinance what I'm sorry, what the statute said when it was adopted is that if the applicant meets or agrees to meet the requirements and conditions in a zoning district, um, then the, uh, conditional use application shall be granted, but it also says that you have discretion over granting conditional uses. Uh, and so I think about it this way that kind of when you think about the spectrum of discretion, the city has the most discretion in deciding if a use is allowed, not allowed or conditional in a zoning district and where that zoning district is in the city. But then once the city has made that decision, there is less discretion in reviewing the specific application. And so if the project meets the criteria we've decided it has to meet then it needs to be approved. Um but as I'm sure all of you are familiar with the sometimes the standards and the criteria are not clear about how it will fall. So um this is certainly an area that is um going to continue to be litigated. I think I this like all I can tell you is like there isn't going to be a right answer. Sometimes there's a couple of different right answers. Most likely um the cases that like or the situations that you think have only one right answer are often not seen that way by the person with the application. So even when you quote unquote seem to have made the right answer, it could still get appealed. Even when you're wrestling with a lot of different right answers, maybe those aren't the cases that get appealed to to to common counsel. Um, and when when I talk about in in just a second um, quasi judicial bodies and the best practices, that's really what we ask you to do. We ask you not to always there isn't a right answer. And so I can't provide to you often like how exactly the law is going to tell you what to do, but I can't tell you how to make a clean a comprehensive record that is reviewable. Um, so and I recognize that it is hard to make decisions when the law tells you you have discretion, but you don't, but you do, which is kind of what conditional uses are. Um, I mean, if I had a crystal ball, like maybe will there be some court cases that make that clarify this perhaps because this is relatively speaking. Um there was decades of analysis about how how much discret how municipalities had a ton of discretion for conditional uses. The legislature said uh-uh no wrote a law. The law like I said I think can be read in different ways. And so I suspect that there will be more cases that I will um might say what might interpret what that law says. for the time being. Um, the like like I said, the conventional legal analysis is is that this does have less discretion than plan commissions did 10 years ago when making these decision when making these determinations. Um, and so we I'm going to take just one minute or two to talk about an example um that from the plan commission that we had ourselves um a couple years back. And I want to say this as I said that they're like you're they're going to get appealed, folks. Like these are cases that get appealed. People don't like being told what they can and can't do with their property, especially both both individual properties and also developments when there's money behind it, right? Like people are going to appeal these. So, um there is nothing wrong with having your decisions appealed. It's and and and both for that reason like the practical how folks think about what they want to do with their property piece but also it is it is designed as part of the process. It is like these are designed to be appealable decisions and reviewed by courts. So, um, so we had a, um, a conditional use that was denied for a car wash in the to the applicant appealed the appeal and the applicant argued to the reviewing court and the reviewing court agreed that they and the reviewing court when it reviewed it agreed that they had met the conditions and requirements in the zoning code and should not have been denied. Um, and I like this example. We've had other ones that I don't like cuz they're not like as clean of an example to to make my point here. But the um there was a at the time there was a lot of public testimony about surrounding the car wash over concerns about a perceived um potential for increase of traffic. But the evidence in the record did not support that. There were no traffic study reports. The application material showed plans to mitigate increased traffic. And so the court wrote in there that wrote that the public concern was not enough. And since the ma and since that was what they interpreted to be one of the major the major reason for denying the CU um we did not meet the state law requirements and the CU was overturned. Um and this is just my good example. We have other examples where the court has made decisions based on a really robust record that they just didn't agree with. Right? So sometimes things don't go our way, sometimes they do. But um the this is this is like I said um I think a good thing that can transition into the best practices for you as a quasi judicial body because I like to encourage BCC's and especially the plan commission to take to to expect their cases to be appealed and to see them as potentially learning opportunities for the next time we have a challenge. ing one. Sometimes there's more lessons than others, but generally speaking, this is an area, like I said, that has the most robust appellet practice from my office, probably with the exception of taxes, right? People are worried about their property and their taxes. So, they're they're going to appeal those decisions. So um so as you're acting as a quasi judicial body um there are some best practice tips that you can use. So when the court reviews your decisions, it reviews the record of the case including the transcripts and submitted materials. Um and the reasons that they do this and the reason why there is there are appeals to begin with is tying back to due process. These are people's these are individuals or businesses um constitutional rights that are impacted by the decisions that you make. And so as a result, due process both in a few different ways applies. So generally speaking, due process is the basic concept of fairness. And it ties back, like I said, to the beginning of the presentation when we're talking about the decisions you make impacting um a government's ability to infringe on on private rights. So the um there are staff takes care of a lot of the the the kind of nuts and bolts of due process in terms of notice and things like that. So um for the interest of time we're going to move on to the um how so when a decision is appealed it is reviewed both legislative and quasi judicial is reviewed the same way through something called cersurai review and that is when a court reviews the decision made by a government body um to see if the government body followed the law both state and local um and if it acted reasonably and not arbitrary and if the evidence before it supported its decision. So those are kind of what you want to make sure is in the record, right? Because that's how the court is going to anal um analyze if uh the decision was was reasonable. So, the best practices and I um is is kind of summed up with don't make conclusionary statements, but explain why you're drawing your conclusion. So, you can do it in a motion, you can do it in your discussion, you can cite specifics. Um, so in accordance with the materials in the staff report or as I heard and and I um some of this um I think feels a little counterintuitive because when we make decisions in our brain, our brain takes a lot of information and kind of jumps to the conclusion but doesn't and so it's not quite natural. And for those of you who the longer you serve on BCC's I think you get more practice into it. But explaining the how you got to your conclusion can sometimes feel like like I mean for a lack of like dumb like you're why am I explaining why it seems so obvious why am I explaining why I'm doing it. Well the explanation is required because you are a government body making a decision. And so um and and that specificity is really important. Um the specificity can be coming from and it's not just I I I say this it's not just paring the staff report. There can be compelling information presented to you in opposition to materials in the staff report and evidence presented. Right? It's not your job to to rubber stamp the staff report. And so don't feel like that when you are making your explanations, you cannot also cite to um what someone said during public comment or during public testimony. But if you um and and as you kind of engage in the practice of explaining it will feel I think more natural. But the reason we need this is because when a court in this case like is going to review an appeal, they're going to look at what you've actually said. And so if it doesn't say um I have voted to if you um like I have voted to approve because I find that standard 5 has been met. Unanimous. Great. We will move on. It should be I in standard five is met because there was evidence about now I'm pulling a hypothetical standard five but there was evidence about the traffic patterns that um there was a uh information about the how the project interacted with its nextoor neighbors and its next door neighbors was a residential development and this is a pretty substantial commercial development and I don't think so I mean you really have to kind of draw it out and unfortunately you have to draw it out for every single decision that you make for the most part because those that are going to it is not always predictable what's appealed I often look at things and I think that's the one that's going to take up a bunch of time and it never is and something a dark horse from from a unanimous um approval on is is appealed and then we just don't have that much of a record um to examine um or I'm sure the court doesn't have as much record to examine Kate. Yeah. So would that have helped on the development on Speedway that got um appealed in court was it two years ago where they were talking part of it was the parking parking was like in front and that was like the garage. Um that was an interesting one that I have um I'm happy to kind of talk to you about in more in more detail. Uh generally speaking um the more detail that you put in is better. um the case and I I I I won't talk about it cuz I I um it was so specific is that um I found that decision to be somewhat unpredictable because they didn't really follow how our ordinance talks about parking. Um which is a great example of you can't you can't predict the outcome. sometimes cases are going to get appealed um that you don't expect the the the decision to go that way. So, we can talk a little bit about that later, but that was that was a bit of an unusual one and that was why Commission Mendes it was not on my example of how to tie in to what a conditional use application should be. Um quick question and maybe sorry if you said this but does the Cersei area review is that Dane County Circuit Court or is there something else in between that does? It's a Dane County Circuit Court. So, the um uh generally speaking, um that also will be the last place. Most things are not appealed to the Court of Appeals. In Wisconsin, you have the Dayne County Circuit Court, then you have the Court of Appeals, then you have the um Wisconsin Supreme Court. it gets exponentially more um funneled to how much goes to the Supreme Court. Um appeals uh court of appeals are um expensive and timeconuming but they review everything. They might just not they might not write what's called a published decision. So it might not create case law but someone will review it if they if you so want to someone will review your case. Um the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a body that can make a decision whether or not to accept a case. It's the same thing for the fed the um United States Supreme Court. Uh and then I don't practice in the seventh circuit which is also the federal circuit that we're under. I might be jumping the gun. I'm thinking about Robert's rules but I mean when somebody makes a motion they I get that they should be deliberate and and address the things you're talking about. And sometimes in discussion, somebody else will add another point and we'll all go, "Oh, yeah." without officially amending a motion. Uh, that part makes sense, but we don't know if the motion is going to pass. So, I'm wondering what does the court look at? What if there's a motion that doesn't pass? Do they not consider any of that discussion or the points made there? They only consider the the things that were in support of the motion that passed. Um I'm I'm wonder I'm feeling like we could spend a lot of time uh that's a great question to every single thing. I'm so glad you asked. The court considers everything. So all of your discussion goes into support your decision-m um including the questions that you ask of registrants, the questions that you ask of staff. Um the court doesn't um the the court doesn't expect like a gut body to be perfect, right? It's not that you have to have this like perfect section right under the and there's all of these cases that kind of often lean towards giving the benefit of the doubt to the government bodies usually even if they're not as explicit as they should be. Um pretend you don't hear that because I want you to be as explicit um as you can be. But yeah, the entire all of your conversation is part of it. And then one more question. Oh yeah. Are we skirting danger with the consent agenda? Not I think that that is something that Megan and I want to talk about more because I you know I'm I uh I guess don't ever ask an attorney because we're always nervous about everything. Um, but it also Yeah, don't give everyone don't give anyone ideas. Commissioner Hack, um, sorry, I'll do you Gare. Yeah, Kate, a little more on the Cersiari reviews. Could you just talk a little bit about the form that a decision by the court might take in such a case? you know, for I guess it could be just uh to send it back to the plan commission or the council and and say, "Please consider these additional factors that you apparently didn't consider, but that that's the kind of thing I'm looking for as to what form they might take." Um, so it depends on the action that they are reviewing, but generally speaking, there are three choices that a court can make. can um uphold, reverse or remand for more of a robust record to be created. Um there are some set of so depending on the prong of cersari review that is implicated. So you kind of don't get a um second go if you've if the court has determined you've denied kind of substantial due process rights for the applicant. Then it will um if it if the court determines that sometimes often more pro like um pro processy due process has been implicated, they might review they might remand it to have you flesh out your record. There's kind of there's some it depends. Um the I would say that the other thing to know because this comes up um is that Cersei review does not stop a land use application from being able to be um to move forward. So um it is not a uh it's not a legal process that includes something like includes an injunction. So in the court is not going to say you if you applicant have been granted your conditional use permit and it's been appealed by a eligible pelant like the neighbors or whomever. Um the court says you can go forward at your own risk. You might be fine or you might not be fine but there's not an order given to us as a municipality to not continue to process the permits. Um and so sometimes we have circumstances where like the speedway um where the conditional use was um overturn was originally granted by the planning commission. It was overturned by the court because of the route that they took. The court did not remand it back to you to consider. It just said that this conditional use would have been denied. But because under our ordinances, you can reapply for your same conditional use within a year. It then ended up back in front of you um with some lessons learned about what to put in a record. Maybe that was from the court's um court's um uh opinion. Um and then it was not pursued past that. the conditional use was kind of regranted to the applicant and then they never and then the same people didn't appeal it. So there um uh we try not to do that but there are land use kind of decisions for all of the real life development private concerns etc. people might choose to move forward with their land use application even if it's in the process of being appealed and they have they are able to do that. Yeah. Could you um just going to talk in my mic for the recording could you just confirm you noted before about making findings that it could site staff reports or other submitted materials. So for example, could something like, you know, in accordance with the details outlined in the staff report, you know, make a finding about standards being met based on what's documented in a written report or should the commission then also reiterate the gist of what's in that report? Um, does that make sense? It does. I think that it's fine to do either if the staff report actually says what you think it says. Um, which we are all guilty of sometimes not maybe reading or or also not even saying is maybe that in you've read the staff report, you've listened to a lot of information, you've thought about it and then you might think what's in the staff report is actually something that was given during public testimony or came out during discussion. So it is okay to cite to the staff report in that case but um make sure it says that what make sure there is in fact the information there that you're thinking supports the standards. So yeah um I was curious I know you mentioned that in you know their statute that limits um you know rent control. I was curious like is does the city have the ability to create a standard in regards to affordability or prioritizing affordability? So the statute that um says so it says that I should pull it up um Megan if you it's very um the uh um so the statute says that the city can't impose rent controller regulations unless there exists an independent contractual private contractual relationship. ship between the parties. And so what um for example, what we have in our um bonus districts for for if there's um rent controlled affordability is that outside of any decisions that you all make, there exists like a a contract between the city and the development team to decide to opt in to having rent controlled units. and then they get this um bonus of additional units. Um so it's been our interpretation so far that that doesn't run counter to the state statute. um and is another so the state statute limiting um rent control actually came out came from a case that um initially that originated in Madison's rent control ordinance. Um the legislature resp the legislature responded um with this statutory preeemption. Um it's I think and with any sort of statutory preeemptions or um legal analysis of what those statutes say, those do change as the political viewpoints of the court and the legislature change. So there may be um there may be different rules that we are operating under in the future. There there also may not be but currently it's only if there is a private contractual relationship independent of um the zoning. Can I ask a followup that um do you think of like afford is affordability synonymous with rent control or do you think there would be opportunities? I don't I can also let it go. No, I think it's a good it's a good question because I think um well, it's just a good question, but as uh Kate noted in the legislative section that specifically says that municipalities may not regulate the amount of rent or fees charged for the use of a residential unit, it refers to the history of this change and talks about Madison's ordinance which was about the number of units that had to be available at a certain level of affordability. And that was what prompted this. Um, and I I kind of would say one other thing is that the um how that may or may be interpreted going forward is like again I think kind of not always an answer that I that I know. And some and and for um example, a a few years back there was um a policy decision to do um bird glass bird safe glass zoning that um was we weren't sure if we could do it under the zoning code or the the uniform commercial building code. Um and it was uh a policy decision to to to kind of put it up as a test balloon. So, um I don't uh and and and I kind of am just like speaking out. I think with the composition of the court changing and potentially redistricting changing the legisl like there may be other opportunities that are kind of made as kind of strategic legal decisions by the policy makers going forward. All right. Um, we're only halfway through. I'll I'll zoom. Okay. So, the uh um I'm going to go fast now. Um so, the ethics code you all were probably trained at in some capacity. Uh and my takeaway from that is that if you think you should disclose, disclose. Not all disclosures mean you need to recuse yourself. And um a if you have a question, ask me. There is nothing wrong with sending me an email leading up to the meeting to ask if for X, Y, or Z reason you think you should disclose this. Um if there is or um if uh you don't want to use our office as a resource, there's also the ethics board that sometimes kind of issues advisory opinions or is available to you. But for something like a question about disclosure, I would say if you're as long as all of you are comfortable with it, my office is kind of the first step for that. Um okay, Robert's rules. Uh again, you all have had training in this. Um I like to highlight because for the most part, all of you are quite used to making motions. You know how to make motions. you know that um the uh um any sort of amended motion needs to be handled first. I always like to remind um um board members that uh specific to our Madison ordinances that we've adopted, there's a 15-minute rule on quorum. So if there are not five members for which is the number for quorum um the plan commission adjourns and the only action they can take is to set a date or time for its next meeting. So they can't so for example they can't refer an item to a future meeting. You can't take an action any item in the um on the agenda. And so there might be cases where then that item needs to be noticed again by staff for for um public notice requirements. Um, I also like to remind um about the specifics for reconsideration if for which is a two-step process um to have something reconsidered if you're were kind of unable if you either voted in the negative or you weren't at the last meeting. And you don't need to know the specifics, but I always remind commissioners that if you are thinking about doing that, let staff know so they can have the motion to reconsiderate reconsider as a listed item on the agenda. So it shouldn't um other than that, don't worry about it. All right, I'm just moving along. So we have a little bit of time left for questions. Um so open meetings again this has you've probably all been trained on and there's a lot of resources from our office about open meetings law if you want more information um I'm happy to either provide them or come back at a different time to talk about them or send the person from my office who does open meetings law to our next meeting to talk about it. Um but I do actually think that this is worth spending a minute on um because open meetings law the policy behind it is the public is entitled to understand not only the actions taken by the public body but also what influences might happen to that body and then why that decision was made. And so the applause applies to sessions where no action is taken. So, plan commission informational meetings, also tours. If you take a tour to a building as a as a group, there are other areas that are not just kind of within the scheduled plan commission meetings that open meetings law might apply to. Um there's a two factor test that is just to determine if there is a meeting. um that first that you engage in the business of the governmental business and that there's a number of people present that could make a determination on the course of action. That being said, there are two tricky things called negative quorum and walking quorum that you also need to be aware of. So if so open meetings law applies if there's a gathering of less than the quorum which is five people but enough members where they could block the passage of an item. Um and then walking quorum which could be a series a serial gathering or contacts which can be phone calls, emails, video chats, text messages. There's a lot of different ways that we all can communicate now. And so there's a lot more opportunity for walking quorum. And um so it's that if enough members of a body for negative quorum or quorum are talking about the substance that will be in front of you, it can make where to the point where then like the meeting is kind of a mere formality. Open meetings law applies. And I will say that um the law is on the side of open meetings, right? This is one of those cases where it's it's going to presume a meeting happened and it is up to us to rebut that a meeting didn't happen, which is challenging. Um, so just things to think about if you do tours or site visits. Um, I'll put this in Megan's ear is that how are you getting there? If you're all going together in a car, that could be implicate the open meetings law. Um, there's other kind of things to think about as well. Um, public records. Um and we are at the end is that um as members of a government body um the legal presumption is there is an access to the government records and records are not just emails. They can also be um anything that has been virtually anything that's been created or is being kept by government officials or bodies. Um, and it there's some um there are some exceptions um personal documents or notes if you've created something for your own personal use to refresh your memory that's not going to be subject to open records. If your notes or your outline are so fantastic that you share them with your BCC members, that is now a public record. So, um, there isn't anything wrong with having created a public record, but if you start out thinking something is not a public record, you might be surprised if it becomes a public record. So, um, and the other thing that I will end this on is attorney client privilege, which is also part of this. So, um I am all of you are my client in your professional capacity and this kind of um and so you may or may you may ask questions that are privileged that I will respond to you as with privileged communication or I might respond to the body as a with privileged communication. That privilege is held by you as the client which means it is your ability to break. I can't break the privilege. You can break the privilege. So if you are, you know, if you are sending to me a question from a constituent or a neighbor, I answer. I usually there's a lot of information that is fine to share. My office doesn't give legal advice to the public, so we do kind of always have to couch that when we give it when we talk about things. We're not available to the public. Um, but um, and I usually will write attorney client communication when I give out information to you both individually or as a body. Um, but I can't maintain that. You all maintain that. So if you break it or forward something outside of the group of people that hold that privilege, it's available to the public record now. It's no longer privileged and once the genie is out of the bottle, it cannot go back in. So be mindful of that, right? And I I always say it could be all the way at the bottom of that forwarded email, but if you send it out to your constituents or your neighbors, it becomes then the public record and it can't get the bell cannot be unrgung. Um, so with that uplifting end, uh, it's not uplifting, you know what I mean? Just I like to I like to caution you in today people forward a lot of emails. So, if I'm in if I'm in it, you might want to take a look at it before you forward it to to folks or post on your post on a blog or um there's a lot of different ways that we communicate and it is incredibly important for the government to be transparent and clear about why they make decisions. Um, but if you have a question about if you think um if information I've given you can be out a almost all of the time it can be. It's it's like this. It's information that I'm discussing in a public. Just ask before you put it in. Um here's my contact information. Email is probably the easiest way to reach me or um like I said, if you have questions that Megan can send along as well. Um and I think I went I think I did my hour. So I want to there if you have questions I'm available but there are um otherwise I can ask you can ask them later. Oh yeah, Alderfield. Uh, thank you for all of the info and the great presentation, good reminders. Um, I wanted to ask about and sort of as a segue to the comprehensive plan area plans. So I understand that there is a state requirement that we have a comprehensive plan and put our policy goals in a comprehensive plan and times change. So is there a statutory requirement that we maintain it or update it beyond simple map amendments? Yes, there is an updating requirement in the statute. Okay, cool. It's required to be updated every 10 years. Um I think we've been on track to update it more frequently than that recently with the 2023 update that you um used to adopt some GFLU map changes and then again with the adoption of the first two area plans that also was an update to our comprehensive plan. Excellent. Thank you. Kate, thank any other questions. I appreciate you uh taking the putting yourself in the spot. I are in the spotlight. I appreciate You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Sorry, I have one more question actually more of a request. um when you send out the memo that you mentioned, could you also send out I feel like there's a memo that we usually got about um like official mapping and maybe there's probably another memo that sometimes gets attached to items, but I would love to save those all in one place for a future resource if possible. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, we don't have any action on Kate's report, so we just get to thank her. Um, and I think we're ready to move to our next item, which is planning division staff update southwest area plan. And it looks like the are we going to do southwest and southeast, but the documents are combined? So, uh, the team is actually going to mostly co-present. So, as you know, these two plans are being prepared in a concurrent process. And so, um, Irvishy Martin is one of the co- project managers on the southwest area plan team and Rebecca Canary is one of the co-pro managers on the Southeast area plan. Um, they're going to give you an update on where we are in the overall process to prepare the area plans and then talk about some of the things that they've been hearing so far in that engagement. Thanks. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Uh, thanks, Megan. Uh, good evening everyone. As Megan said, I'm Urvishi Martin. I work in the planning division. Uh co- project managing the southwest area plan. Uh joined here with my colleague Christy Latch. Uh was also the other co- project manager for the southwest area plan. And then Becca Canire and Jeff Greger here from the Southeast area plan. Um co- project managing that area plan. Um, and we have several people from the uh planning division staff who are also working on the southwest and the southeast area plans and their names are listed here. Um, and so a little bit about uh what we're going to be presenting today. We'll cover some background information and some topics that are common to both the southeast and southwest area plan and then uh cover some specific uh feedback themes that we are hearing um from the public as we are doing going through this process and then uh finish with uh some of the next steps with the process. Uh so I'm going to start off with a little bit of background of uh what an area plan is. Um in 2022 the city adopted the planning framework which is this new approach to city planning that breaks up the city into these 12 geographies and an area plan will be developed for each of these areas in the next few years. Um the west and the northeast area plans were the first two area plans that were developed since this framework was put in place. Uh the southeast and southwest are the next two area plans that we are currently working on. Um so what an area plan is, it's a long-term plan that provides uh a vision for the area and guides changes particularly to the physical aspects of the community such as development that is typically initiated by the private sector and infrastructural investments that's typically initiated by the public sector. Um the recommendations in these area plans, these are structured around the comprehensive plan, seven elements. Uh and these are land use and transportation, neighborhood and housing, uh economy and opportunity, culture and character, green and resilient, uh effective government, um and health and safety. And these area plans will be developed and updated every um 10 years. So we'll try to keep these plans uh current and reflective of current conditions. So a little bit of background about the southwest area. So the planning boundaries um generally follow the Beline Highway to the north. To the east uh the boundaries follow the city's municipal boundaries that the city shares with the city of Fitchburg. Uh to the south we are following Highway 18 and 151. And then um to the west we are following generally the Ice Age Trail uh Junction Natural Resource Area and then continue along High Point Road until it meets the Beline uh highway. Um according to the census 2020 data um there approximately a little over 16,000 housing units in this area and um approximately 37,000 residents who live here. Uh this area is also uh a little more racially diverse than some of the other parts of the city and has approximately 37% people who identify themselves as bipok and Hispanic Latinx. Uh a little bit of background about the southeast area. The planning boundaries generally follow Highway 30 to the north. Uh to the east uh follow the interstate highway. Uh to the south the boundaries follow Seagull Cow uh road. um to the west uh follow the city's municipal boundary that the city shares with the city of Manona and then continues along uh Lake Manona um until Highway 30. Um uh according to the census 2020 data, uh there approximately a little over 11,000 housing units in the area and approximately uh 25,000 residents who live here. Um Um there also uh 26% uh of residents identify themselves as bipok and Hispanic Latinx. Uh so one of the uh background data that we take into account as we work on these area plans is looking at the projected population growth. Um as you all are probably familiar the city of Madison is growing and it has been growing at a pretty steady pace for the last several decades and is projected to continue to grow in the future. We're projecting uh we'll be adding 115,000 new residents and 50,000 new jobs between 2020 and 2050. Uh so as the city continues to experience this population growth and we work on these area plans, we try to proactively plan for that growth and uh plan for that changing and growing community. Uh so just to highlight some of the topics that these area plans will cover. Uh so for land use and transportation, we'll be providing recommendations for future land uses and guidance on maximum building heights. Uh any zoning changes to make them consistent with the land use recommendations, uh recommendations relating to street, sidewalks, uh pet bike facilities, improvements to transit, uh neighborhoods and housing. We'll be looking at housing affordability. uh how can we create complete neighborhoods and add more mix of housing types and improve access to daily needs and services. Um under economy and opportunity we'll be looking at economic development opportunities uh entrepreneurial opportunities tools like tax increment financing lane banking um and then business walk. Um we are partnering with our uh economic development uh staff and uh partnering with uh an organization to do a a business walk in the community to reach out engage with the businesses and hear what some of their needs are. Uh culture and character. Uh we'll be looking at what some of the historic and cultural resources are uh in these areas. any changes to the urban design districts uh and public art and placemaking initiatives. Uh for green and resilient, we'll be looking at recommendations relating to uh parks and open spaces. Uh any improvements to the storm water management system, uh tree canopy or urban agriculture. Uh relating to effective government, we'll be looking at recommendations relating to city facilities and utilities. uh any changes to our intergovernmental agreements with adjacent municipalities. Um health and safety, we'll be looking at a lot of health and safety related topics. Uh so things like neighborhood and community resources, uh safe routes to school, uh pedestrian crossings, uh protected bike lanes, um traffic speed, heat islands, and other issues. Uh and then community action strategy. This is a topic that we'll be looking at for both the southeast and the southwest area. Uh and I'll touch on a little bit more detail in the next few slides of what the community action strategy areas mean. Um so community action strategy areas these are census geographies that have 50% or more of the population uh with a household income that is at or below 80% of the county median income that qualifies these uh geographies to receive federal funding through the community development block grant program CDBG funds. uh and both the southeast and southwest area have these census geographies uh qualifying geographies. So for the southwest area, the map here is showing the uh qualifying census tracks. Um in the pink color and the red areas are the community action strategy areas that we are uh recommending. Uh for the southeast area, um the census drag just south of Highway 30 is the is the qualifying census drag that is identified as the community action strategy area. Um some of this federal funding uh could be used for some smallcale physical improvements. For example, uh things like adding a community garden or a park shelter. Um just to highlight some examples of how CDBG funds have been used in the past. Uh for example in the Leopold neighborhood um a community garden was added in the Leopold park and also the bike pump tracks was an example of how funds have been used. Uh in the Darbo Warington neighborhood um an artist and residents was hired to uh work on a sculpture for the neighborhood. So those are some examples of um how CDBG funds have been used in the past. Um, for the southeast and southwest area, there's approximately $400,000 in federal funding that could be used for some of these uh physical improvements. So, in terms of uh the timeline for these two area plans, we are in the second column in the first phase of the planning process in the issues and opportunities phase. uh both the area plans were kicked off like late November, early December uh kind of time frame and since then we have been doing a lot of community engagement and outreach. Uh we've conducted a community survey. We did some focus group meetings. Uh we also did some pop-up outreach and um um checked in with some of the adjacent municipalities, schools, and other stakeholders. And we're checking in with the boards commission and committees right now. We're checking in with you tonight. will be also going to other commissions um as we uh finish up this phase of the process. Uh the next phase of the process will be kind of summer and fall of this year where we where we'll start developing some initial recommendations to address some of the issues and opportunities we hear in this phase and we'll be taking it uh to the public and getting feedback on that. uh phase three, which will be kind of late fall and winter of this year, uh we'll start finalizing those draft recommendations and putting them in a draft plan document uh and finalizing that. And then the last phase of the process will be um kind of uh spring of next year where we'll uh introduce the draft plan through the city boards commission committee review process to get the plan ultimately adopted by the council. Uh in terms of some of the public engagement that we have undertaken so far uh between the two area plans uh three public meetings were held to uh kick off these planning processes. Uh in addition to the public meetings uh staff also collected feedback from variety of different sources. Um we had an online commenting map up on our website where people could drop in location specific comments and we received several feedback uh through that um through that process. We also partnered with the UW people programs uh urban planning class that partners with uh Memorial High School students and lfallet high school students. So the south southwest team worked with memorial high school students and got some feedback and then uh the southeast team worked with the lfallet high school students. Um specific to the southwest area, we also hired uh community partners and these are organizations and individual residents who are all already working in the community and have connections uh in the in the community and we are partnering with them uh to get the word out about the process and get uh engagement uh particularly from the underrepresented communities. uh neighborhood walks both the area plans. We also uh are holding some neighborhood walks to kind of engage with the community and informal ways through these walk and talk events to discuss issues and ideas in those events. Um the Southwest team has another neighborhood walk coming up in next week and we'll be um uh hoping to get some good feedback through those uh channels as well. Um, in terms of some of the other engagement, we have also met with the neighborhood resource teams in these areas, neighborhood associations. We have met with the schools, uh, school district, some nonprofit organizations, um, adjacent municipalities and other stakeholders. Uh, just to highlight some of the new engagement activities that we did that was different from the last two area plan processes. uh we partnered with a couple of uh UW PhD students uh to help us conduct a community survey to get a more representative subset from our population. Uh the survey part one we got over 900 plus responses and we have the survey part two open right now and getting feedback through that. Uh we also conducted a a Madison um madness bracket exercise which is very similar to the March Madness uh bracket style uh exercise and that was pretty successful. We had um over uh 1,400 plus responses that we got uh through that engagement effort. Um we also partnered with the Nenina collective organization to help us um conduct some focus group meetings in both the areas and our goal was uh primarily to engage with uh the BIPO communities uh through these focus group meetings. Uh we also did some pop-up outreach and engagement uh where we uh went to some of the places where people are already gathering. So for the southwest area, we attended a couple of events at the Meadow Ridge Library. Uh the Southeast team, they went to the uh Penny Library. Um we also participated in some community events like community dinners. Um uh went to the food pantries. Uh we also have a few events uh set up for the bike to work week this week. Uh so as I mentioned in the previous slide, we uh partnered with Nenina Collective organization to help us conduct uh some focus group meetings. Uh we held like uh 10 focus group meetings in total, five in each of the planning areas. And we had a pretty good uh participation rate and uh racially diverse representation at these meetings. Um these are just some uh uh direct quotes from some of the conversations that happened at those uh meetings. So um just to highlight some of them, transit was a big conversation that came up at both the southeast and southwest uh meetings. Uh people talked about since the network redesign, there are a lot of bus stops that lack uh bus shelters that makes it difficult to uh wait for transit especially in extreme weather conditions. Uh housing affordability was also a big topic that was discussed at for both the southeast and southwest areas. Um people had very specific definitions of housing, affordable housing that they shared um and what it means to them. Um residents also talked about how rising rents is making it more and more difficult for people to meet their housing and living costs, especially if you're making minimum wage. Um specific to the southwest area, we also heard a lot about uh lack of economic opportunities and uh jobs. Um people felt that there aren't uh many good prospects of employment uh in the area. Um in terms of safety and well-being for the southeast area, uh uh people really uh commented about uh wanting to feel safe and not worry about hearing gunshots in the middle of the night. uh and would like to just safely be able to go to places um any time of day. And then the highway corridors was also something that was mentioned uh that is kind of a big barrier uh to u access places and uh people would just have to rely on vehicles as a way to drive everywhere. Uh so as we reviewed all this feedback that we've received in the process so far we uh organized our feedback themes under the umbrella of the comprehensive plan seven elements. Uh so for southwest area uh for land use and transportation we heard a lot about uh traffic safety and speeding on many transportation corridors um like Raymond Road, Shrader Road uh Gammon uh and other roads especially near uh schools and residential areas. Uh people talked about dangerous crosswalks and intersections and also uh inadequate bike lanes. improving the the bike lanes by adding more protected bike lanes uh especially along Raymond Road and uh McKenna Boulevard. Uh people also commented about missing sidewalks uh or in being incomplete in many areas uh and um making it difficult for people and forcing them to walk in the street. Um, relating to transit, people talked about uh the need for bus shelters um and making it uncomfortable for people to uh wait for transit um especially in extreme weather conditions. Uh Meadowwood Shopping Center, that was something that came up quite a bit in our discussions that um there's um many vacancies at the shopping center and it that could be revitalized with some mixeduse development and adding more housing. also expanding the existing library and the neighborhood center. Uh people also would like to see more walkable destinations such as coffee shops, restaurants, and small businesses. Uh for neighborhoods and housing, affordable, safe, and accessible housing was kind of a major concern uh that was brought up. Um uh people did uh appreciate uh the neighborhood centers and the com uh community centers that exist in the southwest area uh and would like to see more of them. and also more youth programming and activities especially for bipok kids. Um specific to the Meadowwood neighborhood um people talked about need for a grocery store. Uh under economy and opportunity uh people commented about uh how incomes are not keeping up with housing costs and would like to see more more jobs that pay a living wage that can help meet their housing and living expenses. Um, also people uh commented about uh the need for more small businesses and also revitalizing business areas that already exist along Verona Road and Meadowwood Shopping Center. Um, also lack of child care services came up and also the need for more job training programs and uh flexible employment options and hours. uh relating to culture and character. Uh people talked about the need for more uh public art. Uh the area uh kind of the southern portion of the planning area. People commented about the lack of identity and sense of place as most of the the amenities there are located in Verona and Fitchburg and not so much in Madison and they feel like there's kind of a lack of identity there. Um people would also like to see more community spaces that are accessible and inclusive uh and more community building events uh such as the Parks Alive events. Um relating to green and resilient uh people talked about more recreational opportunities. So more uh soccer fields and uh more pickle ball courts and park amenities such as bathrooms, seating, water fountains and amenities like that. More native planning. Uh people really like Elver Park. They think that as a great resource in the area. Um and also some issues relating to uh flooding and storm water uh came up. Um relating to effective government. One of the concerns that people talked about was uh school capacity and overcrowding resulting from new developments especially relating to the Anana elementary school uh and relating to um health and safety. People talked about um the lack of street lighting and sidewalk conditions in certain areas. Uh also poor indoor air quality came up and also um the need for improving access to um health care services by adding more new clinics, new health clinics and also mobile health programs uh closer to where people are living. So with that, I'll turn it over to Thank you, Ever. Also, thanks to Kate. That was so great earlier. I was memory lane of some of those like enabling legislation. So, it was great. I could listen to you talk about that law stuff all day. So, I have to give her that. Um, hello. My name is Rebecca Canire. She her pronouns um in the um planning division. And as Ivishi said, Jeff Gregor and I are leading the southeast area plan. and and like Irvishy mentioned there are many many universal themes I think that we heard that similar to the southwest west and southeast and in our slides you'll see that we tried to highlight um specific feedback that we got from the under reppresented groups those are the colored so if you want to kind of look and see the things that were specifically you know called out by those groups and in the southeast we tried to take the all of these um feedback that we were getting and I can go to the next slide too and And I think that it all really came down to about seven, I would say, big things because so many of these things that Irvish mentioned and that's on these slides really kind of mesh in different ways. And so for the southeast, one of the the big elephants in the room is the highway 51 South Stonen Road reconstruction. And I was a part oh so many years ago of the last time WIS DOT was thinking about redesigning Highway 51. And as we did that, we we made ma as they were planning their plans, we made a plan at that time and we changed some land uses to reflect what that wisto plan was and that wis plan never got built and we're here almost 20 years later and we have some mismatch in some of those land uses. So we're we're struggling as we kind of look at the the feedback that we're getting and hearing from people and what they want. We want to make sure that we are thinking about both now and the future and and what gets built and or doesn't get built with with WISOT. And so that's that's kind of a a theme that has come out throughout all of our comments with all the different neighborhoods was, you know, how 51 is hard to cross, how it's a barrier between neighborhoods and schools and amenities and how people kind of move east to west and and north to south. Because when we look at so many of our transportation corridors in the southeast area, they they don't go north and south except for Monona Drive and and and Highway 51 in the interstate. They're all kind of broken up. So, we keep seeing these themes about people wanting better connections coming back to kind of that first big thing, which is Highway 51. I think in that transportation and land use thing, we also are hearing so much about sidewalks and people wanting to have safe sidewalks and bike routes. We were at a great event last week um in the High Stand neighborhood. Um the weather was beautiful and all these people were arriving by the brand new bridge that's over Highway 30. And I it was wonderful. It was wonderful to see all of the families and I can't I can probably count it probably takes two hands to count how many people told me that they were converts that they were not in favor of that crossing and about how now that it's there. they just love it and it's the best thing that's ever happened to the neighborhood. And my colleague Jeff made a really great point when we were talking about that feedback and said how we as planners really need to be do a lot of change management with folks and to have that kind of mindset is something I think we've been trying to think about as we have been looking at what these key feedback themes are. So those kind of so sidewalks and the lack of sidewalks by Virginia Henderson Elementary School and a few other places and how we're going to have to be agents of those change management when we think about where we want to maybe add some sidewalks in or is there a new path forward um to think about how those sidewalks can go in or do we just need to do a lot of education on the policy that the payment for how those sidewalks go in has changed um since the last time we kind of did planning in the southeast side. So there there is a lot of that change management that has to go with that kind of that second set of themes which is the sidewalks and the getting around affordability. It's the third big thing that that permeates all of our all of our areas and it's and so many people have different definitions of what affordability means to them. Right? I heard from so many folks that live on the east side. I grew up on the east side that just want their kids to be able to build a house or not build a house, buy a house and build some generational wealth like they did 30 years ago or 40 years ago. So, but there's also people that just, you know, can barely afford to live anywhere, right? And so, there's this huge range of affordability and it's on everybody's mind and at at every income level. Um, the east side has a lot of working-class folks at 80 and 100% of the area median income. folks that have always bought houses or always been able to be homeowners. And so that's really come up a lot as well as again the so important thing about making sure that we are thinking about homelessness and and people living at the 30% level and the 60% level. So that affordability at all ranges continues to permeate again all of these all of these areas. Um another one that really permeates is the kind of the what will be our growth priority areas. Where will we put new housing? Where should it go? How can Eastsiders and Southeastsiders capitalize on some of those really great little strip malls that have been really reinvigorated by a lot of local businesses, at least on the southeast side the past few years. We have new um new businesses and that little area by Manona Manona Drive and Buckeye where there's a lot of local businesses in there. We have a lot of new local businesses going in by where the MSCR business um thing uh center is on Cottage Grove Road. So, people have really loved all of those local businesses. And that brings me to like the fifth big thing has to do with our business walk that we're having tomorrow. The southeast side. This is crucial for us because there are three huge employment areas besides the the the wonderful little like commercial core centers. There's the Atlas Road area. There's the Flam Buckeye area. And then there's that other area that's kind of south of um the Belt Line and the Tradewinds Parkway. There are three huge employment areas, over 4 to 500 different businesses in those three areas that are all employers. So, we're really looking forward to listening to them. So, that's a key piece of missing feedback that we're going to hopefully get tomorrow when we go out and visit as many of those businesses with about 70 volunteers as we can. And then um one of the last um I guess there's a couple last kind of themes that permeate this one Irvish she mentioned was about safety and speeding and like um and and how and crossing the road that has to do with the sidewalks too but the speeding thing just kind of keeps coming up all the time and and the but the last one is in the culture and character section and that was everybody loves Penny Library on the southeast side but it's like the only place that's on the southeast side. There's a few hidden ones, but there aren't those third spaces. It's not something the city usually builds except for libraries, but it is something that, you know, we can take inventory of and and see what's out there and see what's missing and see what our partners can provide or or figure out those some of those things. So all of our feedback really I think comes down you can distill it down into those six or seven things that I've mentioned that really I think is probably going to really affect how the southeast side um feedback goes and it's it's all kind of woven in here but I wanted to kind of distill it down into those into those major themes. So Vishy started a little bit with that calendar about what's next. So, this summer, um, we're going to start doing our initial draft plan recommendations. Um, doing a a land use vision map about how we think land use can work in this area or can change, how how it can support the types of feedback that we've been getting. We're looking forward to trying to utilize some 2D and 3D illustrations to help convey those recommendations so that people can see how these changes in land use can affect all these other things that we've talked about cuz having that nexus for people is really hard because you see a change on a map and it's like well that's not what I said at the public meeting. And so we're hoping to use some of those call outs, right, and some of those illustrations to say, "This is what we mean when we take what you've said and we try to distill it down into some map recommendations." Um, we're going to do some continued public engagement. We're working with our arts um colleagues on having some arts workshops later this summer. We'll continue to have some community action strategies. Um, while we don't know if the CDBG funding will ever come to fruition, we just there's been some issues with trying to get some projects done from money from that we were supposed to already have for this year that for past projects. We are still foraging ahead trying to come up with ideas for what we could do with that money. However, there's that issue of overpromising, underdelivering, right, that we want to be careful about. But we still think these CSA areas deserve the extra time and thought about what could happen there because maybe there's grants, right? Maybe there's other grants that can help do some of these things if the CDBG funding is is somewhat questionable. Um we'll um Southwest will continue to do community partner outreach. We will continue to do neighborhood association outreach on the southeast side. um our online commenting tool which I rvish totally undersold all of the notes that were on the maps when the the commenting happened and like just I think they were covered with dots um about what people were talking about. We'll continue to do that with our draft recommendations and maps. Um continue to do check-ins with you and other city boards and commissions especially you know the transportation commission which is so you know carefully and wonderfully integrated with with all of these things. So that's our overview of what we've been doing so far and what we've been hearing so far. So we're here to kind of discuss those things and have you question us on those things. And I told I told Alder Field last week I said bring on the questions like we're ready. Sarah um Commissioner Sanders. Thank you chair. Um, so I apologize. I'm gonna get a little maybe in the weeds here on sidewalks. So I love the idea of this recommendation, but I have in my mind this idea and perhaps this has changed, but are the property owners charged for the placement of city sidewalks? They are no longer charged, okay, for the placement of sidewalks? I like to hear that because I was concerned considering um the affordability of that and impact to the groups that live in these areas. So I appreciate that that's different now. That's that's a huge change and that's why it's I think it's so important to do the education about what sidewalks can mean. sidewalks can also, you know, it people are also really worried about their trees, right? So, it's like, can we talk to them about tradeoffs of like, well, we can save the trees if we maybe put sidewalks on one side and maybe we don't have parking on one side as well, right? So, the road diet happens so that there's um so you don't get parking and trees and sidewalks like something there's a lot of beautiful trees, right? and people are really connected to them, but they're also connected to their parking on the street. And so we have to we have to work with folks on like the expectations about how all of these things go together. But when we, you know, see that there aren't sidewalks, you know, leading to an elementary school and when it's time to redo those streets, it seems really essential for safety and security because that's something that we heard about people wanting to be safe when they cross streets and are walking in the neighborhood. So that that's part of that change management. But I'm really glad you asked because yeah, it is no longer it is no longer charged. We have a different policy now. That was a long answer to your question. No, thank you. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the change management process rolls out with everything else, too. I hope so. I I kind of I mean, I didn't I kind of just mentioned something that my colleague said, so you know, it's not like we're all I just feel like that was a good word about what we have to do. Yeah, Alderfield. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, thank you for the presentation. I have a question about parks because I understand that this time around the involvement of parks and some degree of park planning may happen differently or at least on a different timeline than the first cycle. Do you mind talking about that a little bit? Sure. I I probably don't have the greatest answer for that, but parks has a lot of they're dealing with a lot of um understaffing at the moment and some moving around and people kind of going to different areas. And so the two landscape architects that we had on our schedule to help us do that um development park planning. So development park development plans are like small they're not big master plans but they're like assessments about what's there and maybe what what could be changed and what things are getting old enough that we need to start thinking about replacement of items or basketball courts or playground things. So it's it's and and now one of those landscape architects is now working for a different part of the city. And so now there's only one kind of landscape architect on the whole park staff. So there's lots of things that they're working on. I'm a landscape architect, too. So I feel like, you know, I feel really I feel bad for Mike right now. So I don't know what their timeline is. And it's a question that we can ask like you know but our recommendations are still going to be I think we'll try to talk about what we've heard from people in parks so that then when they get around to it there'll be a mesh there but we can get back to you all their I'd appreciate that what their thoughts are. And just on the comment about not a ton of other like third and community spaces around this part of the city then our parks kind of become that for at least the outdoor months of the year. So I appreciate some degree of focus there. I also wanted to comment that I'm really excited to see some of the um like relationships between comment callouts and recommendations and the direct connection there because that helps a lot with communicating about all this stuff. So, thank you. Of course. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay. Thanks. Uh thanks uh Rebecca for mentioning you know the potential issues with CDBG funding and but I'm and maybe Erbishi mentioned this uh but I that the that that funding in those projects are partially to service the re to to service the recommendations of these plans or are they kind of their own animal? uh because I'm thinking about what happens if the funding doesn't come um and what the relationship between those somewhat separate processes to this date and the plan is. Sure. That that's a great question because um this is something that we've that's new with our framework planning process. We used to do separate CDBG I'm just going to use the acronym for everybody um community development block grant plans. We used to do specific plans for those, but being that we're taking this framework approach, now we're trying to house those within this larger within this larger land use planning. So, that's why we're taking a little extra time or meeting with neighborhoods a few extra times than maybe we would have of the rest of the big my I can't talk without using my hands. Um, and and they have three and the Southwest has three areas. We have one in Southeast. um spending a little bit more time with them to find out what's what's needed in those neighborhoods to not necessarily just lift them up, but to make sure that we're meeting the needs of those residents. So, no matter what happens with that funding, we'll have recommendations that reflect that feedback that we got and reflect that information and relationship building that we're trying to do with those neighborhoods. And and that's when I said that even if the CDB normally we use CDBG funding to implement those recommendations, right? We'll say here are specific recommendations that come from this process that would be eligible for CDBG funding. If that funding is not available, we might need to think differently about our partnerships with, you know, is it that we encourage the highend neighborhood to apply for an AVU grant or a community foundation grant or something or or maybe we help find partners that help do some of that um implementation or maybe some of them become rise to such a level that they become budgeted in the city budget too. I mean I I don't want to there is that whole process as well. It just we we just don't know about that funding but we want to forge ahead with finding out the needs of these neighborhoods regardless but we also don't want to overpromise and say so as we've been meeting we've been couching that money like depending upon if if it's available um which is a different tune than we were singing um when we started this process. So those recommendations will be kind of on par with the other recommendations in the plan. Yeah. Yeah. They're not like a separate thing. Nope. Okay. Cool. Thank you. And one thing I just wanted to add um for the for the southwest area, the community partners that I mentioned, we have hired and our organizations and individual residents who are already working in the community. uh those community partners are giving special attention to those community action strategy area and trying to identify what some of those needs and issues are as we work on the recommendations. So just wanted to mention like yeah that's something that they're putting in a special emphasis on outreach in those areas. Thanks Alder Glenn. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um so I had seen in here that 900 plus respons responses for survey part one and then the Madison madness bracket uh 1,400 plus responses. What was the percentage of people of color? Um we do have that. You do have it. It's in our um we don't have it for the bracket. Okay. It was a social media type of and so you didn't connect demographics. Yeah, we do have that. In fact, our PH for the survey which was specifically we we worked with the recording. Sorry, I forgot about the recording. So, Madison Madness bracket was more of a social media kind of event and so I don't have the correlation with that. Um, we did know, however, that we were trying to with the bracket try to like reach out to a younger population. So, with with the social media and trying to do I saw it on Reddit, all of that great stuff. So, like that was that was trying to get at a different population that is often underrepresented in our outreach. But in terms of um traditionally underrepresented groups, our survey was meant to specifically try to reach out to those groups. We um we when we this is hard to explain. When our surveyors did a did their random pick of neighborhoods to send it to, they they put extra they weighted the neighborhoods that had more um bipac and latinex residents in them to try to weight that. Now that we have those survey results, um Alyssa and um and her colleague are still working on it's taking time to like distill that down into what those numbers are and how it reflects things. But we do have that. We just don't have it like all formulated yet. Okay, that makes because I had seen and I and I love that you put that in here that there was like 25.8% 8% in one area and 37 almost 38 in another that the surveys try to get as close to that as possible. Yes, that's what we were trying and and what Alyssa is going to do is try to also weight those to those Yes. Yeah. Yes. When we have the results. Um another another reason why we did the focus groups was for that same reason. So when we worked with Nina collected, we very specifically asked them to do outreach. Several of the focus groups were in Spanish. Um we tried to reach out to different groups. There's it's always difficult to reach people, but that's why we we contracted with them because they have, you know, they have people that they know in their job. Yeah. So they they do a good job of those things. So that's why we we wanted to do the focus groups with them to um for that same reason to really try to get to that outreach. Thank you, Alder Gear. Uh thank you, chair. U now this is a question coming from someone who still has scars from the west area plan process. Thank you. Um I have not sensed at this stage of the game at least in the southwest area plan where I've attended quite a few of the meetings that we're looking towards anything that's let's say particularly hard from a change management standpoint. Do you have any sense for either southeast or southwest of some things that you think will take a lot of change management expertise to uh um get through the draft process? uh for southwest for southeast west that's nothing um southeast I think really the highway 51 which is a process that we don't have as the control over I mean we can influence um and and I think that the sidewalks issue will be and that's not for every neighborhood that's for a few neighborhoods more than others will likely be I would say the things that that I'm seeing for Southeast people come up at souththeast Southeast meetings and they say you We're pretty chill. We just want to like we want to live our lives and have some cool things to do. Like it's it it's a the southeast vibe's been pretty chill except for the sidewalks. Um yeah, for the southwest I would say that so far uh in our engagement process, nothing uh too controversial has come up. Again, we have the the missing sidewalk uh issue as well on the southwest side. Um and I think it um talking about a little bit with the west area plan it the the controversies kind of started uh stemming from the recommendations as uh you know moving more into the process. So uh so we'll see how the southwest area plan uh process goes but uh in the initial phases so far in our engagement we haven't um had any anything any hot topics yet. I assume the draft land use map will be when people become more aware of things that could be require change management. Yes. Yes. It's it's the re it's the recommendations that brings them out for sure. So that's why we've been trying to think about this change management now in education and we've been doing that trying all along as one of those lessons that we learned from the last two is all of our early communications been what is zoning versus land use? what what does a plan do? What doesn't it do? And e even though some of that might get lost in the ether of everybody kind of talking about what's missing in their neighborhoods and what they want, we'll we'll kind of always bring it back to, you know, what these plans can do and what they can't do. Other questions? I I have a question about the sidewalk since we keep on talking about that. How is that frame anyway? because we we the city doesn't have the funding to put sidewalks everywhere and there's people that do want sidewalks and we kind of combine that with major projects you know with bringing down the street so then we are going to take care of everything so how is that being framed on the um with the people that are asking for sidewalks well I I'm I'm reading ahead a little but I think our we our policy is to put sidewalks in when we reconstruct I mean that's exactly that's what I Yeah, that's what it is. So, I think what we're trying to do is part of that kind of idea of change management is is start talking about that during our planning process. Show that we're getting feedback that shows that it's really important. So, when my colleague goes to the um a meeting that engineering has like last week, maybe it was the week before and they're talking about putting sidewalks on a road in um Alder Martinez Rutherford's neighborhood um or a district um like what are the things and and he was paying attention to what are the things that people are saying, right? what is the kind of some of the misinformation that that people say about what they're losing or what they're not getting and trying to show how right by Penny Library and Dempsey they did a couple of new things right that that put sidewalks it has a multi-use path in one area that's like next to the park I mean they've they've done some different things and I've had a couple people at the lake edge neighborhood meeting that again were converts and it was really great like I was against this I did not want these sidewalks. Now that they're there, we're using them all the time. So, it is a uh it's it's it's an it's a education thing that we also have to work with our lovely friends and colleagues in engineering too about how this change management how we can be a part of their processes and and and and make sure that we're all talking about the same things when those things come up. I mean that's what I'm asking because traditionally at least my experience um there has been a huge movement and anti- um sidewalks but I think that is that narrative is changing and then people are now getting impatient that they don't have the sidewalks that they want and I just really want to make sure that that expectation is also being handled. So we want sidewalks everywhere honestly right but um but we cannot we can afford them. So um so really like I feel I really at least with many of my constituents that vibe has been is been turning on understanding the needs for sidewalks and that also has a lot to do with aging at home like people really need this those sidewalks at a later later time on their you know of their lives. So I I just really want to make sure that the expectations are set that they're part of a mayor street. We're not just going to start building them. It will be as streets get rehabilitated and be clear about that. I think that's a really good point Alder. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's um a really helpful observation, too. And I think you're kind of pointing at something that is one of the inherent challenges of long-range planning. Um there's lots of pieces that have to come into place in order to implement plans. And I think the team has been trying to do a really good job too of in the bigger picture helping people better understand what is planning versus what is zoning, what happens on the private side of implementing these plans, what happens on the public side. But that's a really great specific observation about how we can make sure we're um communicating about how plans could be implemented. Thank you. Thank you both for great presentation and uh our dialogue. All right, we'll be back. Yeah. Next time with some recommendations. Thank you. Very good. Uh and again, no action on items three or four. Um we do have uh member announcements, communications, and and business items on our agenda. So, I don't know if folks have things to share. I I don't know. I I know Alder Yugare and Commissioner Soulheim went to a smart growth conference on Friday, and I thought maybe they'd share a couple minutes of learnings or observations or maybe say that they hated it and they don't want to talk about it anymore. That's okay. I I'll just say that the um presentation made by uh Commissioner Soulheim was the best presentation. I would not expect anything else. Yeah. No, I I think it was uh it was informative. It's you know, someone who's been on the plan commission for a while and been involved in development and construction most of my life, I did not have high expectations for learning some some new things. But uh uh since we had commissioners and alders uh and staff people from around the counties, some of the most interesting things were just uh being able to network with them and hearing about the challenges. We're obviously this is Madison. We're we're larger. uh we can afford to be a little bit more sophisticated, but it was interesting to see how common uh some of the issues are and certainly everybody that was there is struggling with housing to some degree. So that's consistent. You know, we uh it's always uh good get Dr. Pollson's latest data to bring up to date. I think we had that in some slides. We probably that would be a good thing to share. What kind of data? uh just housing data, the kind of things that we have in in our own housing reports, but uh some things that were were a little newer. Uh an interesting the final presentation was uh somebody really comes from another area but lured in by a friend to be involved in development uh up uh up almost in Colombia County but northeast part of the county. um that's really looking to create about a 10-year project of uh relatively affordable single family housing. And how that was done, which was mostly with uh getting the city on board uh with very small lots, decent sized, you know, medium-sized homes and some multifamily, but basically uh a good we interweaving of public spaces and so forth. but a real concentration on on those particular elements that had a lot of cost. Thanks. Thank you, Megan. How small of lots are we talking about? Did they say Did they say how small of lots they were interested in? Oh, it's probably in my notes somewhere. I I don't recall off hand. They weren't they weren't zero lot line or anything like that. They're just relatively um narrow. Okay. Anybody else have This is kind of our more casual meeting for the quarter. So, if anybody has anything else to share. Uh, sure. Darren, on just an invite. I don't think I sent it out to plan commission members, but um ARP Wisconsin is hosting a um uh housing uh I can't think of the words. Um, no. Um, Universal Design and and Housing for for aging in place. Um, we're working with Universal Design Institute and it's Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. um till 11:00. It will be recorded. Uh, Alderfield, thank you. I just got confirmation of that. So, if you can't make it, um, I can I can definitely get you a link to to register for that. So, thank you. All right. All right. Anybody else? I don't want to keep everybody. Uh Megan, your secretary's report be quick. Um we've been talking a bit about some of the upcoming matters for our meeting next Monday. Um long list uh that's growing on your last page of your agenda. Um so look forward to meeting with all of you again next week. Um also wanted to note there's two other documents here for you. Um one is the uh procedures manual that we just updated at our special meeting earlier this year. if you uh want, you can feel free to take that. If you don't want the paper, just leave it behind. We'll pick it up and we'll reuse it um in our office. And the other item is the comprehensive plan um update that was presented to you by our team a couple of months ago as well. We finally got the printed copies, so those are there for you, too. Again, if you're interested in taking it, please feel free. And if you don't, we'll distribute it to somebody who is interested in a paper copy. Thanks for those. Um, all right. I think we're ready for a motion to adjourn. Can I invite you to something? Oh. Oh, yeah. Please. The wear orange thing. Do you want to maybe since you're the member of this committee? Oh, sure. Thanks. Um, uh, this weekend there is a big wear orange event for 3 days. Hopefully the community can come. It starts Friday in Morab. Um, Saturday is the vigil up at the state capital. It will be led by the principal of the Abundant Life Christian Center and mayor and and then on Sunday it will be also a very serious event but also more fun uh at Sherman Church on the north side in district 18, the really nice fun district. Um, and there'll be games and fun, but there's also going to be some education. So everything around gun locks, gun storage, um and when you drive around Madison over the next few days, as of Thursday, they'll be up. There'll be life-size posts around with gun safety um sayings all over them, posted around Madison James, Madison Park, downtown right here. There'll be one posted in Mount Horb and on the north side. So really great event around. We've had we there's been a we all know there's been a lot of gun violence in the community and it would be great to have support from plank commission and people to show up. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for call. All right. Uh I think I had some chomping at the bit on a I'll give field the motion to adjurnn. Who wants to second? Um I'll second. All right. Commissioner Soulheim will second. Uh all in favor you can say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Hearing none, we'll stand ajourn. Thanks everybody.