Number
101028
Version
SUBSTITUTE 1
Reference
100235
Sponsor
ALD. BAUMAN
Title
Substitute resolution rescinding Common Council File Number 100235, a resolution approving the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update as an element of Milwaukee's Overall Comprehensive Plan.
Analysis
This resolution rescinds Common Council File Number 100235, a resolution approving the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update as an element of Milwaukee's Overall Comprehensive Plan.
Body
Whereas, On October 12, 2010, the Common Council adopted File Number 100235, a resolution approving the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update as an element of Milwaukee's Overall Comprehensive Plan; and
Whereas, The City of Milwaukee, and its private partners in the comprehensive planning process, invested a substantial amount of money and time in preparing the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update, including:
1. $50,000 appropriated from the Advance Planning Fund capital account to fund the Downtown Plan Update (CC File 071125, adopted January 15, 2008). The estimated total cost of the Plan Update - including both City and private funding -- was up to $150,000 (per file 071125).
2. Almost three years devoted to developing the Downtown Plan Update, from plan initiation in November, 2007, until Common Council review and approval in September/October, 2010. Countless hours were dedicated to this project by members of the Contract Management Team, which consisted of both public-sector participants (representing the City's Department of City Development, Department of Public Works and Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation) and private-sector members representing the Downtown Milwaukee Business Improvement District, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, the Greater Milwaukee Committee and the Milwaukee Development Corporation.
3. An 18-month-long public-input portion of the planning process that included a public-private steering committee, on-line and hard-copy surveys (with 2,440 participants), 40 confidential stakeholder interviews, six focus groups (for six different Downtown constituencies), two interactive public visioning workshops and two open houses (one on-line and the other "live").
; and
Whereas, The Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update is intended to serve as a blueprint for future development of Milwaukee's central business district; and
Whereas, One of the objectives of the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update is to "preserve and re-use historic and iconic sites downtown" (page 7); and
Whereas, Several other sections of the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update call for the preservation and redevelopment of Downtown's historic buildings, including:
1. "Locally designated contributing historic buildings should be retained and redeveloped in accordance with local preservation requirements." (page 65)
2. "These locations [including the Broadway Corridor] already have a number of ingredients for place-making, such as good street enclosure and historic or iconic buildings that present opportunities to improve these places through infill and revitalization." (page 53)
3. "Preserve and enhance the existing historic character of Broadway Corridor between Wisconsin Avenue and the Third Ward (The buildings of the nationally and locally designated 'East Side Commercial Historic District', located on Broadway, Milwaukee St., Wisconsin Ave., Michigan St. and Clybourn Ave.)." (page 124).
; and
Whereas, The City's Historic Preservation Commission has received a request for a certificate of appropriateness to demolish five contributing buildings in the locally- and nationally-designated East Side Commercial Historic District, in the heart of the area the Downtown Plan refers to as the "Broadway Corridor," to allow construction of a new 10-story hotel building in their place; and
Whereas, Demolition of these buildings would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the adopted Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update, would represent a rejection of the Downtown planning process, into which thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer, consultant and City staff time have been invested, and would suggest that the development of the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update was, to a considerable degree, a waste of time and money; and
Whereas, If City officials, in rendering decisions relating to development in Milwaukee's central business district within six weeks after the Plan's adoption, are not going to follow the prescriptions of the adopted Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update, including several key provisions calling for the preservation and re-use of historic and iconic buildings, there is no reason to retain the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update as an official policy document of the City of Milwaukee; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, By the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee, that Common Council File Number, a resolution approving the Downtown Area Comprehensive Plan Update as an element of Milwaukee's Overall Comprehensive Plan, is rescinded.
Requestor
Drafter
LRB123793-2
JDO
11/29/2010