During the 07/21/2021 Common Council meeting, the Council dealt with several rezoning requests.
The request to rezone the Commercial Horizons property on N. Alvin Street from P-I (Public Institutional District) to C-2 (General Commercial District) sailed through without discussion. The rezoning requests for the Family Video on Calumet Street and the undeveloped property on Coolidge Court both garnered some discussion, and I thought they were interesting to see side-by-side.
As was discussed during the 06/23/2021 City Plan Commission meeting, the Family Video property was so restrictively zoned that the only business allowed to utilize the space were pizza restaurants and video rental businesses. The Coolidge Court property was so restrictively zoned that the only development allowed to be built on it would be the exact building designs for an apartment complex that was submitted to the city back in the 80s. The Family Video owner was requesting the property be rezoned as a basic C-2 General Commercial District property which would allow a range of commercial businesses to utilize the space. The developer for the Coolidge Court property was seeking to have it rezoned to R-3 Multi-Family District which would allow them to design a building with current standards and design sensibilities.
Michael Kohne represented the owner of the Family Video building and spoke briefly. He had attended and spoke at the City Plan Commission meeting where this item had first been voted on. He said he appreciated the Council considering the rezoning of the property, and said that it was important that it get rezoned because right now it could only be used as a video store and pizza restaurant. They did just open a Marco’s Pizza restaurant on 07/19/2021; however, Blockbuster was not coming back anytime soon, so it was important to both the owners and the city that the property be rezoned so that they have the ability to get another tenant in the building.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) was the alderperson for the area the Family Video building was located. She wanted to let her fellow Alderpersons know that the neighborhood had a favorable view of the rezoning. She thanked the owners of the property and Michael Kohne for reaching out to the neighborhood and really working with them to make sure they all felt comfortable with the rezoning.
There was no further discussion and the rezoning was approved unanimously.
The Coolidge Court rezoning did not go as smoothly. Two residents had appeared at the City Plan Commission meeting and voiced their concerns about noise and the impact of putting a multi-family unit next to single family houses. One resident seemed to have some distrust of the city related to how the city had handled the development of a nearby commercial property. The resident said the city had assured the residents that there would be nothing generating noise on the side of the commercial property closest to the neighborhood, but now the hardware store had a small engine repair station on that side. The developer had been at the meeting and said he didn’t envision that there would be a noise issue and he also said what he wanted to do with the property was not far off from what was already deemed acceptable use for that land. The City Plan Commission eventually voted 6-1 to recommend the rezoning application for approval.
I was curious if, given the opposition of the neighbor and the lack of a unanimous vote by the Plan Commission, if the developer would come to the Common Council meeting just to make sure it went through, but he did not.
This property was also in Alderperson Van Zeeland’s district. When it came up for discussion, she said that the folks who live in the neighborhood still had several concerns regarding the rezoning that they weren’t able to get answered by developer. She encouraged her fellow alderpersons to consider how they would feel if their neighborhood was being rezoned and they couldn’t get their questions answered.
Mayor Woodford asked if there was any further discussion and noted that the Plan Commission had recommended this rezoning for approval.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) asked if this rezoning was time-sensitive and needed to be approved that evening or if the Council could table it to give the neighbors an opportunity to speak on it.
A staff member said the item wasn’t listed has “critical timing” at the Plan Commission, but rezonings do take an extensive amount of time to go through the statutory process. This had been before the Commission back in June, and the applicant was expecting Council action that night. He asked if there was anything staff could do to help and concluded by saying that any action was at the Council’s discretion.
Alderperson Van Zeeland wanted to elaborate on her concerns. She spoke with some constituents who had been actively trying to engage regarding this project, and that evening they had told her that, although they had planned on coming to the Council meeting, they decided not to because they were told, basically, that the Council usually does what the Commission says and they felt like what they had to say wasn’t going to affect the vote. She didn’t feel comfortable as their representative letting something go through without giving them another chance to speak because she didn’t think that what they said was true. She thought the Council listens when people come to speak, and she would be open to tabling the item for a future date.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) asked if they had the questions the neighbors were trying to get answered and would some of the people present at the Council meeting be able to answer them.
Mayor Woodford didn’t know and said it was up to the Council in terms of what they did and where they would like to go with this.
Alderperson Schultz made a motion to table the item for two weeks until the next Common Council meeting on 08/04/2021. He encouraged his colleagues to vote in support of the tabling. The constituents had some concerns and felt like they were unanswered. Giving those constituents another opportunity to come state their case would be a way to show that the Council is trying to listen regardless of what they think the outcome might be.
The motion to table until 08/04/2021 was approved 9-3 with Alderpersons Brad Firkus (District 3), Joe Martin (District 4), and Chad Doran (District 15) voting nay, and Alderpersons Maiyoua Thao (District 7), Michael Smith (District 10), and Joe Prohaska (District 14) not at the meeting.
[I’m curious what would have happened if the neighbors had shown up. I’m also curious what would have happened if the developer had been there; I suspect that, had he been at the Council meeting, the approval would have gone through that night. We’ll see if he shows up on August 4th, or if the neighbors show up for that matter..
I thought the juxtaposition between how the Family Video owner and the Coolidge Court developer handled their respective rezoning applications was interesting. Family Video seemed to be a lot more proactive, making efforts to engage the residents of their surrounding neighborhood, and having their representative show up not only at the City Plan Commission meeting but also at the Common Council meeting to be available to answer questions and address concerns. The Coolidge Court developer, however, doesn’t seem to be making as big of an effort to reach out to the neighboring community and only showed up at the Plan Commission meeting and not to the Council meeting also. His basic rezoning request isn’t unreasonable—i.e. to move the property from a zoning that only allows a very specific 1980s style apartment complex to built to one that would allow a more modern design—and that case shouldn’t necessarily be difficult to make to the neighbors. Ultimately, if he makes good-faith efforts to reach out to the neighbors and answer their questions, even if those neighbors never come around to accepting the new development, his actions will still reflect well on him as he goes through the approval process with the city.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=867241&GUID=B9061662-1925-4BE6-B084-6279053B76A2&Options=info|&Search=
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