On 08/18/2021 the Summit Street reconstruction was approved by the Common Council on a very narrow vote. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other street reconstruction that has resulted in such a vote.
As explained in the recap of the Municipal Services Committee meeting where this project was initially approved, the residents were in something of a bind. Their street needs to have sewer and water work done because they still have clay pipes from the 1920s and have had multiple water main breaks over the last 10 years. They also have many mature trees that they don’t want to lose. Unfortunately, the only way to save the trees seems to be to narrow the street by 2 feet so that it’s only 26 feet wide, but if the street is narrowed by 2 feet then they will lose parking on one side. So, basically no matter what happens the residents will be losing something.
Three residents of the street spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. They were very concerned about the street being narrowed and losing half the available parking as well facing the difficulty of pulling out of their driveways on a markedly more narrow street. One of them was also concerned about the negative aesthetic impact of having “no parking” signs put up along the street. [From my perspective, though, none of them really offered any solutions as to how to not narrow the street but also keep the trees. They really seemed to be butting up against physical reality. It did seem like a disappointing situation with no good answers.]
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) spoke. He is alderperson for the district this street is located in and he very much appreciated that the neighborhood came together when they learned of the project and the potential changes to their neighborhood. He said the city heard from a significant number of residents both at the Municipal Services Committee meeting and the Common Council meeting as well as through a petition that documented some of the concerns about the street reconstruction and tried to mitigate some of the underground utility issues that exist there. He said it was a challenge to work through some of the concerns the residents have because they want the street to remain as it is but at the same time there are ongoing issues with utilities and water main breaks that will certainly continue if they aren’t upgraded. He thought that between now and when the project takes place, perhaps new technologies or a new way of performing the work would come to light or maybe they would be able to think differently about how they could accomplish the utility upgrades and avoid the loss of those two feet of street width. He mentioned that air spading had been brought up as an option by the residents [it sounds like they hoped it would allow excavation closer to the tree roots without harming the trees], but after reviewing that option with the Department of Public Works, it did not seem that that would change the need to provide an extra foot of space on each side of the street so he was not sure that held a significant potential solve for the issue of having to narrow the street to save the trees.
He said they were faced with one of two things. If they move the project forward, they will either lose 17-19 trees and keep the street width as it is, or they can narrow the street and save all but three trees on that street. It was a real challenge to make a decision either way. He thought there was some room for discussion and he didn’t think they necessarily needed to approve this project that evening. He was open to sending it back to committee and discussing it a little more with Public Works and looking at other options for the street given the concerns from the community.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey if she knew off the top of her head what the average width of the city’s alleyways were.
Director Vandehey did not know the average, but said they were something like 10-14 feet wide. Summit Street would not be an alley, nor would it be a one way street.
Alderperson Doran said that they had certainly heard concerns from the neighbors. Those concerns were understandable and change is hard sometimes. However, he pointed out that Appleton has some residential properties with garages that back into alleyways that are substantially more narrow than 26 feet. While he was sympathetic to those concerns, he thought that staff had heard the concerns from the neighbors and tried to make changes to the proposal to meet them as much as possible. At this point, he thought it was important to move the project forward.
There was no further discussion and the Council voted on the proposal. It was just barely approved with a 7-6 vote.
Voting “aye” were Alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Brad Firkus (District 3), Joe Martin (District 4), Denise Fenton (District 6), Kristin Alfheim (District 11), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), and Chad Doran (District 15)
On the “nay” side were Alderpersons Vered Meltzer (District 2), Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), Maiyoua Thao (District 7), Matt Reed (District 8), Alex Shultz (District 9), and Joe Prohaska (District 14)
[I always find votes like this interesting because it’s as non-partisan an issue as can be and it’s fun to see who falls on which side of it. I haven’t been this entertained since Tyler was granted a second curb cut.]
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