Common Council Votes 13-2 To Approve Chase Bank Development Agreement – 2 Alderpersons Oppose Citing Affordable Housing Concerns

The Common Council met 01/18/2022. Almost an hour of the meeting was taken up with a presentation on the new reduced-scope design of the Appleton Public Library project; however, after that was over, the Council did separate out several action items for individual votes.

The first item they took up was the request to approve a development agreement for the redevelopment of the Chase Bank property at 200 W College Avenue. The plan would see the top floors of the building turned into 24 market rate apartment units while the first floor would be rented out by Chase Bank and another, yet to be determined, commercial tenant. The basement level will be turned into an entertainment venue of some sort. This was discussed and voted on during the 01/11/2023 Community and Economic Development Committee meeting at which it was approved unanimously.

The agreement was also approved by the Common Council; however, that approval was not unanimous. Concerns were raised regarding the fact that “market rate” apartments are not “affordable” apartments, and Alderpersons Vered Meltzer (District 2) and Israel Del Toro (District 4) ended up voting against the agreement. This was a reversal from Alderperson Del Toro who, as a member of the Community and Economic Development Committee, had voted in favor of the development agreement.

The Chase Bank development was the only item on the agenda that even to garner public comment with Appleton resident TK expressing concerns that downtown Appleton would become gentrified, poor people would be forced out of that area, and homeless population would grow.

I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the public comment as well as the Council discussion around the item.

Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) started things off by expressing support for the development saying, “Something that I’ve learned over that time is that it’s not as though [developers] want those prices to be high; it is a byproduct of the economy that we live in and costs involved in building, and that typically, these costs are as low as they could potentially be.”

Alderperson Del Toro indicated he was changing his vote after having previously voted “yes” during the Community and Economic Development Committee. He thought that the city needed to start planning to create an economically diverse community in the downtown area. “There’s value of having folks have different incomes within living in the same building.”

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) supported the project and pointed out that the city did not own the property so needed to be careful on dictating what private citizens did with their property. She did, however, think they could continue talking about affordable housing in Appleton separate from this particularly development.

Alderperson Del Toro disagreed with Alderperson Alfheim, “The permitting process exists for a reason, and the request to approve this permit is a potential stop to say ‘Rethink,’ and ‘Are you in line with what we want as a city in our downtown?’” [That line stood out to me. Hopefully he was just speaking off the cuff and didn’t think his words through, but doing what he suggested would require some rewriting of the permitting process. And it’s hard to see how the city permitting or denying the development of private properties based on its own subjective vision of how the city ought to be wouldn’t be a recipe for a housing crisis as well as other economic problems.]

Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) supported the development and said that the College North Neighborhood study had shown that “one of our main shortage points within the housing market is that middle to middle upper income area, which market rate will address. Any more supply ends up easing the pressure of rates for rents and purchasing prices that are caused when you do not have enough housing” He also pointed out that the city had set aside $3 million in ARPA funds for affordable housing.

Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) stressed that there was a difference between “market rate” apartments and “affordable” apartments. “These are not 24 accessible living units. These are living units that are very far out of the reach of many people who need to be able to live downtown in order to survive in our community.”

Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) expressed a desire for more conversation on the issue of affordable housing in the city.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) supported this development with the hope that with an increase in the number of apartments in the city, overall rent would go down. “I would absolutely be voting against it were we to take existing housing and being use the word gentrify and make that into market level or high. But what we’re now doing is taking office space that has been underutilized and turning it into housing, which we absolutely need.”

The Council went on to approve the development agreement by a vote of 13-2 with Alderpersons Meltzer and Del Toro casting the dissenting votes.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1064887&GUID=5B72C5D0-B0E5-4C3E-80CC-12C411D6B617