It looks like the residents of Appleton will have to wait a little longer before the city’s street terrace policy is modified. During the 09/07/2022 Common Council meeting the proposed modifications to the city’s Street Terrace Policy was referred back to the Municipal Services Committee for further discussion.
On 08/22/2022 the Municipal Services Committee voted unanimously to recommend for approval a series of modifications to the city’s street terrace policy. These changes would have allowed residents who apply for permits, pay an annual fee, and provide proof of insurance to do things such as install fences around their terraces, plant vegetation that grows taller than 3’, install loose stone or sand, and plant within 3 feet of a fire hydrant.
It would also allow residents who do not get a permit or pay a fee to install plants that are no more than 3’ tall, but those plants would need to be cut down and removed from the terrace by October 5 to accommodate the fall leaf collection by vacuum truck.
Two members of the public spoke on the item during the Common Council meeting.
Brigit has had a garden in her terrace since 1994. Back in 1994, she saw something in a city published mailer regarding gardens in terraces. She called the city and asked if she could plant a garden in her terrace and whether she needed a permit to do so. The city staff member didn’t have any details because it was a new program/policy and told her to go ahead and plant a garden as long as it was under 3 feet tall. She went ahead and planted her entire terrace and had maintained it since 1994.
She didn’t mind having to cut the plants down for leaf collection, but she didn’t think she should have to pay a renewal fee every year, get a permit, or show proof of insurance. If these policy changes were passed, she would have to remove the garden from her terrace and replant it with grass. She liked the city of Appleton, but these changes hurt her. [As an aside, I’m not sure she would fall into the category of people who need to pay a fee and get a permit. Unless something has changed since Google took their Streetview photos of her property in 2019, her plants are under 3 feet tall and she doesn’t have a fence on her terrace, so my understanding of the policy would lead me to believe she doesn’t need to get a permit or pay an annual fee.]
The other resident who spoke was Rollie. He had only heard about the policy changes recently through a Post Crescent article. He had thought it was a new policy and, until that evening, had not known it was an update to an existing policy. He was worried about the snow plows messing up fences that were installed under this policy. He also had concerns about the general appearance of vegetable gardens with tall fences and trash.
He lived in Appleton for 50 years and liked that it was a clean city, but friends from out of town had visited recently and commended that Appleton was looking scruffy. He believed this was due to No Mow May having been implemented. His experience was that his neighbors who participated in No Mow May didn’t really know about pollinators or understand what the purpose behind No Mow May was. He suggested there needed to be more education about the purpose of No Mow May.
He thought both No Mow May and the current modifications to the street terrace policy ought to be brought to the people as a referendum for them to vote on. He noted that Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4), the author of the resolution that had prompted the proposed changes, had told him there was a cost to holding a referendum, but he still believed that the people should be allowed to speak on both matters.
When the Council was establishing the order of the day, Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) requested that the item be referred back to the Municipal Services Committee. Alderperson Del Toro objected to the refer back, so the Council went on to vote on whether or not to uphold his objection or to let the item go back to the committee.
Alderperson Del Toro noted that there had been a lot of hard work, collaboration, and compromise that had gone into the recommended policy changes. There had been several meetings and discussion, and the recommendations had already gone through the Municipal Services Committee. No new information had arisen, and they were ready to go for a vote.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) different with Alderperson Del Toro. She pointed out that feedback from constituents had come through since the committee had voted to approve the changes. In particular, concerns about safety had been raised. Sending it back to committee would provide the opportunity to either fix any safety issues that existed or assure city residents that it was in fact already safe.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1), who chairs the Municipal Services Committee, did not see any critical timing issues caused by the refer back so did not object to it being sent back to committee for further discussion. He did not think the item would be hurt by the refer back.
Alderperson Del Toro, who does not serve on the Municipal Services Committee, said that while he appreciated Alderperson Siebers’ commentary, he believed there was other business to attend to in the Municipal Services Committee meeting and having this referred back would potentially decrease the amount of time available to spend on those other things.
In response to Alderperson Hartzheim’s points, he said that he believed safety had been the primary discussion point with the Department of Public Works. They had talked in detail about what the appropriate height was to not cause safety issues. The recommendations were also modeled after other communities that were doing similar things. He felt the safety issues had been addressed.
Alderperson Doran, who serves on the Municipal Services Committee, said that one of his reasons for referring the item back was because of some of the safety concerns residents had raised. He thought there were concerns about what the city was doing with its pedestrian safety study. He had overlooked that when discussing the street terrace policy, but he thought it was appropriate to discuss how pedestrian safety and the street terrace policy might go together. He also noted that, as was demonstrated by the public comment, some residents were just learning about these proposed changes. Since there were no timing issues, he didn’t see a reason why they city couldn’t give residents another opportunity to have more say in the policy.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) supported the refer back. She liked what they were trying to accomplish with the policy changes, but there were residents in her district who had some safety concerns. She hoped that anything done at committee would just be an adjustment of the idea, not a removal of it, but she did think some discussion could take place.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) thought that they were supposed to be doing this work at committee and thought it was frustrating to see somebody refer something back when they had not participated in the discussion during the committee meeting.
There was no further discussion on the objection to the refer back. Blocking a refer back required a 2/3rd vote, so 10 alderpersons needed to support the objection.
Initially, Mayor Woodford took a voice vote and thought that 10 alderpersons had supported the objection; however, City Attorney Christopher Behrens only heard 9. They went on to take a rollcall vote and confirmed that only 9 votes had been cast in favor of not sending the item back to committee. They were one vote short, so the item was sent back to the committee for further discussion.
Alderpersons in favor of the refer back were Alderpersons Siebers, Maiyoua Thao (District 7), Alfheim, Hartzheim, Chris Croatt (District 14), and Doran.
Alderpersons wanting to keep the item before the Council and not send it back to committee were Alderpersons Vered Melter (District 2), Brad Firkus (District 3), Del Toro, Van Zeeland, Denise Fenton (District 6), Joss Thyssen (District 8), Alex Schultz (District 9), and Nate Wolff (District 12).
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=980230&GUID=A68655DD-0AE0-4A8B-BE13-E07B25B9CB6C
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