The City Plan Commission met 06/14/2023. They took up four items, two were special use permits for a couple bars, and two were related to a rezoning request by Lawrence University for university-owned properties along College Avenue. Lawrence is looking to develop a mixed-use project on the properties, and the rezoning will facilitate that. All of the items were approved unanimously and none garnered much discussion or seemed particularly controversial.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the meeting for download.
The first special use permit was for Stone Arch Brewpub in the Between the Locks building on Olde Oneida Street. The business’ existing special use permit limited alcohol sales and service to the first floor only, but the business was expanding by opening an event space on the third floor which necessitated a new special use permit to allow alcohol sales and service through the entire business. The old special use permit would be eliminated and replaced with the new special use permit.
The commission voted unanimously to approve the new permit.
The second special use permit was for the Maritime Bar on the corner of W Wisconsin Avenue and N Division Street. The tavern wanted to add on an outdoor patio. Because the patio would be more than 10% of the existing space, a new special user permit was required. The bar had actually been in existance prior to the introduction of special use permits into City Code, so did not have an existing special use permit. The one they had applied for would bring them into conformance with current city practice and also include the outdoor patio area in addition to the interior of the bar.
Principal Planner Jessica Titel noted that the current bar and parking lot existed on two separate parcels. The patio would straddle the lot line, and, as a result, the applicant needed to combine to two parcels into one lot in order to build. Combining the lots was a requirement included as a condition of approval for the special use permit.
The bar owner Dan spoke briefly and said that they planned to have a couple of TVs on the patio and serve beers. It was possible they would have bands once in a while, but it didn’t sound like that would be very often, since he said, “that’s like not something that we’re into.”
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) also spoke. The bar was in his district. Patios on bars made him uneasy, and he listed three other bars with patios that caused problems for neighbors. At the same time, he recognized that the Maritime Bar had been a very good neighbor. Many years ago, there had been some problems to which the Maritime had been very responsive, and there had been no problems since. Given that Alderperson Siebers had not heard any of the neighbors express opposition to the patio, he was supportive of this special use permit.
Mayor Woodford encouraged the Maritime to continue being a good neighbor. “there are occasionally challenges when we have commercial abutting residential in the community, and it’s incumbent upon the owners of those businesses and establishments to maintain relationships with the neighborhood and to keep the community informed about what’s happening, events that are happening, extend invitations. And we’ve seen in in a number of instances in the community issues get headed off just by having good working relationships between businesses and neighbors. So would just encourage that for the Maritime to continue those efforts in the neighborhood as you move into having an outdoor patio space.”
The commission voted unanimously to approve it.
The last two items were related to a rezoning request by Lawrence University for properties on the 300 block of E College Avenue over to the corner of Drew Street. This rezoning was needed because Lawrence was interested in developing some kind of mixed-use project on those properties.
The properties were currently zoned as Public Institutional, but the university wanted to rezone them to the Central Business District zoning. In order to do this, they needed to (1) update the parcels’ designations on the city’s Future Land Use Map before (2) rezoning them to Central Business District.
Mayor Woodford asked staff to speak about the limitations of the Public Institutional Zoning.
Principal Planner Don Harp explained that the Public Institutional Zoning District had 20 foot setback requirements whereas Central Business Districts had zero setback requirements. Public Institutional Districts had lot coverage limitations, whereas Central Business Districts allowed 100% lot coverage. There were also different height limitations between the two zoning districts.
Principal Planner Harp gave a little history on why these lots were zoned Public Institutional. The PI zoning district had been introduced in 2004 which the city’s new zoning code. At the time, the city had conversations with Lawrence because there were different zoning classifications on various properties throughout the campus. Eventually, all of the properties were rezoned as Public Institutional; however, at one time these properties on College Avenue before the commission today had been zoned Central Business District.
The commission voted unanimously to approve both requests.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1101175&GUID=B89D90DE-A1DD-4CE0-ADC1-44D9B0A61FCF
Be the first to reply