Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

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We're all here and it's 530, so we'll call to order this Monday, July 27th, 2026 meeting of the City of Madison Plan Commission. Director Tuttle, will you call the roll for us? All right, good evening, everyone.

Alderfield?

Here.

Alder Figaro-Cole? Here. Alder Ugar?

Here.

Commissioner Bozine? Here. Commissioner Heck?

Here.

Commissioner Sanders? Here. Commissioner Solheim? Here. Commissioner Wesniewski? All right. School District Rep Chiak?

Here.

and Chair Gnome. Here, thanks. Before we get started on our agenda, we'll start with some information from our technical facilitator, Jesse Poole. Jesse, welcome.

All right, welcome to our Virtual Plan Commission meeting. If you lose connection at any point during the meeting, you can reconnect by clicking the link or calling the number in your original email. Members, if you're able, please activate your video and keep it on for the duration of the meeting. Staff, if you're able, please activate your video when you are speaking. Panelists use the raise hand feature when you'd like to be recognized to speak or ask questions. Lowering your hand will take you out of the queue. Members of the public who have registered to speak, the name you entered in Zoom must match the name you entered in registration. You will remain muted until called upon. The clerk will tell you when your time is up. After speaking, a member of the body may ask you a question. If you need to share documentation with the commission, please send it to the email listed on today's agenda. Chair, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Jesse. Our first agenda item is time for public comment for items not on the formal plan commission agenda. Director Tuttle, did we have any registrants for public comment?

We do not, Chair.

Great. We will then go to disclosures and recusals. Members of the commission should make any required disclosures or recusals under the city's ethics code.

I WILL EXCUSE MYSELF FROM ALL AGENDA ITEMS ON TONIGHT'S MEETING AS I WILL REPRESENT THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE PROJECTS NUMBER 6 AND 7. I'M NOT AVAILABLE FOR ANY QUESTIONS WHEN THAT COMES THAT TIME.

THANKS, REPRESENTATIVE SHEHAD. THAT'S SUPER HELPFUL. WE WERE KIND OF WONDERING HOW THAT WAS GOING TO GO. SO THANK YOU. WE NEXT NEED TO DEAL WITH THE MINUTES OF THE JULY 13, 2026 REGULAR MEETING. OUR DRAFT MINUTES ARE IN our agenda and did anyone have any additions or corrections to the draft minutes? All right, I'm seeing none. Could I ask for a motion and a second to approve the July 13th minutes? Alder Field, thank you. Alder Ugar, thanks for seconding. Any discussion? All right, seeing none. Any objection to unanimous approval for last meeting's minutes? All right, those are approved. Just reviewing our upcoming schedule of meetings. Our next meeting is Monday, August 10th, which is two weeks from tonight. And then following that is Monday, August 31st, which allows for a three-week break during August. And then after that, we will meet October 5th. and 19th, and those are all virtual meetings at 5.30 p.m. So we have a calendar idiosyncrasy that we have no plan commission meetings in September except for our special meeting, which will be Tuesday afternoon, September 29th at five o'clock in person in room 215 of the Madison Municipal Building. So we'll look forward to seeing everybody for those upcoming meetings. And we will now move to our consent agenda. It's been the custom of the plan commission to handle on a consent agenda those items on which staff members believe an application has been sufficiently reviewed to find the relevant standards met to support approval with all of the listed conditions placed upon it by the various city departments and where the applicant accepts all those conditions and there are no individuals who've registered to speak in opposition to the agenda item. Separately, we use a consent agenda for items requested by an applicant or staff to be referred to a future meeting. Referral does not require a public hearing because the public hearing will be held at the referral date. So we'll deal with the referral agenda separately from the approval consent agenda. So for approval tonight on our agenda, we have items two, three, four, and five that are proposed for consent. And then item eight is proposed for referral as a consent item. So seeing those agenda items proposed, are there any requests for separation from the commission? All right, seeing none, we'll read into the record the consent items for approval first. Starting with item two, which is Legistar 93-260, amending section 16.26 sub 1 sub f of the Madison General Ordinances related to Oscar Avenue setbacks to remove part of a setback line, and this is in Alder District 12. Our agenda item three is Legistar 93275 relating to 110 East Rusk Avenue and 1919 Alliant Energy Center Way in Alder District 14. This is consideration of a conditional use in the Parks and Recreation District, PR District. for an auditorium and consideration of a conditional use in the PR district for a building height greater than two stories and 35 feet, all to allow construction of additions to the exhibition hall at the Alliant Energy Center. Item 4 on our consent agenda is Legistar 93609 relating to 108 North Leon Street in Alder District 15. This is consideration of a conditional use in the Commercial Corridor Transitional, CCT District. for a mixed-use building with less than 50% of non-residential ground floor frontage facing the primary street, including all frontage at a street corner, and consideration of a conditional use in the CCT district for dwelling units in a mixed-use building with greater than 60 units, all to allow construction of a four-story mixed-use building containing approximately 4,500 square feet of commercial space and 124 dwelling units on Lot 5 of the Starkweather subdivision. Finally, we have Item 5, which is Legistar 93610, relating to 101 through 109 North Franklin Street and 510 East Mifflin Street in Alder District 2. This is consideration of an alteration to an approved Plan Development District Specific Implementation Plan, PDSIP. To remove language in the zoning text for this PD district that prohibits residents of the four subject buildings from obtaining residential parking permits as governed by Madison General Ordinance's section 12.138. So I'll open the public hearing and close the public hearing on these consent items and we will move to a vote. I could ask for a motion in a second to approve the approval consent agenda. Alder Ugar, thank you. And Commissioner Solheim, thank you. Is there any objection to unanimous approval for these consent items? Seeing none, our consent agenda is passed for tonight. We'll also, now we will take up the referral consent agenda. This is item eight, Legislature 93276, relating to 502 Flom Road in Alder District 15. This is consideration of a conditional use for the construction of a new building in a campus institutional CI district without a campus master plan to allow construction of a new Senate middle school building. And this item is to be referred to our next meeting on August 10th. There's no public hearing, so could I ask for a motion and a second to refer this item? Commissioner Heck, thank you. And Commissioner Solheim, thank you. Is there any objection to unanimous approval for the referral agenda? All right, seeing none, that item is also referred. So now we will take up our remaining regular agenda items and these are items six and seven on our agenda. They will be considered together as one public hearing. And then following the public hearing, we'll take up each item separately for motion and voting. So item six is Legislature 93594 relating to 4301 Cherokee Drive consideration of a demolition permit to demolish an institutional building in Alder District 10. And item seven is Legistar 93277, also for 4301 Cherokee Drive in District 10. This is consideration of a conditional use in the traditional residential consistent one, TRC1 district, for a school, public or private, consideration of a conditional use in the TRC1 district for a building or structure exceeding 10,000 square feet in floor area, and consideration of a conditional use for an increase of more than 20 parking spaces that is also more than 10% of the maximum parking requirement, all to allow construction of a new public school building to replace the existing Cherokee Heights Middle School building. We will start with a presentation from planning staff, and we have Planner Wells with us tonight to walk us through this one. Welcome.

Thank you, Chair and members of the Planning Commission. During its review of the demolition, which was originally constructed in 1954, the Landmarks Commission found that the building has historic value, quote, related to the vernacular context of Madison's mid-20th century built environment and as the work slash product of an architect of note. the Cybers, Purcell, Cuthbert architects. However, they found that the building itself was not historically, architecturally, or culturally significant, which is a category B finding. During the meeting, preservation staff noted that the Sherman School was the only other building that this firm did for the Madison School Board, which was reviewed by the Landmarks Commission and the Planning Commission EARLIER THIS YEAR, THE STAFF NOTED THAT MADISON DOES NOT HAVE A LOT OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS IN THIS STYLE. IT IS DISTINCTIVE IN THAT THE FIRM DID SOME REALLY STUNNING BUILDINGS, INCLUDING THE CINCINNAUA CHAPTER. THEY NOTED THAT THE BUILDING IS IN GOOD SHAPE IN TERMS OF HISTORIC INTEGRITY BUT DID NOT KNOW THAT IT IS HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT FOR ITS ARCHITECTURE. in the landmark's materials in the demolition files. It was also noted that the firm designed numerous churches and buildings on the Edgewood campus in addition to many residential commissions in Madison. The applicant laid out their reasoning for constructing a new school instead of renovating the existing, such as the cost of renovation exceeding their threshold as compared to new construction, the increased student capacity, the larger student spaces, generally speaking, the updated mechanical systems, and the greatly reduced disruption to students by constructing a new building versus like a greatly extended renovation. Taken together, staff believe that these factors could be found to outweigh the public interest in preserving the historic resource, which should be considered by the Planning Commission tonight. Lastly, staff note that the Landmarks Commission recommended no conditions regarding reuse of or historic documentation of the existing Cherokee Heights Middle School building. Regarding the conditional use requests, staff believe that the standards can be found met. As for the increase in automotive parking proposed on site, which there are 85 stalls proposed compared to the roughly 15 that are currently on the site. Staff know that this is roughly 35, that this roughly 35% increase in is generally commensurate given the increased number of staff that will be on site as a school that is proposed as larger than existing. So it's a 35% roughly increase in parking compared to a 25 or 30% increase in staff. Lastly, the Urban Design Commission granted initial approval of the proposal at their July 15th, 2026 meeting. And with that, I'll be happy to answer questions after the public hearing.

Thanks, Chris. We do have registrants for this item, so we'll open the public hearing. And we will, I think Representative Chihak is our public speaker. So Scott, welcome, and we'll hear from you about the project. I think you're subject to our three-minute limit, but it's a little...

I'll just quickly interject and let you know that we do have some other members of the project team that are here and are willing to present the project. I think we are happy to hear from Repchick if he wants to add anything, but maybe we'll start with Susan Bowersox, who's representing the district and is wishing to speak to just lay out the project for you. That sounds good.

And I just wanted to offer if people need to bundle time, that's fine too. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks. So, yeah, well, Megan, I'll let you call on the speakers. All right.

So we'll start with Susan Bowersox then.

Yep.

Chair and Commission, there are no people in attendance.

Okay. I might have misspoken then.

She might be using my other sign-on for me.

Oh, for... She might be in under Scott's name. I see a second, yes.

Yep, we do have two Scotts. It's disorienting. Yes.

Sorry, I tried to change my name, but it wouldn't let me.

Welcome, Susan.

Thank you. Just to introduce the project a little bit, you're welcome to share a site plan. Within our submittal, we didn't submit a separate presentation.

Okay. Thank you, Susan. One second. Chris is just pulling that up for you. Yep.

Okay, we do have the site plan available.

All right, so the proposed new Cherokee Middle School is located in the area shown in blue on the site. It's to the west side of the existing building. The plan is for the main entrance to the site to remain the same on the north side of the site off Cherokee Drive. The building will be constructed in full, and then once the school moves into the new building, the existing building will be demolished, and then the remaining site work will be finished. And that includes the parking area, the drop-off loop, as well as some landscaping and sidewalk work to get you to the building from the adjacent streets. The large yellow school buses will stage along the curve along Cherokee Drive on the north side. There is an access point off Midvale that is for service only and fire access to the building. The large green area to the south will remain. We're adding some playground space next to green space for soccer and outside activities for the students. And then primarily that main entrance will be in the center along the east side of the building. Sort of where that circle element is represented. That's a landscape element on the east side, but that's right outside the main entrance. If you want to show any of the renderings, I can explain what the building looks like and how it's positioned on the site. Otherwise, I can open it up for questions too. So the image there on the top left, that is the main entry where I sit along the east side of the building as you enter into the main entry. The image on the top right shows the approach if you were coming off Cherokee Drive, walking towards the building. So that's from that sort of northern part of the site as the students would get off the large yellow buses and walk to the building and enter along the east side. The images on the lower part of this page essentially just kind of walk yourself around the building. The lower left hand is from the north side. There's a large heritage oak located on the north side of the building that's orientated with the access. working around that tree, wanting to preserve that tree as much as possible, but also create opportunities from inside the building for students to be able to see outside and engage with where they're at on the site. People, one more slide. Here are some additional views on the south end of the building. That upper left-hand corner view is the south end of the building looking towards the north. That's where the music spaces are. Due to the topography on the site, the south end of the building is at grade on second level. Even though you enter, which is the image to the right there on top, you enter at first level at grade on that side of the building. uh significant a significant gray drop across this site and then the lower two images uh show the west side of the building um and then we are also working to incorporate the chimney swift a home for the chimney swifts so That's sort of that tall element you see there. We're working with the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance and the district to define exactly what the Chimney Swift Tower is going to look like, but that's representative of where it will be on the building.

Susan, we are at time, so I'll have you wrap up and hang on in case there are questions.

Nope, that should do it. Thank you. All right.

Okay. In addition to Scott Chiak that we noted is here with the district earlier, I'll also just share that we have Matt Haas, who's here representing the district, who's available to answer questions. And that is all of our, those are all of our registrants for tonight, Chair.

All right. Thanks. Are there questions from the commissioner? Are there questions from any of the commissioners for our registrants? on any of the comments or issues for both items, the demo permit and the conditional use authorization. Commissioner Wozniewski.

Thank you, Chair. This is for any of the district representatives. I guess one of the things that all three of my children have gone through Madison schools and all three of them have gone through Cherokee. in its present form. One of the things I've always appreciated was the encouragement for the situation of the schools for kids to be able to, if they're not taking the bus, to be able to walk there or ride their bicycles there. I've seen the last few proposals from MMSD where they're doing these drop off lines. And I've come from places where those drop off lines are there and they just create problems. Wondering what is the push for drop off lanes in these new school buildings when there wasn't one before?

Yeah, I can answer that. There's two things. Some of them have drop-offs, some of them do not, depending on what their circumstances. For Cherokee in general, we know there's a lot of parents that still pick up students and they're going on the side streets, which is causing congestion in our side streets. In addition to staff parking that's on the side streets, we're getting a lot of blind spots where students are kind of crossing between cars and So we try to eliminate one, the parking spot to be a little larger and take the staff off the street. And because people like convenience, we're putting that into the drop off loops and having a trolled entrance and exits out of that site. The access for biking and pedestrians has actually increased whenever we've got it. We've got a trail coming from the coma coming down in a accessible trail that will kind of weave down into the school and multiple different paths to separate vehicle and bike traffic. Those pathways are 10 foot wide, so they're not single path for just pedestrian, they're bike and pedestrian. So we've kind of opened up the site to have more accessibility and a lot more bike racks in the front of the school and along the side of the school to accommodate that natural influx. But given how it's purposely going on Cherokee, we do have a lot of parents that And drop off, pick up, it becomes kind of a rat race to getting down the street to get around cars and fight to get in and out. So we have purposely accommodated for that to relieve the pressure and congestion because students are out to get out of school and go home, not have to look for cars. So we're trying to purposely guide that traffic pattern.

A follow-up to that then, what is the plan? Because right now it's sort of a scattershot approach as people park in the neighborhood and the students walk there. Now it'll be a concentrated traffic coming out of there where you can only make a right-hand turn on Cherokee where you'll go to the intersection of Waban and Cherokee. What is... the the plan for controlling that traffic flow i'm assuming people are going to try to get back up on the mid or nakoma boulevard at that point um taking a right there to get up to a major road um are there any thoughts on challenges that it's going to present uh at the end of school or or beginning of school we don't see that we we have the same issue now so when we have a controlled into our site at least we're regulating what's coming out of the site in a more controlled pattern we do have people that do the rapid drop off and take off

and eliminating some of that side road congestion. We feel that's going to make it a safer environment because you'll have a lot less traffic kind of squeezing on narrow roads. There's more able to get the traffic to move and manipulate out of the site.

Question ahead.

Thanks. Scott, this is probably for you. Can you explain where the 60% number comes from regarding demolition or not to demolish? And is that a common number in school systems or where does that come from?

Yeah, the initial lawn in the REF 24 pre-work, it was a differentiator of what's the cost to rebuild for, you know, so many years, right? So given these buildings are the last 50 to 60 years and where the typical construction of this particular Cherokee is, all of the gutting and the tunnel work would have to be demolished and redone and piped. And those, obviously, labor is expensive. And we would have to add an additional wing to accommodate for all the extra growth. So when you started adding all the costs together and you said, okay, I'm going to have to come back and refurbish the building and in 20 years to do extra additional work, it just made more sense to say, let's demolish the building, repurpose the size of the classrooms. Our new learning environments are 800 to 900 square foot. Our current existing classrooms are 750. So, you know, we're a little larger classrooms. We're kind of taking up more footprints, but being more condensed in the way we did it. So typical standard when we're looking at all of our buildings, anything above 60%, then we can kind of, I wouldn't say set it and forget it, right? But you get a kind of a good return point above 60%. It's better to rebuild it and repurpose it how you really need it to be done and make it more cost efficient and sustainable.

So that's a number that's kind of just based on the school district's experience that 60% is where you really need to draw the line.

Yeah, we picked it up for some other fellow school districts kind of around the country as well if you're repurposing it.

Ah, okay. Okay, thanks. That was what I was looking for.

Other questions? All right. With no other questions, we'll close the public hearing on this item and open it up to questions for staff. All right. If there aren't questions for staff, we might be ready for a motion and we would start with a with the demolition permit. Commissioner West, did you make a motion or did you have questions?

I have a question for staff. I was trying to pull up my conditional use requirements there. So for Planner Wells, my question is, I know that in the staff report it's noted that the staff has no concerns over most of the requirements for the conditional use permit. But again, I go back to this entrance on Cherokee that's now going to incent all these people to drive. And the The standard number one is the establishment maintenance and operation of the conditional use will not be detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare. And I'm just wondering how city staff approach this for the neighborhood. I know that site very well, and so I know how the traffic flows around there. And I just have some grave concerns about incenting people to drive their kids to school more so than they're doing now.

This was a discussion at our development assistance team, which is the kind of an internal body of various reviewing agencies that it's basically it's a weekly meeting where the applicants can get feedback and comments from the agencies that will be reviewing eventually should they submit this definitely came up this this question and in part they were very supportive of the of the zoning code change to allow to exempt, I think it went through this past month, to exempt school uses from requiring to be accessed by a collector. And that was in large part in response to continuing to allow Cherokee to be used to access the school. So Traffic Engineering has reviewed it and was supportive of the continuation of the access far away from the main intersection and maintaining it in its current location.

The other thing I'll add, Commissioner Wisniewski, is that a transportation demand management plan will be required, which also covers things that the applicant is going to do to help minimize the amount of parking and vehicular trips are required of the site. I think as we see the increase in parking, Chris noted that much of that is related to the increase in the staffing capacity for the school, but that Transportation Demand Management Plan will also document steps that the district will be taking to help manage the vehicular access to the school. And there are also conditions that are requiring a drop-off pickup and parking plan as well to help document how different users of the school will be attending, arriving and departing the school.

Thank you.

Question ahead.

Just a quick follow-up question on that for Megan, I guess. Who would review the drop-off pickup plan? Is that planning staff or TE?

Probably both. Is that right, Chris? But generally, transportation engineering will review that.

Okay. Thank you.

Other questions? We might be ready to make a motion as each of you grabs for your microphone, but no, we might be ready for a motion if we're ready for that. Alder, you're here, thanks.

Thank you, Chair. I'll start with the demolition permit. A move that the Planning Commission finds that the standards for demolition permits are met and approve the request to raise the institutional building that is the existing Cherokee Heights Middle School building at 4301 Cherokee Drive.

Thanks, Alder. Commissioner Solheim? Second. All right. Thanks. Any further discussion on this item? I think we got a good record before us from the Landmarks Commission. Seeing none, I'll call a vote. We'll start with, is there any objection to unanimous approval for the motion to approve the demo permit? Commissioner Wasniewski? No. Do we, Megan, should we do a roll call vote then?

We'll do a roll call vote then here. Okay. Starting with Alderfield.

Aye.

Alder Figueroa-Cole. Aye. Alder Ugar.

Aye.

Commissioner Bazin. Aye. Commissioner Heck.

Aye.

Commissioner Sanders. Aye. Commissioner Solheim. Aye. And Commissioner Wisniewski. Aye.

No.

Okay, the ayes have it, Chair.

Thank you. So that motion is passed. We would now be looking for a motion on the conditional use applications as listed. Alder Yeager.

Thank you, Chair. I move that the planned commission finds that the standards for conditional uses are met and approve the three requests of the applicant. First, for a school, public or private in the traditional residential consistent one, that is the TRC-1 district. And two, for a building or structure exceeding 10,000 square feet in floor area in the TRC-1 district. And three, for an increase of more than 20% or 20 parking spaces that is also more than 10% of the maximum parking requirement to allow construction of a new public middle school building to replace the existing Cherokee Middle School building at 4301 Cherokee Drive and subject to the conditions in the staff report.

Alderfield, thanks for the second. We have a motion and a second on the table. Is there any discussion or further comments on the motion? Commissioner Wisniewski.

No, this is the one that I have the larger problem with. I'm just terribly disappointed in seeing these drop-off lines going into the schools and just have concerns about the traffic in the neighborhood.

Thanks. Other discussion? I will call a vote, and I think we'll just go to a roll call on this one as well, Megan, if that's all right.

Sorry, I need to unmute myself. Alderfield.

Aye. Alder Figueroa-Cole. Aye. Alder Ugar.

Aye.

Commissioner Bazin. Aye. Commissioner Heck.

Aye.

Commissioner Sanders? Aye. Commissioner Solheim? Aye. And Commissioner Wisniewski?

No.

All right. Thank you. The ayes have it.

Chair? Thank you. That item is passed. So we will now, now we have time for member announcements, communications, and business or business items. Does anyone have any items that they want to discuss? Yes. All right. Seeing none, we'll go to our secretary's report. And Megan, you have the floor.

All right. Thank you, Chair.

Nice to be with you all this evening after missing your last meeting. Just a couple things that I wanted to note about upcoming matters. You have a few projects that I'll just call out here, particularly on your August 31st agenda. As we look ahead to that meeting, we do anticipate some updates I guess some building modifications, additions to the Edgewater Hotel that will be coming up on that agenda. We will also see some more school projects from the district for both Toki and Orchard Ridge. and a plat on the far west side for Hawk's Nest. So if you have any questions about any of those, please feel free to reach out to us as usual. We are also tracking the commission's review of a series of zoning changes related to the plan development, the residential plan development zoning district project that we've talked about a couple of times. We are currently working through some of the details related to that. August 31st is currently what we're targeting. It might be another meeting in September, but we'll keep you posted. But we do expect that those rezonings associated with that project will start to come before you here in your next few meetings. So if you want any updates or need any information about that before we talk about it, please feel free to reach out to Katie Bannon ahead of the meeting. So I think I'll leave it there for tonight, Chair. Actually, one thing I will note, we have been talking with the district about rescheduling the presentation that we were supposed to have at our special meeting earlier this summer to talk about the district boundary review. Unfortunately, the district is not available. It doesn't work within their project schedule to come to our special meeting in September. But we are working with them to come back to one of your regular meetings in October and give you an update at that sort of next phase of that project. So we have got that back in the queue. I anticipate in your future meetings, you will hear more about the data center discussion. And we're working to think We're working through some of the other topics that we discussed at your work planning session to see how we can slot some of those in this fall as well. I'll leave it there now, Chair.

Any questions for Megan or follow up? All right, seeing none, I think we're ready for a motion to adjourn in a second. Commissioner Solheim, Commissioner Heck, thank you. Any objection to unanimous approval? Seeing none, we'll stand adjourned and we'll see everyone in a couple weeks. Thanks.