Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

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e e e was hanging out we've got the first hearing these folks in the front row are from Ward and introduce the start hearing or you can open the public

hearing and then maybe invite them up uh the two guys on the front from is it empty someone drank it during the meeting or that exactly you so all right looking in the back Ted are we on all right Ted's on and up good evening everybody you we are we are at a plan Commission in city of wauw it's Tuesday March 18th 2025 it is 51 p.m City Hall council chambers we do have a quorum we have of

members present we have two members absent the two Alders are not here tonight um first item on the agenda is approval of the meeting minutes from 202 uh from January 21st 2025 would entertain a motion from boraman second second from Bergman any notes changes discussion on the minutes all those in favor signified by saying I I any opposed all right that passes first item up tonight is going to be we have two items on this uh project the first item is the public hearing and I'm looking to see I see Dave and Bob from wangu we'll have them introduce the the project first and then the public will know what we're going to be discussing and they can then uh come up for the public hearing everybody hear me all right uh well thank you Mr Mayor uh very quickly my name is Dave rle I'm here representing Ward partners we are here to discuss the development proposal that we have on uh the river life property but first kind of wanted to talk a little bit about we'll first introduce myself and then introduce the project kind of what we've done and how the planning is evolved uh on wangard in particular so we have been uh developing and managing real estate for 40 for over 40 years uh that uh spans asset classes whether it's commercial office uh retail and multif family where here specifically to discuss multifam so we have around 1,700 units right now in various stages of development excuse me various stages of development across Wisconsin um in fact

recently there was a nationwide survey of multif family operators that surveyed over 150,000 different um management companies that manage assets similar to what we're proposing here today uh the top 1% of that it basically measures customer satisfaction and service to the end renter to the tenant um and those satisfaction scores were ranked top 1% make a certain Elite listing 12 such properties are in Wisconsin uh Ward's proud to have two of those two in fact in the top five so that's the kind of expertise that we're trying to bring in we're very proud of our operational Acuity there and that's something that we're trying to bring in here to Wasa the next thing I'd like to discuss is kind of how the plan evolved so we responded to an RFP um months ago the RFP P at that time and we were thankful for the opportunity to move those plans forward the RFP at that time understood some of site history and the site straints whether it's easements or past developer past developers that have come in and stumbled and really didn't bring the project to full fruition so we tried to learn from that experience and you know learn from areas that might have been fall where they might have fallen down where we cannot really you know walk away from those pitfalls uh so the path that we presented at that time is what I would call today looking in hindsight the path of least resistance working since we've been awarded the project with City staff which has been a great experience Gathering that feedback Gathering feedback from the community we've since modified that plan it was previously 135 units in two different L-shaped buildings it oriented buildings further along the Riverway the walkway there and it did not have the clubhouse amenity that you see here today so we want to after learning more about the site and completing our due diligence and learning from some of the staff's desires and also learning from the

community we really wanted we understood what we had here and what this site is and it's a great asset for the for the city we want to make sure that the site was optimized to the best and Highest Potential that it could be under the constraints of what the site offers so with staff's comments we actually also went out and we posted three different billboard signs on the site along the Riverway because that's something that we really wanted to lean into we wanted to hear from the pedestrians pass ADV that go through this area what are their comments what do you think this is our proposal we put up signs with a QR code that linked you know this is what we're doing this is what we're coming in with what we're coming in with is uh two different buildings 144 units it is four stories of residential above one story of garage parking with a detached clubhouse that will serve as kind of a leasing Center but also Community amenity space that will have you know like a common kitchen pergola seating areas fire pits an amenity that has a view corridor through to the river um that's something that was very important to us and the comments that we got back from some of the passerbys and the signs have been posted for about two weeks now it's had a lot of weeken monitor when it's been scanned by a phone to see how many people have looked at it so it's had good traction there and we've had one comment actually just came in today on the drive up that said hey I live in I live in river life I've enjoyed a lot of the great amenities that the Riverwalk has has to offer I would love to see more multif family here largely support of the project so uh that's great feedback to hear um that's kind of the project in the nutshell in conclusion the collaboration that we've had with the city and the feedback that we've had so far has been great it's been a great working relationship we look forward to continuing that um we look forward to the conversation and the discussion here this evening uh we've tried to capture as many comments as we could and that's the plan that you see presented before you today um and if there's any further questions as the project uh comes up into further detail myself Bob brand Herm our VP of

construction and REI our civil engineer for the project are here to answer any more specific questions about the project so thank you thank you I'm continuing on in the public hearing I know I have C Kathy Wulan looking to speak Kathy if you want to go next sure thank you my comments regarding the general development plan for the project are made on behalf of my employer Clover Belt Credit Union our offices directly across first street from the proposed clubhous indicated on the GDP and my second floor office overlooks the proposed Development Area and the intersection of first and Fulton streets on a daily basis I watch the flow of traffic through the intersection to and from river life apartments and from the Clover Bel Credit Union drive up exit all of which are in very close proximity on good days traffic flows smoothly but on other days there are blaring horns confused drivers and near misses for collisions while we do not oppose to are not opposed to adding multif family housing on this lot we remain concerned about the increased traffic at what we consider to be a poorly designed intersection and how adding another parking lot exit onto first street from the clubhouse will affect traffic our preference is that the parking lot would exit towards the apartment or onto the West leg of Fon street it's clear from watching the traffic and from driving through the intersection myself multiple times a day that the existing vehicle access points to the street paired with the sometimes unexpected traffic flow and the semi- traffic results in drivers needing to watch for many more things when navigating the intersection than would normally be expected at various times during the day there is semi- trffic from ABC Supply that affs affects the traffic flow which we know will not change and we're not expecting that this includes semis blocking fton Street traffic when the loading dock is being used sometimes

backing up traffic through the first and third street intersections semis parking in the middle of Fulton or along First Street as they wait for their turn to the loading dock or actually backing down First Street when they miss their turn all of this combined with vehicles going West on fton having to pull onto First Street to look for traffic before proceeding because traffic coming from the south can easily hide behind the little incline um just passed the bridge um leaves and the vehicles leaving the Clover Belt Credit Union drive up can make for very messy and sometimes dangerous traffic in addition the West leg of Fulton doesn't line up with the rest of the street which causes more confusion for drivers and also means that crosswalks can't be added so in summary we're not opposed to the multif family housing project on the lot although it will ruin my view of the river um but we just are very concerned about the traffic exiting onto First Street and just making it more congested than it already is thank you thank you Kathy and the Clover Belt Credit Union for your input anyone else for public comment on the 15 Fon Street uh G uh General development plan going twice got to ask one more time open to public comment anyone care to comment on the General development plan for 920 North 1 Street and 15 Fon Street to accommodate the multifam apartment buildings and a clubhouse seeing nothing further I will close the public hearing will take us to item three which is a discussion on the on the same item action on amending the general development plan for 920 North 1st Street and 15 Fon Street to

accommodate multif family apartment buildings and a clubhouse for Wu guard Properties Inc I would entertain a motion motion motion from bugman second from bornean we have a motion in a second comments and discussion on on amending the GDP so okay you can say yeah just to add a little bit more information that developers uh did a good job in introducing it but some background information you know this is the previous General development plan it was just for a single building and then the the rest of the land was just slated for future development there wasn't anything specific at that time uh this proposal would take up uh the rest of the area in the the red outline against South of Fulton Street so there's multiple buildings plus the clubhouse um so that this was the previous General plan we need to amend that from a zoning perspective to allow this new development with two buildings 144 units and then the general layout of the buildings which is a little bit different than before um you know this has been an evolving sort of plan since you know going back here's the the previous plan as well for the single building sou of river life but um you know going all the way back to the master plan from 2015 the Brownfield master plan you know this site was designed with multiple buildings some of them relatively dense um you know using the riverfront land for private development but at the same time keeping public access to the river uh linear green spaces along the river front and the stream that that all stays intact with this proposal again the the alignment of the buildings um and the uses have sort of uh you know changed

over the years this again was done 10 years ago as sort of a high level master Plan before anything was built down there but um again the public spaces that were laid out you know still remain and they'll be there after this development so in a lot of ways this does fall in line with the original vision and and what's been proposed along the way through the last 10 years or so so again just um procedurally it's an amendment to the general development plan of the zoning uh to allow that use to allow the approximate density and the layout of the buildings they would need to come back with more specific plans to this body uh once those are developed um but I guess at this point staff recommends moving ahead with the amended plan so can you speak to how the I'll I'll ask if does anyone else have any comments questions for for staff can just you speak to the GDP as it relates to the traffic that was concerned here uh yeah I mean I think again going back um you know to the original Vision vision for this area there was a lot of development that was slated for the area um you know I think there has been traffic concerns on Fon Street um there there's concerns now as it is today um with some of the users I won't you know we were're familiar with some of the issues that are there I know engineering's looked at that street uh and the intersection to see what could potentially be done that street is under design right now from engineering so hopefully some improvements are being made I think ER is that being constructed this year yeah fton from 1st to 7th will be reconstructed this year um uh the road width will remain the

same we looked at shrinking it but because uh ABC will remain there um uh that will the road width which is about 45 ft which is quite wide uh for city streets will remain uh the intersection right now um we'll have to do some traffic counts once the Reconstruction is done to determine what the warrants are for a possible four-way stop there which um that could definitely be a possibility um uh with that intersection I know uh traffic has increased on on First Street as as well as Fon ma Ando was closed um you know as part of development as well earlier a few years back so um so there uh direct like uh improvements with the construction other than just reconstruction of the pavement and stuff but that intersection will remain you know uh the same layout as it is now so as far as uh site specific plans with the development uh again as Brad said we'll come back to the commission uh for review so Ingress egress uh how all that traffic pattern and stuff is you know we'll have those discussions with the site specific plan so um at at the next meeting as they bring those forward so and and just going to their General plan again the parking lot I think that was in question was the one U near the corner the clubhouse would be at the corner the parking lot would be behind that and that's relatively small it's 16 parking stalls and I don't know it's for residents so I don't know how many would actually how many cars would actually be coming and going on a given day I think it'd be pretty minimal that that parking lot would be used I don't know um and it is for the residents mainly using that Clubhouse so there's not a throughway

from the main parking lot out straight out toward toward first no I think there's maybe the engineering firm can speak to this but there's a grade change uh from east to west here I don't know if that that's possible to put uh a connection through there I don't know that we'd necessarily want that because the majority of cars are parked underneath the buildings and in this lot they would come out to Fon Street and then out to the intersection so I don't know you know making that connection I don't know if that's necessarily desirable well the the way it's depicted there would minimize a lot of traffic coming out of that and interfering with the the bank traffic or the credit union traffic yeah I think one s the suggestion was to close this off to First and maybe bring it this way but again with the grade change I don't know whe that's doable if we can bring up REI REI is here to speak possibly to that sure uh Jim Boris Eno REI engineering so that that Clubhouse uh it was probably one of the more Dynamic parts of the project leading up to the GDP sub middle um we initially looked at trying to have it connected to the rest of the uh of the multif Family Campus um but as as you noted uh there's a significant grade change from First Street down to the campus which is roughly about 9 ft it just um it it wasn't real feasible to uh to get a lot of usable space and trying to have a vehicular access coming from the main campus to the clubhouse so we had to get a little creative and um and and look for ways to maximize that space so what we did is we uh were utilizing um you know an entrance off of first for the access to the clubhouse for vehicles and then we have a pedestrian connection on the west side of the of the clubhouse to allow for residents to be able to um

to to walk from the uh the apartment buildings to the clubhouse so there's a there's kind of a set of stairs that would lead up to that um and so to help to maximize the space maximize usability uh really really kind of clean it up otherwise we were looking at a lot of lot of different retaining wall Alternatives uh uh kind of a sunken sight it just wouldn't have been a very usable friendly space so uh that's how we arrived at that option all right thank you feedback that I have gotten at least from some of the council members in the past is that they really like that opened up toward on the river piece now you don't have a building right next to the the walkway um um opens that space up a lot and that was that was important to some of the ERS so hopefully that is received uh as we move forward with positivity further questions comments we have a motion and a second seeing none all in favor of approving the GDP say I I any opposed not passes thank you very much item four is discussion and possible action on landmarking the Little Red Schoolhouse at Marathon Park and this comes to us from the historic preservation commission and I would entertain a motion to Landmark or designate that as a landmark make motion hey motion from Bulan second from bamman comments discussion did we I see Mr Gelman in the audience or we look can this I can give some brief the public Brad you want to take yeah just briefly um as you mentioned it did come from historic preservation commission uh they

held a public hearing last month and they weighed in on the historic value of of the building actually just to note that there's two uh landmarks being considered tonight the first is the Little Red Schoolhouse the second uh St John's Episcopal Church we'll take that separately but um so the historic preservation commission did hold public hearings on both of them and you know their charges to look at the historic value of the buildings and whether they feel it's significant enough uh to Warrant a landmark designation and um they ultimately voted that they were significant they moved to uh move the the recommendation forward there were uh well on this one there was a discussion at the part Rec committee where they took it up and they recommended in favor of the the designation as well so uh the pl when it comes to us from historic preservation we have slightly different criteria they're listed in the staff report a through C basically we're looking at you know what's the effect on the development of the city um and the the public uh the general public if there's any impact and I guess in that case uh staff felt that it should be move forward to city council for final approval okay thank you I I guess I was surprised that it wasn't already uh landmarked and just uh for the record it was approved 8 to zero coming out of uhor that that came out of the historic preservation commission 8 to zero y comments questions seeing none we have Motion in a second all in favor of designating or landmarking the Little

Red Schoolhouse Marathon Park signified by saying I any opposed that passes uh next item is item five discussion and possible action on landmarking St John's Episcopal Church at 3:30 mlen and that also comes to us from the historic preservation and I'm looking at that approved was approved 8 to Zer as well looking for a motion to Landmark that make another motion another motion from Bulan second from bnan keep it going all right we have a few we have I see we have Sam here from the church would you care to give us a little history lesson or comment I assume you're here in favor I'm here in favor awesome and don't be tuned I usually make people nervous when I walk up to a Lector and dressed like this I promise it's not going to be a two-hour sermon only 20 minutes minutes um no I do hope you're interested in history uh my name is Father Sam Crips as uh Mr Mayor noted I'm at 812 Meo street I'm the 17th director of the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist um little did you know maybe uh our Episcopal Anglican tradition came here to Wisconsin um in the early 1800s when they expelled the Onida tribe out of New York State and the Onida had become Episcopalian by missionary work and the Episcopal Church sent a mission Bishop the First Missionary Bishop to Wisconsin in the early 1840s to found a seminary to create priests to serve the onited tribe and to send priests out to the new West and uh he also founded my Seminary nooda house uh which is also the oldest degree granting institution in the State uh the first Anglican worship that happened in Wasau was in 1854 and when wiconsin had only been a state for six years this uh early church

worshiped at the forest house and we were given land for a Parish church right there where we still are by Mr Walter Mao in 1857 and the building was constructed and it had to be stopped halfway because the Civil War started the original name of our church was actually the Episcopal Church of St John's in the wilderness and then when Wasa kind of Grew From a small village into a booming Lumber Town they changed the name to the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist to reflect that as the priest and pastor and head of our congregation I feel that I can say with confidence and Clarity that we are a parish that are acutely aware of our importance of our shared history here in wauw not only the church built on Mr Mondo's gift but the part that our congregation has played in the history of Wasa I would invite you for a quick survey when you have the time someday of our sing glass windows which reflect the names of many of the Great sons and daughters of wasa's History we also understand we have a responsibility to maintain for future generations and for our community the oldest church building in continual use in the city of Wasa as a priest in a historic tradition as the Director of a historic parish as the chief steward of a historic building we understand that we have a living history at St John's and it's our job to care for it it's a building that has baptized and buried thousands of lonians in our almost 200 years of History our parish is a landmark it's a Courtyard is a gathering space for many of uh City Hall's employees and many of our other downtown neighbors and I'm only a little biased here we think it's a jewel of downtown and makes for a nice view for those of you here in uh City Hall thank you for your time and for your consideration and for your part in the preservation of our shared history thank you Mr chair thank you Pastor Crips for the history lesson and I didn't I didn't

realize that I was I was at a celebration with the Alder gizman Zion here a while back and I thought I'd assume that was the oldest they got you out gun Gary uh congratulations thank you for that uh so we have a motion any further discussion we have a motion and a second to Landmark St John's Episcopal Church 3:30 mlen all those in favor signify by saying I any opposed and that passes congratulations up next is item six discussion and possible action for the specific implementation plan for 315 319 325 uh North First Street also known as the old pite Piper building Bridge Street Mission and we have uh well let's take a motion on that so we'd be looking for accepting the specific implementation plan for that okay got boraman and Bugan seconded any discussion I can do you want to take it or you want to what up I can set the stage and okay um the yeah representatives from brid Street Mission are here to fill in any gaps um but basically it's here before us uh for as part of a zoning change well not change I guess approval of the specific implementation plan the general development plan was approved through this commission and Council previously you know that would change the use of the building um and I guess since then you know all the remodeling that's been going on has been mostly internal there hasn't been really any external changes that would you know trigger a a specific plan review but I guess at this phase phase three they're calling it um they

are looking at some alterations on the south wing of the building and that's shown here in the top elevation basically this is uh due to their expansion of the women's program residential program on the on that wing of the building and they would need to add Windows where there are currently none so it's a exterior change it's very minimal um they're putting in Windows that would match other windows on the building um but I guess technically you know external changes should be reviewed uh by this commission as part of the specific plans um and you know they are planning phase four which is more site plan changes those would come back again in the future but uh this is mostly for the the minor uh building changes if uh there's anything you guys would like to add no this is our final action here all right so this is the final action we'll not have to go to council then so our vote here is our seal of approval all right seeing nothing further uh all those in favor of of accepting the specific implementation plan for bridg Street Mission signify by saying I any opposed all right congratulations Mr Vincent and brid Street Mission look forward to those remodels thank you item seven is discussion and possible action for the specific implementation plan for 905 East Thomas Street B Falls Brewery would entertain a motion to accept this the Sip for that bugman Bulan second discussion questions we do have Representatives here I

think all right that could be easy then let's uh seeing nothing further in questions comments uh we have a motion in a second to accept specific implementation plan for 905 East Thomas Street bof Falls Brewery signified by saying all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed that passes congratulations looking forward to seeing the new place awesome awesome aome aome all right item eight uh we uh we're working on that I did we decide what date I think we're going to poll the the folks we have a an issue with this council chambers council chambers is going to be re rewired reworked for our av system and for the clerk's control panel up here so we we're looking to not have it on the on the 15th we would have it at the on the 29th and in order to accomodate the 29th we would be uh trying to get it in ahead of Finance which meets on that Tuesday so we'd be looking at four o'clock or 4:15 Brad did you no yeah that's uh we're going to run into a couple other meetings so I guess just maybe if you can let us know if four or 4:30 maybe even would work for anyone I know not everyone's uh necessarily is free as others but this meeting took 30 minutes and we had quite a few items on it so we we roll Andrew says to go so we're good okay all right we'll post that all right we'll set that for the 29th and we'll send out a an invite uh

we'll make sure the alers know too uh i' entertain a motion to adjourn bugman barnan all in favor see you guys for