Milwaukee alderman wants shift in Planning Division oversight

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A Milwaukee alderman’s frustration with the city’s development chief has prompted a proposal to tighten oversight of the Planning Division.

Alderman Robert Bauman‘s proposal stems from a meeting Thursday of the Common Council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee, of which he is a member. He said the city’s Department of City Development and its Planning Division bungled two property zoning changes proposed at the meeting.

That was enough, Bauman said, to prove the city clerk’s office, not the DCD, should govern the Planning Division.

“This was a fiasco,” he said. “It was an embarrassment to the council.”

One of the proposals was to change the zoning of a parcel at 2727 W. Silver Spring Drive from general planned development to commercial service. The land was zoned general planned to accommodate a since-failed proposal for retail, DCD Commissioner Rocky Marcoux said.

The DCD now wants the property to revert to commercial service, he said. That switch, Marcoux said, would allow for a proposal from Cris and Orphie Schroeder, who own Wauwatosa-based Humboldt Storage LLC. The Schroeders have proposed a two-phase development, the first of which would be a self-storage business.

The profits from the first phase, Cris Schroeder said after the meeting Thursday, would be used to build retail on the rest of the parcel in a second phase. He told the committee he needs to buy the property before August for the project to move forward.

But he said he does not have specific construction plans or potential tenants.

General planned zoning requires a developer share more details of a proposed project with the Common Council than under a commercial service designation, Bauman said. He said he initially wanted to keep that zoning so the Schroeders would have to firm up the project’s second phase.

But the parcel has been vacant for decades, Marcoux said, so the DCD will accept some uncertainty in exchange for landing a developer. He said the department proposed the zoning change.

“It would have slowed the process down,” he said, “to the point where the deal itself could have disappeared.”

Alderman Ashanti Hamilton, who is not on the committee but whose district includes the parcel, told the committee the city has not attracted any better offers, and a spat over how the land is zoned should not stand in the way of construction.

The committee unanimously approved the zoning change, with Bauman adding that he did not want to penalize the Schroeders for what he said is the DCD’s failure to maintain general planned zoning and, therefore, more city control.

But the committee did not approve another of DCD’s zoning requests, which Bauman said contained a similar flaw.

That proposal would change the zoning of 3628 W. Pierce St. from industrial-heavy to industrial-mixed. The change would let Milwaukee-based Trans Center for Youth Inc. expand Escuela Verde, a public charter school.

The zoning committee postponed a vote, though, because letting the school expand would make the West Pierce Street building untaxable. The DCD had not negotiated a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with the Trans Center for Youth, and committee members said they want an agreement before a vote.

Each situation shows a breakdown in the DCD’s Planning Division, Bauman said, and, by extension, the DCD’s oversight of the division. He said he will propose a resolution to the Common Council on June 3 that the division be moved to the city clerk’s office.

If the division moves, Bauman said, the Common Council would have better oversight of how the city works with the public and what information developers should be expected to provide.

Jeff Fleming, DCD spokesman, referred a request for comment on the resolution to the mayor’s office. A representative from Mayor Tom Barrett’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Bauman said he is not sure the council will support his resolution, but he wants to highlight his dissatisfaction with the DCD’s planning efforts, especially in some areas of Milwaukee.

“Department of City Development really doesn’t care what gets built in the central city,” he said. “If it’s not downtown, if it’s not east side, if it’s not Bay View, they kind of wash their hands.” Follow @bkevit