Residents, alderman resist zoning changes allowing apartments in all parts of city

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- City officials are slowing down a process that could produce significant changes to what types of housing are allowed across Milwaukee. During a meeting Monday afternoon, frustrated residents packed a City Hall hearing room as the City Plan Commission held a public hearing on whether to adopt the 'Growing MKE' long-range development plan.

During the hearing, residents from a pair of neighborhood groups, the Midtown Neighborhood Alliance and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, accused city development officials of not putting enough effort into reaching residents in working-class communities. 

"We have not engaged our neighborhoods as effectively as we can," Megan Shepard Smith, a Midtown resident, told the committee. "And had we, you wouldn't have a room full of people opposing it in this volume."

One of the biggest shifts suggested in the plan, which was put together by the Department of City Development, would no longer allow land to be zoned only for single-family houses.

Currently, about 40% of Milwaukee's residential property is zoned for single-family use; most of those areas are concentrated in the northwest and southwest parts of the city.

DCD Commissioner Lafayette Crump said staff would work to create more opportunities for residents to register their opinions on the Growing MKE plan.

"To sort of reinitiate the dialogue, and we'll gather some feedback from them," Crump said. "Not just in terms of how they view the plan as it is now, but also additional recommendations from them."

Residents also spoke out against the proposed zoning changes, saying they worried potentially replacing single-family houses with apartments would lead to more crime.

"If you put a big, old apartment next to my house, I'm not gonna feel safe there," Danell Cross, the director of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, said Monday.

On Tuesday, Ald. Russell Stamper, whose district includes the north side Amani, Lindsey Heights and Midtown neighborhoods, released a letter blasting the proposed zoning changes. He maintained preserving single-family-only areas would encourage more home ownership and upward mobility.

"Single-family zoning has benefits, and the vilification of it in Growing MKE doesn’t create more integration or opportunity," Stamper wrote. "For example, I might like having no sidewalks. I might like having my house more than five feet from my neighbor’s."

It is not clear why Stamper is just now speaking so forcefully against the proposal. The suggested zoning changes first became public knowledge back in November. Stamper did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

Single-family homes would still exist under the plan. However, developers would also have the ability to put duplexes and triplexes in those areas. Land currently zoned for two-family housing could hold fourplexes or rowhouses.

Crump said those smaller multi-family units, referred to as "middle housing" that provides an alternative to large apartment buildings, could provide new ownership opportunities for people who'd live in one of the units while using other tenants' rent to help pay their mortgages and property taxes.

The Growing MKE plan notes the city's zoning codes were rewritten in 2002, and in that process, portions of the city that had allowed multi-family housing were rezoned to either single-family or two-family areas.

"At times, it's duplexes and four-families [apartments] that actually make owning those properties affordable for people who live right there," he said.

Crump said the DCD will arrange more public feedback sessions in the coming weeks. The City Plan Commission is set to meet again Aug. 19.