Minutes of Council Meeting Held January 13, 2005

SASYNA  Meeting Minutes – Draft Betty Chewning

1/13/04

Present: Dan Melton, Doug Johnson, Leslie Christopherson , Michael Goodman, Mark Bergum, John Steines, Karen Faster, Lou Host-Jablonski, Kathy Brookes, Steve Klafka, Judy Olson, Betty Chewning (note taker)

Visitors: Larry Palm, Vicky Sulko, Chris, Rajan, Tim Wong, Mike Shaw, Vicky Hustad, Lori Nitzel, Fritz Hastreiter

1. Rajan has purchased the building next to Mr. Roberts on 2110Atwood in order to start a restaurant with dinner hours. He has other restaurants on State St. He is from  Nepal and is going to prepare Nepali, North African and South American food. He came to SASYNA to discuss his parking situation. Normally the city would require that he have 25 parking spaces to accommodate his projected 76 diners at capacity. However, 16 parking spots were grandfathered in for his building so he now needs a variance for the remaining 9 car spots. (Very Kafkaeske.) This can be administratively approved. The SASYNA Council supports this variance and decided to write a letter to Brad Murphy and Mark Olinger indicating our support for Rajan’s request for the variance request for the 9 car spaces.

2.  Two candidates running for District 15 alderperson came to the SASYNA meerting. Lori Netzle and Larry Palm will have a debate on. March 2nd  6-8 PM at the Hawthorne library. They each introduced themselves to the SASYNA Council.  Lori Netzle is an attorney who is director of a nonprofit organization Alliance for Animals. She wants to help citizens in our district to get more involved in city council issues.  She would like to see more support for working families and to see more resources invested in the east side. She wants to work with environmental concerns regarding the quality of Lake Monona, Royster Clark, and Kipp. She and Larry have agreed to a positive issue campaign and  intend to talk about issues rather than each other. Larry Palm is co-chair of Ethen Park Neighborhood Association.  He has been involved in safety campaigns regarding Red Letter News.  He and the Ethen Park Association have been improving Washington Manor Park.  With Friends of Starkweather Creek, he has also worked to get bridges across East Washington Ave. to achieve more connection between the neighborhoods such as Ethen Park, Worthington Park, etc. For the past 9 years he has been on the Madison Library Board and worked to make Hawthorne and Pinney Libraries positive resources for the community.  Recently he joined the Friends of Starkweather Creek Board.  He wants to see more walking and biking paths for neighborhood connectivity. He works for the Madison School System as an administrative assistant  within the alternative school program.

3. The mayor will want to know if we want to have an East Isthmus TIF District.The question which was explored was whether we supported it at this point.  Lou said there are two issues -What kinds of projects will it be used for and is the increment going to be spent here?  Judy Olson indicated the increment can go into the general fund or into the district. But it is difficult to imagine a dearth of projects given how large the size of this district. Chances are very high that the money would go into the district. The borders being discussed are somewhat fluid, but probably would not include Union Corners.  The SASYNA Council felt that conditionally we support a TIF. Part of the pressure to decide is that there is a large development on East Washington that is moving along quickly and the opportunity to benefit from the increment it generates will be lost unless a TIF is awarded relatively quickly. Gorman’s housing project on the Miller’s Car Lot on East Washington will generate about an $8 million increment that could be used for projects in that district if there were a TIF district. The con of this is that money isn’t then going into the school district, MATC. In general the SASYNA Council decided that we support the TIF District as a general concept conditional on the quality and inclusiveness of the planning process. We have serious questions about the process by which the money generated by the TIF would be allocated for projects.  The community should be involved in the decision rather than simply the larger economic players or city planners. We would also encourage a public meeting for people with homes in the TIF area. A question is whether to have a separate TIF district Union Corners.  According to Judy Olson it is certain that McGrath will go for and most likely get a TIF District as well.

4. We discussed a community concern about chlorine being used at the Kipp Factory. They store it in fixed tanks and inject it as a gas into their aluminum to purify the aluminun. It is important to note that there are conversations going on between Kipp and the mayor’s office and school following the South Carolina train accident involving chlorine. There is a meeting with Lowell principal in the end of January. Mario Mendoza at the mayor’s office is talking with the Fire Department as well. A little Kipp history was provided. In the mid 90’s Kipp started using chlorine to take out the impurities in its  less pure aluminum.  There are no city approvals needed. Concern has been raised since the South Carolina train accident.  Kipp indicates we are a very different case.

According to their risk management plan, in the worst case disaster over 16,000 people could be affected. There has been a learning curve on the part of Kipp in improving their use of chlorine since the early 1990’s.  Earlier they were found in violation by the DNR for releasing chlorine without a permit and for a chlorine spill. They now have taller stacks for releasing chlorine gas and other gases. In the past year they have bought much more pure aluminum requiring less chlorine. There are no restrictions on having chlorine on site because it is zoned M-1. Mark Meunier, human relations director at Kipp, said that in the case of chlorine accident they are required to call 911 and leave it in the hands of the Fire Department. He says the county commission told them they can’t do anything else legally to create their own response protocol. (ie, sirens, etc.)

The SASYNA Council decided to write a letter to Kipp to indicate that we appreciate the conversations that Kipp is having with the community representatives from the mayor’s office and Lowell School.

5. We looked at the Union Corners plan which is now at the GDP (General Development Plan) stage.  By Feb 11th we need to tell the city if we are OK with this plan. In general there has already been a lot of discussion by the community on this project.  We wish to emphasize our support assumes that issues already decided during lengthy community meetings will be retained in the plan.

To help us make a decision about support for this we would like to receive some additional information. We would like to know:

a. The real effect of the buildings on neighbors.   To do this we need to know more than the number of stories. We would like to see a shadow study.  We need to know the real heights involved in the buildings, both external and internal heights. The plan calls for some buildings to be 6 stories high, some 5 stories high and some 3-4 stories high. We want to know how tall the floor to floor heights are as well as the real heights on top of the buildings with the mechanicals such as HVAC, elevator shafts.

b. Street profiles of the buildings (building cross sections) in order to comment on the desire for set backs.  We want to see if Building B is being step backed along Anzinger Court.

c. We would like to know more about the proposed parking ratio for the Union Corners vs. parking ratios for the surrounding neighborhoods split out by residential vs.commercial.

We also have some suggestions.

d. We would like to eliminate a section of the residential lane pavement in front of the French Battery Building and retain it as green space

e.  We need to refer back to minutes in the lengthy Union Corners planning process and recognize the importance of the decisions reached and lobbied for by the community.  f. f.  We want a ped connection at the end of Farwell St.

g. Building G should be 3 stories rather than 4.

h. Building B should be stepped back if it’s not.

i.  At the SIP stage we expect to see variety of texture, color, shape. in buildings.  We are concerned that it not seem like an office park.

j. We expect that those ideas in the site plan that came from months and months of planning with the community be respected and held to.  For example, turning Sullivan from a motor vehicle street to a ped walkway only and eliminating motor vehicle access from the end of Farwell St.  Those ideas carry weight because they were agreed to as part of the process.  They should be held to a higher standard.

5. A meeting announcement for the PMT was made.  It is meeting every  4th Tuesday at United Way at 7:00pm.

6. We agreed to give $100.00 to the Gaylord Nelson Institue for Enviornmental Studies project on “Assesment of Opportunities for Environmental Enhancement of Starkweather Creek” . 

 

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