Rezoning advances housing proposal in Waukesha

By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Waukesha - With comments at a public hearing about equally split for and against a west side rental project targeting workers with below-average incomes, the Common Council voted 9-5 Tuesday to rezone 9.5 acres for 70 apartments and a 36-unit facility for patients with dementia.

MSP Real Estate and Development Co. is using low-income housing tax credits from the state to obtain financing for the project, which will have rents somewhat lower than the market and aimed at workers earning 60% or less of the county's median income.

The project will be built on Meadow Lane, buffering residential neighborhoods to the west and south and commercial developments to the north and east, including the newest Goodwill Industries store off Silvernail Road and a strip mall and retail complex off Grandview Blvd.

Opposition came largely from residents of the nearby Pebble Valley subdivision, many of whom said there were enough apartments, and a substantial vacancy rate, in the city and area. Several said the apartments would only depress rents elsewhere and cause more vacancies, which would hurt property values.

Woven through the public hearing comments were reminders that MSP and the federal government had filed lawsuits against the City of New Berlin after it first approved and then rejected a similar affordable-housing project in that city last year.

The Rev. David Simmons, rector of St. Matthias Episcopal Church, said Waukesha needs workforce housing for low-income residents "who are trying to claw themselves up from poverty." He said as a taxpayer, he doesn't want Waukesha put in the same "awful light" that New Berlin appeared in over its housing controversy.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council, Kori Schneider-Peragine, said aldermen had no legitimate reason to reject the project and said many neighborhood opponents had thinly veiled racist objections.

Douglas Buck of Foley & Lardner, representing MSP, read from state law and the city's own comprehensive plan that calls for more affordable, workforce housing and said the council is legally obligated to follow its plan short of any compelling reason not to.

Buck also said that as a result of the MSP and federal government's challenge to New Berlin over the city's temporary roadblocks to a similar project there, MSP had recovered more than $500,000 in legal fees from New Berlin.

David Haviland of Baker Tilly, a consultant for MSP who studied market demand in Waukesha, disputed claims of a high apartment vacancy rate, saying he found demand for similar projects in the area is about 98%, which he described as one of the best rates in the state.

David Cappon, director of the Waukesha Housing Authority, said that the Waukesha project is not low-income housing because rents would be only somewhat less than market rent and that tenants would qualify at up to 60% of medium income - about $45,000 for a family of four.

"This is not what everybody's worried about," he said. "This is quality, good, affordable housing for the workforce."

City planning staff and the Plan Commission had recommended rezoning for the land, which Planner Jennifer Andrews said was one of the last large unzoned vacant parcels in the city. The Plan Commission has already given preliminary approval to site plans, architecture and a conditional use permit for the memory care facility.