Criticizing the city of Milwaukee's community outreach efforts, opposition from some central city residents and their local alderman have put a snag in what had been a smooth approval process for the Growing MKE plan.
The Growing MKE plan would usher in significant zoning changes in the city to allow more housing types to be developed. It's an effort that supporters say could make it easier, faster and cheaper to boost the city's housing stock, which would help city officials accomplish their goals of growing the population and creating more affordable and workforce housing.
However, despite a one-year community engagement process by the Department of City Development (DCD), dozens of residents and local organizations voiced their concerns with the plan and its approval process in a 5-hour public hearing earlier this week.
The feedback ultimately led the City Plan Commission to delay a vote on the plan, at the request of DCD. The commission is the first of multiple city panels that will vote on the plan, backed by Mayor Cavalier Johnson, with a Common Council decision expected this fall.
Multiple city panels had previously expressed support for the plan.
“As it stands right now, I am in total, diabolic opposition (to the) plan and all the false narratives that are presented,” said Ald.
Russell Stamper.
"The process to date has lacked robust community involvement, which is vital when such profound changes are considered," said
Danell Cross, executive director of
Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, in a letter to the Plan Commission signed by nearly 70 neighborhood residents. "...While some engagement has been done, it did not create adequate opportunities for the most impacted communities and their members to be a part of this process."
According to DCD documents, more than 1,750 people were directly engaged at in-person and online meetings and events, which included seven community open houses, three webinars, 33 events at public libraries, 14 focus groups and 20 pop-up engagement events, among others.
Cross criticized the community engagement's financial support from the Community Development Alliance, calling it "a white-led entity comprised of city officials, funders, and developers with minimal community involvement."
Stamper also called out the alliance, saying in a statement that "The CDA states that these changes in zoning are needed to save the City of Milwaukee and increase the population, all while increasing racial equity. We ask, with due respect, who are they to determine the fates of the African-American community? Who are they to determine once again that the Black community must be sacrificed for the betterment of the whole?"
Aside from community engagement, some residents expressed concerns about gentrification, displacement and density in their neighborhoods.
Marquette University researcher
John Johnson, in support of the Growing MKE plan, said the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods were unlikely to see direct change from it.
“I think that actually, for good or ill, the Growing MKE plan won’t affect those areas of the city,” said Johnson. “...Not having enough housing in (say) Washington Heights ends up creating displacement in other areas of the city in this pernicious way.”
Supporters of the Growing MKE plan include Community Advocates, Greater Milwaukee Urban League, Independence First, Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council, Near West Side Partners, Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District, Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity, Sierra Club and United Community Center.
Opponents include Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, Midtown Neighborhood Alliance and Walnut Way Conservation Corp. The groups are concerned that Growing MKE would encourage large absentee landlords to increase their ownership of central city housing.
Before any testimony was taken commissioner of city development
Lafayette Crump said there would be more community engagement after the hearing.
Growing MKE's current recommendations
Draft recommendations call for allowing townhouses, duplexes, triplexes, accessory dwelling units and cottage courts, as well as single family homes, on all residentially-zoned lots in the city. Currently, 40% of residentially zoned lots only allow for single family homes.
More than 50% of residentially zoned lots in the city are already zoned for one- and two-unit residences, but the Growing MKE plan could add the aforementioned uses as well as quadplexes and small apartment buildings on some of these parcels, particularly in denser neighborhoods served by transit.
The plan's recommendations also include creating predictable height standards for apartment and condominium buildings while removing floor area ratios, which typically limit a building's floor area in relation to the size of the lot; and updating exterior design standards.
After securing council approval for the effort in 2022, DCD began formally working on the plan in early 2023 and released a draft plan in April 2024. As a result of feedback, it reduced the areas in which new, small multi-family buildings could be constructed in advance of Monday’s hearing and made a series of other tweaks.
