What happened at the Fitchburg Common Council meeting on Feb. 26, and what it means

The Common Council approved the resolution to create an application for an Urban Service Area Amendment for the Northeast Neighborhood, but our fight isn't over yet! Click here to read more.

Phyllis Hasbrouck: Fitchburg doesn't need more undeveloped land

[The original letter to the editor.  An edited version appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on 2/25/2013.]

Dear Editor,

Fitchburg Mayor Shawn Pfaff's desire to bring the Northeast Neighborhood into Fitchburg's Urban Service Area (USA) doesn't make sense from a taxpayer's point of view.  His Plan Commission voted on Feb. 19 to instruct staff to create an application to the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC).

But Fitchburg already has around 1175 acres of vacant land in its USA waiting to be developed, and its taxpayers are already on the hook to maintain and repair all of that infrastructure as soon as it is installed.  The city leaders are already gambling that this huge area will fill up and provide the increased taxes needed to maintain and service it.  Is this a good time to add another neighborhood's worth of infrastructure to sweep, plow, inspect and repair?

With 15 years' worth of land just waiting for builders and buyers, why extend urban services even farther from the city center? It doesn't take 15 years to jump through the CARPC hoops: more like 6 to 18 months. There is plenty of time to apply when Uptown and the North McGaw area fill up.

Ask the taxpayers of Oregon, Sun Prairie and Stoughton how they like paying to plow streets with just a few houses on them. Developers are risk-takers: when they are skilled or lucky, they get a big payoff.  But the taxpayers shouldn't be forced to bet their hard-earned dollars on such a risky scheme.

On Feb. 26 the Fitchburg Common Council will meet at 7:30 p.m. and decide whether to plow ahead or wait. The taxpayers are invited to contact Mayor Pfaff at shawn.pfaff@city.fitchburg.wi.us and let him know what they want.

Yours,

Phyllis Hasbrouck
Chair, West Waubesa Preservation Coalition

The Missing Aquitard: A short explanation of why you shouldn't drill deep wells near the Yahara chain of lakes by UW Madison Professor Cal DeWitt

Here is an illustration from Wisconsin Geological Survey's Ken Bradbury that shows that he knows the situation with the Eau Claire formation:

You can access this from:
http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/partnerships/programs/docs/bradbury_slideshow.pdf

The whole presentation is worthwhile to read, but the illustration above (from page 5 of this report) is a good summary.

A few things to observe here:

1. A the base of the diagram is "Recambrian crystalline rock" -- note that it steadily rises from the west to the east; this rise in Precambrian bedrock is part of the Wisconsin Arch.  The "Mount Simon aquifer" was formed largely by sand deposition by an ancient sea over this arch. 

2. The "Eau Claire aquitard" (also call the  Eau Claire "Confining unit" was deposited next by the ancient sea, but as the sea got shallower from west to east, the deposition of silt gradually changed to the deposition of sand as the sea reached the beach (the deeper quiet waters allow deposition of silt, which later becomes the "Eau Claire shale" but the shallow more turbulent shallow waters in the foreshore and shore areas deposit sand which later becomes sandstone.

3. The Eau Claire formation thus becomes thinner and thinner from west to east, even as it changes from having much silt (which forms the shale) to having less and less silt and more and more sand (which forms the sandstone).

4. As this thinning progresses from west to east, and as this shift from silt to sand occurs as the sea water becomes shallower to the west toward the shore, the quality of the Eau Claire formation as an aquitard (confining unit) becomes less and less.

5. Upshore from the water the Eau Claire formation disappears altogether.

6. This diminishing and disappearance of the Eau Claire formation is strongly accentuated by the ancient bedrock valley that cuts below the Eau Claire formation as it progresses from north to south---a valley that now contains the Yahara chain of lakes and glacial till deposits---a classic "buried bedrock valley."

The recent work of Wasinee Aswasereelert adds vital information to all of this, and has been published not only as her Master's dissertation in Geology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but also published as a refereed paper at:   http://wisconsingeologicalsurvey.org/pdfs/geoscipdf/1_GS19.pdf

Jay Allen: Say no to leapfrog development in Fitchburg

(Jay Allen, former mayor of Fitchburg and current mayoral candidate)

Many people believe that new development is always good for a community. Some types are good. They add to the tax base, create efficiencies in services, and, in some cases, can actually improve the pre-development environmental conditions.

Other developments may create new tax base, but also create huge drains on municipal services, cause significant environmental damage, and cost taxpayers far more than they provide in tax revenue.

The City of Fitchburg is currently considering a development in the second category. Known as the Northeast Neighborhood, the area is bounded by Highway 14 on the west, Larsen Road on the east, East Clayton Road on the north, and Goodland Park Road and Haight Farm Road on the south. This area is not contiguous to any other development.

Fitchburg has roughly 1200 undeveloped acres within the Central Urban Service Area (CUSA). Those areas have available water and sewer. Almost all are within the a 4-minute response time for the fire department. They are contiguous to current development, so it is efficient to provide other municipal services, like police, trash collection, street maintenance, snow plowing, etc.

The Northeast Neighborhood is not within the CUSA. Fitchburg is considering submitting an application to the Capitol Area Regional Plan Commission (CARPC) to add it. This application should not be submitted, and, if submitted, it should be rejected. Some reasons are as follows:

1) The area is almost ¾ of a mile from the current edge of development. Municipal services will have to travel 1.5 miles round trip across vacant land, at significant cost.

2) The area currently has no water or sewer service. Fitchburg’s Water Utility will have to borrow in excess of $2 million to build those utilities. The area within the CUSA can currently be served with little additional investment. Existing areas should be built before burdening the ratepayers with the cost of new infrastructure.

3) The Northeast Neighborhood is 7 to 12 minutes away from Fire Station #1. This is unacceptable, and people will be endangered. The current mayor has suggested that the City of Madison could potentially cover that area. It seems unlikely that Madison taxpayers would subsidize this service. Current staffing at Madison Fire Station #6 is barely adequate, and an additional crew and an additional engine would be very costly.

4) Fitchburg’s last Urban Service Area amendment was approved in 2010. CARPC was promised that it would be at least 5 years before another request, and that was predicated on significant development occurring. Fewer than 6 buildings are under construction in the 1200 acres available. Reason would expect hundreds of buildings before requesting another amendment.

5) Development of the Northeast Neighborhood poses a significant risk to Lake Waubesa, which already has a eutrification problem. No studies have been done to examine what the effect will be on Lake Waubesa.

6) There is no reason to do this with so much land currently available and a sluggish market.

The major landowner involved is a political supporter of the current mayor. Politics should not play a factor in what should be objective planning decisions. Sacrificing environmental protection and taxpayer money should not happen to reward a political supporter. No reasonable person would support this amendment. I hope that in this case, reason will prevail.

Jay Allen
Former Mayor
City of Fitchburg

Rich Eggleston: Fitchburg development plans overly ambitious

(From a Letter to the Cap Times)

Dear Editor: The guy in the red vest got it wrong. It’s Fitchburg that is truly 35 square miles surrounded by reality.

Our little city is entertaining grandiose plans to develop not one, not two, but four new “neighborhoods” that will house thousands of new residents with whom we, the existing residents, will be expected to share our schools, our roads, and our limited crime and fire-fighting resources.

These starry-eyed development blueprints include:

• The North McGaw neighborhood, a 398-acre tract. The entire McGaw neighborhood, 720 acres, is supposed to provide 1,900 new homes and 2.4 million square feet of commercial space — enough for 13 “big box” stores.

• “Uptown,” 450 acres in northeast Fitchburg, on which construction has already begun on 150 apartments in two buildings.

• The Northeast Neighborhood, which could add 800 to 1,400 new homes

• The North Stoner Prairie neighborhood, 322 acres including some of the best farmland in the world, which is envisioned as mostly industrial, but with a residential component as well, east of Seminole Highway.

This is all very nice. None of these developments is likely to include the kind of ticky-tacky that development entailed in earlier days. But Fitchburg may be biting off more than it can chew.

The comprehensive plan that developers and city officials are using to justify this growth was developed without in-depth consultation with our neighbors on how to manage expected growth. Infrastructure costs money. Despite the best-laid plans, growth inevitably damages the environment. Fitchburg should not seek to bite off more than its rightful share of Dane County’s expected population and economic growth. Doing so puts existing home values, existing neighborhoods and the environment we all cherish at risk. City officials must consider existing residents before being seduced by the sirens of development.

Rich Eggleston

Fitchburg

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Testimony before the Fitchburg Plan Commission, 2/19/13 - Phyllis Hasbrouck

Good evening.  My name is Phyllis Hasbrouck and I'm the chair of the West Waubesa Preservation Coalition. There are so many reasons to oppose this development, and there are so many reasons why a person who supports it would still oppose it at this time.  From a taxpayer's point of view, the most important reason is that it would be bad planning, and it would unnecessarily raise the real estate taxes that homeowners pay, and that renters pay indirectly through higher rents.

As of June 2012, there were already 1175 acres of vacant land within the Fitchburg Urban Service Area.  The largest chunks are Uptown, formerly called Green Tech Village, and North McGaw Neighborhood.  There are only 6 buildings underway in Uptown, and none as far as I know in McGaw, so where's the need for yet more space?

You may ask, "What's the problem with just getting all of our ducks in a row, going through the CARPC process so that when the market is ready, we will be too?"  Well, you've already done that, by bringing in Uptown and North McGaw.  When the market wants to build, you've got areas all ready for single family, multifamily, mixed use, civic, retail, even some industrial.  By your own estimates, you have enough for almost 15 years of expansion.

It doesn't take 15 years to jump through the CARPC hoops.  It's more like six to 18 months.  So why not wait until you think you are 2 years away from filling up Uptown and North McGaw, and then start getting your ducks in a row?

What is the downside to getting ready too soon?  As soon as a developer puts in infrastructure, the city has to spend tax dollars to do all the cleaning, plowing, inspecting and repairing.  By opening up 1175 acres, you've already signed up the taxpayers for a big burden, and it's not clear when the tax base will catch up to the cost of the new services.  So is this a good time to bring in two more neighborhoods' worth of infrastructure?  I say "two more" because Mayor Pfaff also wants to bring in the North Stoner Prairie Neighborhood.

Now, I know that Fitchburg has a much better planning record the Village of Oregon and Sun Prairie, both of which expanded too much, too fast, and were left with largely empty "ghost neighborhoods."   But when you get new staff and new elected leaders, practices can change.  Senior Planner Tom Hovel has done an excellent job of carefully phasing in new developments, but in three years he could be retired, and there's no guarantee that his successor would be as wise.  There are many pressures on staff and commissioners and alders to accommodate powerful and wealthy people who want to build.  It is harder to resist those pressures when the land in question is already in the Urban Service Area.

This environmentally-sensitive piece of excellent farmland should only be considered for development when there is nowhere else to build.  That is clearly not the case now.