James Rowan is a writer whose resume includes stints as staff member for Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, former executive director of the Progressive Foundation of Madison, and aide to Madison Mayor Paul Soglin. (Or, to quote the blog of Milwaukee County Executive Scott "let 'em swim in puddles" Walker: "Rowen is not a "mainstream" commentator. He is married to the daughter of George McGovern, holds a masters degree from UW Madison (1969) and worked at Berkeley." Oh my goodness, Mr. Walker!)
By JAMES ROWEN, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Posted: July 22, 2006
The march of suburban sprawl across southeastern Wisconsin has been reflected in a spate of recent news stories, including:
• A million-square-foot shopping mall announced for Pabst Farms, the 1,500-acre planned community of single-family homes and businesses on once-agricultural farmland at state Highway 67 and I-94.
• An office, retail and residential project twice as large as the Pabst Farms mall proposed on Delafield open space at I-94 and Highway C extending to the edge of Lapham Peak State Park in the Kettle Moraine.
• The City of New Berlin's surprise, precedent-setting request to pipe Lake Michigan water across existing legal and geographic boundaries.
• The City of Waukesha Plan Commission's preliminary approval for a 300-acre annexation for $100 million of upscale housing close to the Vernon Marsh, one of the region's premier surviving wetlands.
• The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's adoption of an updated regional transportation plan with 446 miles of new or widened major highway lanes in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties, though state funds to pay for them have deep projected deficits.
You might conclude that there is only one spending mind-set - "go-go development" - in the region despite spiking gas prices, rising road-building costs and mounting opposition to taxes and government spending.
But there is an alternative message in southeastern Wisconsin pushed by a growing number of grassroots groups along I-94 from Milwaukee to the Jefferson County line.
Made up of volunteers, these organizations have a broad, non-partisan conservation agenda - one that combines the classic conservative tenets of public-sector tax and spending restraints with basic environmental, or resource conservation, all aimed at preserving neighborhood-scale living, whether in a rural setting, a small town or big city.
For example, when Delafield developer Bob Lang proposed a $200 million "lifestyle center," with housing, a hotel, shops, offices and parking for 5,000 cars where Highway C joins the south side of I-94, Delafield area residents quickly formed CARE (Conserving A Rural Environment) for Lake Country ( www.careforlakecountry.org).
Initial Web site postings show CARE is concerned with "potential destruction of virgin woodlands, disruption of wetlands (and) introduction of salt and chemical-laden runoff from large paved parking lots," and other environmental issues.
The group also questions the costs of storm water management related to 2 million square feet of development, along with zoning, policing, traffic and costs falling to taxpayers.
Link: JS Online:The grass roots are organizing to save their places from sprawl.
Another organization working in Washington and Waukesha Counties is the Highway J Citizens Group ( www.hwyjcitizensgroup.org).
For seven years, the organization has been raising fiscal and environmental complaints with SEWRPC and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation over an 18-mile expansion of Highway 164, formerly Highway J.
Once a two-lane blacktop, Highway 164 is becoming a four-lane expressway with a wide median north from I-94 in Pewaukee in Waukesha County, through front yards and farmland, into the more rural Washington County: estimated final cost is anywhere from $60 million to $70 million.
Now claiming 15,000 documented supporters, the Highway J Group has also helped block a proposed east-west highway in rural Washington County north of Highway 60, fight a subdivision in the Town of Richfield and oppose a Wal-Mart in Hartford.
Another sign that the Highway J Coalition is mining a rich vein of discontent: The Waukesha Environmental Action League, a more-established environmental and educational organization, joined the Highway J Group's ongoing federal lawsuit against the project. Formed in 1978, WEAL ( www.weal.org) works on a broad array of civic and environmental issues to preserve Waukesha natural resources.
The volunteer group's Web site pledges opposition to activities "that impair water quality and destroy the natural scenic beauty of Waukesha County's streams, rivers, and lakes and their shores."
WEAL members have spoken publicly against diverting Lake Michigan water into western Waukesha County, where subdivisions and road networks are replacing farm acreage, forests and wetlands.
Farther to the east, in the city of Milwaukee, a 20-group coalition of neighborhood groups known as CASH - Citizens Allied for Sane Highways - was created four years ago to oppose SEWRPC's recommended freeway reconstruction and expansion plan.
The SEWRPC plan provides the state with a blueprint to rebuild the entire 270-mile, seven-county freeway system, adding 127 miles of new lanes, at a projected cost of $6.2 billion with no financing plan in place.
CASH was organized by residents of Story Hill, a west side Milwaukee neighborhood behind a bluff just north of Miller Park. Gretchen Schuldt, a CASH co-founder, edits the neighborhood's Web site ( www.storyhill.net) and consistently provides detailed reporting on Wisconsin transportation activities.
Through the Web site and PowerPoint presentations across the region, CASH continues to hammer away at state and regional highway expansion and finances, while also warning against the freeway project's likely need to demolish around 200 homes and businesses, mostly in Milwaukee County.
Another CASH concern is the freeway expansion plan's consideration of elevated lanes and unsightly noise barriers on I-94 close to Story Hill, devaluing a desirable city neighborhood and disrupting three nearby cemeteries.
Ironically, just to the southeast of Story Hill in the Menomonee Valley, creative development is maximizing the presence of roads, transit service, clean drinking water and available labor.
The Milwaukee Valley Partners are creating businesses and outdoor recreation areas on once-contaminated city land. The reclamation project includes a wetlands restoration that will serve the entire region because it will capture storm water before it can reach Lake Michigan with pollution from farms and paved surfaces upstream. Described at www.renewthevalley.org, the area between Miller Park and the site plan for the Harley-Davidson Museum at the 6 Street Viaduct is coordinated by the principles of "sustainable development," a deliberate conservationist strategy that contrasts with much of the development taking place in the sprawl zones farther west along I-94.
While WEAL posted the following statement on its Web site, its message about conservation of resources of all kinds - natural as well as financial - easily applies at Story Hill, along Highway 164, alongside the Vernon Marsh or Lapham Peak State Park.
"We believe that we must control urban sprawl," said WEAL. "It is more costly to provide services (roads, fire and police protection, school busing, sewers, garbage pick-up) to a scattered population. Sprawl affects the taxes of everyone and stresses the environment."
Comments