Residents' Petition Against Solar Farm "Inapplicable" Per WI Statutes. Safety Is Only Measure To Deny Solar Development. Plan Commission Denies.
Sunstarr 66 Multi-Family Proposal Denied Rezoning To RM1. Kwik Trip Moves Forward to Village Board Even If We Do Not Know "How Many Crashes Are Too Many?"
From agenda packet.
12-9-2024 Plan Commission Meeting agenda packet here.
Only 859 pages.
Recording here.
Only four hours long.
Min 15:00 meeting starts.
Min 17:00 OneEnergy Solar Farm proposal presentation update. Assistant Planner goes through updates including residents’ petitions against the installation of the solar farm. Trustee Baum reads memo from village attorney’s memo regarding the matter. The petition is inapplicable per the attorney. Village has no say on if this project can go forward or not. Commissioner Henk asks what can the village comment upon. Setbacks. Commissioner Williams asks for details about the decommissioning process as the company hasn’t been around very long to see this activity through.
Peter Murphy, OneEnergy, discusses this activity. The village would not be responsible for any costs. What if the company goes out of business? The power company that is fed by the farm would take over that responsibility. Further discussion about an actual $ set aside occurs.
President Wolter brings up farmland drain tiles and asks how those are preserved. OneEnergy will fix if broken and deal with any flooding conditions that may be caused by the construction. They also have to get permission from the WI DNR to ensure there is no adverse affect on the nearby river.
Conversation returns to decommissioning and the set aside. They will be transferring the “asset”. In other words, selling the farm once it is constructed as they do not have the money to see it through its life. They do not have an agreement with We Energy. More questions about how many locations they have and if they run them. They built four last year, six this year.
More questions about where they perform this work. President brings up the large MI solar farms that he saw recently. What is the smallest size lot that they would consider? Long answer describing the types of solar farms. 2-10 megawatt farms, smaller farms is their focus. The company uses all sub-contractors for construction. What about the safety of the school children in the area if the work is subbed out? The construction companies are responsible for any accidents.
The project would happen in the summer. Discussion about hauling and traffic on Rockfield. 2-3 trucks a day. First four weeks are the grading, then construction for four to six months. Starting in May.
Property taxes are passed onto municipality and county. $24K between them. There is a calculation and if We Energy takes it they pay into a fund that is passed onto the entities.
President Wolter asks about how other communities feel about the projects. “It varies.” Some people happy it’s not a housing project. 100+ signed the petition and not one person is for this development. He goes on to say this is the worst possible place. He cannot get behind it as a representative of the people. He is angry at the state for putting the village in this position, not unlike the cell tower situation.
Trustee Baum asks do we deny and face a lawsuit? President Wolter says sometimes these things need to be tested.
President of School Board, Russell Ewert, says the school year end is 2nd week of June, restarting August 18th with teachers in the school and students there in September.
Further discussion about it would be better if it was a rooftop installation rather than greenfield. Trustee Baum brings up the construction project at the Rockfield school.
Motion fails with only Trustee Baum voting for it.
Min 1:17:30 Sunstar Victory Place multi-residential proposal rezoning. Director of planning, Retzlaff, runs through the presentation describing the changes from the last presentation. The site plan has been reworked, density is still high, and it shows 66 apartments. The Crimson Road extension has not been resolved. Public safety departments think of it as a convenience, not critical. Design is conceptual only.
President Wolter reads into record emails received against the development. Traffic increased on an already busy road. Nearby houses would prefer condos. Apartments will lower value of nearby property. One person wants the sidewalks completed in the area. A Milwaukee transplant moved here to be rid of nearby apartments. Safety concerns.
Min 1:35:00 hearing regarding this matter opens for in-person comments. Nearby condo association dweller wants condos, less density, and something that has more privacy for her family. Plan hasn’t changed enough from last time, should be denied. Compared to another proposal, this is a substandard proposal that a local property owner, who received the run around, wants to build. Is it going to be subsidized apartments? Needs oversight. 66 apartments are too many for this location. Need smart planning. Add public paths for neighboring properties to walk in the neighborhood, complete the sidewalks. Density is too high. Crimson Road being completed would provide a cut through making the neighboring area less safe. This will add noise. Density is too high. Who will cover the cost and maintenance of that emergency gate as shown on the plan? Too many people, where will the kids go? Bad idea. Look at the examples of other areas with lots of apartments, like Milwaukee. Too many people. Some that use the soccer fields trespass already, this will increase that problem. Waste Management already makes noise, why invite more noise? Crimson Road is used as a play area. Already have traffic speeding through the neighborhood getting to other subdivisions. At first the apartments may look good, but over time maintenance falls away, typically. There are already apartment buildings in the area, some not occupied. This will reduce wild life in the area. Chose their home for the proximity to green space.
Min 1:56:20 Commissioners discuss. Discussion regarding neighboring zoning to north. R1 allows 6 per acre. Emergency access, if it goes forward, would be at cost of developer. The developers come to podium.
These will not be subsidized apartments. Will add sidewalks adjacent their property. Will drop the road extension. Commissioner Shadid asks if other developments are subsidized. Yes. Intent is for $1,600 to $1,700 rent a month apartments.
“If it has been done before, it can be done again.”
Bill Shadid.
Director Retzlaff points out that one of the developers said they would understand that some people would not be happy to live near an apartment building, why? Response: that is legitimate to them, and is human nature. Doesn’t turn out that way.
School board representative asks if they have looked into demographics. No. School board is looking into conducting one. District considers apartment rental lease dates as part of a problem for their scheduling.
Developers say the renters will be empty-nesters, professionals and people of some means to afford these spaces. There won’t be any with three bedrooms. But, they can’t predict how many families with children will be there.
RM3 is ten per acre. RM1 is six, and RM2 is eight dwellings per acre. Can it be an RM1? Hard to develop at that zoning type. Units only reduced by two compared to prior presentation. Circulation is better, however. Still too dense.
Why not looking at condos or senior development? Open to reducing numbers in the development, but want it to be rental. Need to add sidewalks adjacent to their property. The village may need to finalize the connections.
They want to keep RM3. Condos are slow to sell, want apartments.
Fails.
Min 2:26:00 Kwik Trip at Maple and Mequon/Lannon. Assistant Planner, Jordan Yanke, presents the site proposal. Kevin Driscoll, village engineer, discusses retaining walls, barriers on top of the retaining wall, and the traffic study. Two options. Suggests a memorandum of understanding for Kwik Trip fixing the road configuration if too many crashes.
How many are too many?
The entire wall along Lannon/Mequon is an 6-9’ retaining wall. Mr. Yanke continues through the staff recommendations.
Min 2:43:20 Public hearing opens. Thanks for no witches hat. Canopy is top heavy, is ugly and the roof structure above the canopy should be removed. Design standards would help applicants. There will be additional traffic as a result of this use. Please don’t install “porkchop” intersection dividers. This will be a busy development. Suggests that traffic will be a problem here. Germantown should not pay for any of the removal of the pumps. Adjacent owner suggests that 24/7 will make the house to the east less desirable. Her father developed the bank and found high ground water problems. The property is part of the wetlands. Truck traffic will be an issue, per neighbor across the street.
Bank property owner describes how COVID killed his office rental business. The building is obsolete compared to originally designed use and the way work is done today. He states that the tax burden is too high compared to his rental income. Has been keeping it up, but can’t afford to continue. He continues to say why it’s a good location for Kwik Trip.
The retaining wall is very high, could it be two-tiered?
Min 3:10:10 Discussion on the Kwik Trip proposal ensues. The commission approves the easy staff recommendations, then move on to the conditional use permit. They add another condition to have the village listed as additional insured. It passes.
The site plan motion is then read into the record so that discussion may start. Trustee Baum asks, “How many accidents can occur before the intersection is changed?” The discussion becomes complicated and so they stop at 5, with 6 and 7 conditions needing more discussion.
Median design discussion starts. Nothing has been designed. The discussion is loose, with no clear direction. Kwik Trip rep comes to the podium. Discusses eighteen-wheeler traffic going north to leave via Old Mequon Road. States that because of the Holy Hill facility, they do not expect eighteen-wheelers here. Box trucks. Will restripe the lot. No overnight parking, nor scale.
It passes.
They move onto the other items - retaining wall design, barriers, landscaping space. Passes.
Confusion about where they are in the order of things.
Don’t like the canopy roof either. They only put the roof on the canopy because the plan commission wanted a German-looking building and canopy design.
Whatever that means?
Discussion about existing property’s conditional use permit staying with the property. Kwik Trip will put a deed restriction on the sale of the property. It will prohibit gas stations and can only be released by Kwik Trip.
Passes.
Min 3:44:50 Text amendments postponed.
Min 3:45:20 Willow Creek TDC Willow Creek proposal to change current site plan to allow for outdoor storage. The TID was intended to be high end offices, industrial and no retail.
It didn’t work out that way, which may explain why it is the slowest developing TID.
They are asking permission to add the outdoor storage for a prospective new tenant. Losing trailer park stalls. Has a separate zoning application which is a staff approved item. Looking into transferring ownership of the detention area to this property.
Representative appears before the commission.
Passes.
Min 3:59:00 Monches Engineering requests permission for Store Master Funding XIII, LLC for their site plan, revised from previous meeting. Easement running through the lot which as changed the layout. Forester must review the final landscaping plan. Passes.
Min 4:02:35 Public comments. Appreciate the voting down of the Solar farm as tyrannical government of any size is not right. The meeting showed that public comment is good. People want to be heard, especially regarding development. One theme tonight was preserving green space. The plan commission should consider that in all applications coming forward for hearings. Germantown should also encourage lowering the average age of residents. The school district’s study on demographics will be interesting to read, should they do that. There is also a trend in committees being skipped over with agenda items going straight to the village board. One was the public safety building; and another was the village center strategy plan skipped over the plan commission.
Meeting adjourns.
Note: This was such a long meeting that there may be spelling errors and odd sentences. Apologies in advance.