Damakant Jayshi
One month after rejecting a rezoning proposal on the city’s west side, the Wausau City Council on Tuesday rejected again another recommendation from its Plan Commission for a small development in a residential area.
The ordinance to rezone 1600 Golf Club Road from single family residential to two flat residential was voted down by a wider margin this time, 8-3, after a brief discussion over the ordinance on rezoning.
Alders Dawn Herbst, Lou Larson, Gary Gisselman, Carol Lukens, Chad Henke and Tom Kilian rejected the rezoning recommendation on Tuesday. They had shot down a rezoning proposal last month too. Herbst had voted in favor of the rezoning at the Plan Commission meeting on Jan. 17 after staff said the development could be limited to two-flat and the developer would have to come to the council for approval for any additions. She had initially opposed any construction other than single-family units in such neighborhoods.
They were joined by two more council members this time, Becky McElhaney and Lisa Rasmussen. The two had voted in favor of the ordinance to rezone parcels for a different project, at 1427 Lake Street and 1601 and 1607 Chellis Street, on Jan. 10. Alders Sarah Watson, another alder who sits on the Plan Commission, Doug Diny and Michael Martens voted yes on rezoning in both instances.
Alder Larson again criticized the Plan Commission for not listening to residents and backing development proposals that he said did not fit in residential neighborhoods, a view shared by Alder Herbst.
McElhaney, who represents the neighborhood encompassing the proposed change, asked the consequences of such rezoning requests if approved and added that she is against rezoning in residential areas. She said changing zoning can be a slippery slope for officials.
Earlier during the public comments period, Denis Wolowski, a resident from the neighborhood, urged the 11-member body to reject the ask. He said he and property owners from the neighborhood had expressed concerns about the project during a public hearing at the Wausau Plan Commission last month.
The vote at the 7-member commission endorsing the recommendation from the city’s development staff was unanimous, 6-0. One member was absent. Before that vote several commission members, including Plan Commission Chair and Mayor Katie Rosenberg, voiced some concerns and asked several questions. Rosenberg said the unknown aspects of the project were troublesome.
In his memo to the Plan Commission, Assistant City Planner Andrew Lynch said the 1.92-acre parcel under consideration this week has a narrow 30-foot wide access to Golf Club Road and is surrounded by homes zoned single family residential, SR-2, in a wooded and hilly area.
“Two Flat-10 zoning is intended to create, preserve, and enhance areas for single family detached and two flat dwellings at an approximate density of ten dwelling units per acre,” he wrote. The TF-10 allows for up to two units by right and only requires a 30-foot street frontage, he said.
Wolowski, who was the only one to publicly address the City Council on Tuesday, termed the project approval unfair.
“Is it fair that after owning property for 40-50 years and paying taxes for all that time, that we would now take second place to one individual who has for-profit motive?” Wolowski asked on Tuesday. “It doesn’t seem right.”
One of the common objections to commercial or non-single-family development projects in single-family unit neighborhoods is based on the fear of the property being rented out instead of being owner-occupied. That was one of the main criticisms over the Lake St.-Chellis St. commercial development project.
But Wolowski himself had applied for and been issued a rental dwelling permit for his property at 1520 Gold Club Road in 2021.
“This means that the property he owns is utilized as a rental,” William Hebert, from the city’s Division of Inspections, Zoning, and Electrical Systems, told Wausau Pilot & Review. When asked to explain the brief timeline mentioned on the permit – the month of March, 2021, Hebert said the permit system just defaults to ‘expired’ after a month to cycle them through. “The permit is good until they sell the property or change property managers.”
