Fiscal Note
Local costs associated with urban development in this area will be included in future operating and capital budgets.
Title
Amending the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan, an element of the City of Madison Master Plan, to revise the land use recommendation for the properties along the south frontage of High Crossing Boulevard. 17th Ald. Dist.
Body
PREAMBLE
The Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan was initially adopted in March 1992. The plan recommended development of an office employment district on lands located adjacent to Interstate Highway 90-94-39, and a general retail and service district along the north side of High Crossing Boulevard which reflected the highway-oriented uses that were already established, including multiple automobile sales and service businesses. Along the south side of High Crossing Boulevard, the neighborhood development plan recommended a step-down to less highway-oriented commercial uses that would be more compatible with the adjacent proposed residential areas and would emphasize activities which supported other planned neighborhood components, such as goods and services valued by office users or neighborhood residents. Large-scale, region-serving retail development was not recommended. The recommendation that commercial uses along the south frontage of High Crossing Boulevard maintain a focus on smaller-scale businesses primarily serving local markets was restated by the Plan Commission during the review and approval of several subsequent amendments to the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan.
In the years since the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan was first adopted, there has been considerable new development within the neighborhood, including an office park along Crossroads and City View Drives adjacent to Interstate Highway 90-94-39, and several residential developments on the higher elevations north of the office park and southeast of High Crossing Boulevard. Development of the vacant properties along the south frontage of High Crossing Boulevard has been relatively limited, however, and consists primarily of highway-oriented uses, including several motels, a drive-through credit union, an automobile service and support facility for a dealership located on the north side of the boulevard, and a sports bar. Another vehicle dealership south of High Crossing Boulevard was approved, but never built. The construction in 2002 of new access ramps connecting High Crossing Boulevard directly with Interstate Highway 90-94-39 greatly increased the accessibility of this commercial area to regional markets. In July 2001, the Common Council approved a mixed-use planned development north of Nelson Road that will include large-format retail uses, a "main street" of smaller retail and service uses with residences above the shops, a multi-family residential complex, and a small light-manufacturing and distribution area. If developed as planned, this development, known as "The Crossing," would also provide retail, service and entertainment opportunities to Nelson Neighborhood residents.
Recently, Don Miller, a long-established Madison automobile dealership, has expressed interest in relocating from its current location on East Washington Avenue close to downtown Madison to an expanded site on the south side of High Crossing Boulevard. East Washington Avenue is an important gateway corridor recommended for significant employment and residential growth in coming decades. Relocating this existing business to High Crossing Boulevard, near similar businesses within a well-recognized center of automobile-related activities, would make a prime near-downtown site available for more-intensive urban redevelopment.
Locating a large automobile dealership on the south side of High Crossing Boulevard would establish the same general types of uses along the south frontage as are currently found along the north frontage, and effectively preclude the likelihood that neighborhood-oriented uses might develop here in the foreseeable future. General development of the south frontage of High Crossing Boulevard with highway-oriented and automobile-related businesses would not be consistent with the land use recommendation in the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan, and a decision to support these types of uses at this location would require a corresponding amendment to the neighborhood development plan. Given the historic and current predominance of highway-oriented and automobile-related businesses in this area, its direct access to the Interstate Highway system, the absence of any apparent market interest in development of neighborhood-oriented businesses along High Crossing Boulevard, and the potential for future mixed-use development north of Nelson Road to provide an alternative center for neighborhood retail and service activities, an amendment to the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan to allow the same types of uses along both frontages of High Crossing Boulevard could be determined reasonable in consideration of other City planning objectives, including redevelopment of the East Washington Avenue gateway corridor.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Nelson Neighborhood Development Plan, an element of the City of Madison Master Plan, is hereby amended to recommend the Commercial Retail/Service land use districts located along both the north and south frontages of High Crossing Boulevard as appropriate locations for a wide variety of commercial uses, including highway-oriented uses, as well as activities that support other planned neighborhood components, such as provision of goods and services to the adjacent employment and residential areas, as described in the attached plan text amendment.