Resident warns council about Terrace Avenue rezoning and Quarry Hill Conservancy concerns

At the start of the Middleton Common Council’s March 19 meeting, resident Mary Bechtel used her public-comment slot to urge the council to oppose ordinance item 1 (which would allow the mayor to appoint a designee to the planning commission) and to flag a separate planning concern.

Bechtel said she graduated from a Middleton high school in 2009 and described rapid population growth. She said planning and development are the city’s most contentious issues and argued that “responsible and sustainable development is not guaranteed unless we have elected officials to be accountable on the planning commission.” She urged the council to ask for a second alderperson on the planning commission rather than leaving the seat to an appointed citizen.

Bechtel also raised a process and environment concern about two south-side parcels on Terrace Avenue the planning commission considered rezoning from Residential 2 to downtown mixed use. She said the Quarry Hill Conservancy environmental-corridor page was unavailable after the March 12 planning hearing and that the planning commission had not presented an environmental evaluation or impact report describing risks from blasting into bedrock near a hillside. She asked whether lack of due diligence around blasting and removal of mature root structures would be negligent if a natural disaster (such as a flood) occurred, and she asked the council to consider potential impacts on nearby historic districts and the Little Red Schoolhouse.

Council members and staff later discussed the planning-commission action: staff and plan-commission members confirmed a 5–2 recommendation to change the future land-use map for one site to downtown mixed use, and that CARPC (the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission) had been consulted about whether altering an environmental corridor could be treated as a minor amendment. Staff said no blasting plan or site-plan approval exists yet and that further CARPC review and site staking may be required before rezoning or development proceeds.