More Information About 205 South Stoughton Road Rezoning Proposal

More Information About 205 Stoughton Road Rezoning Proposal

In this post I describe Occupy Madison’s intentions for their use of the 205 South Stoughton Road site, what I’ve learned about how Occupy residents become eligible for tiny homes and how Occupy’s sites operate, some thoughts about the safety and appropriateness of the site for residential uses, and information about next steps for the proposal. This post is meant to provide constituents with information as they consider whether to share their input on the proposal with me or with the Plan Commission ahead of the upcoming votes on June 10th and 18th.

Occupy Madison’s Proposal

Occupy Madison purchased the one-acre property at 201/205 South Stoughton Road in late 2022 using a grant from Dane County with the intention of setting up a third Tiny Home Village. Occupy’s first village is at 204 North 3rd Street and is home to seven tiny houses and their second village is at 1901 Aberg Ave and is home to 22 conastoga huts being upgraded to tiny houses. This page on Occupy Madison’s website explains their other two sites with pictures and more details. My understanding is that they have been using the site since to manufacture and assemble new tiny homes for their existing villages, which is allowed under the current Industrial-Light zoning. 

Occupy Madison’s plans are available online as a supplement to their letter of intent, click to view. They intend to renovate the existing building at the 205 South Stoughton site to add restrooms, showers, laundry, a kitchen, and a “free store” of supplies for residents and have a separate space for Santas Without Chimneys, an org that provides holiday presents to homeless children in Madison. The basement of the existing building would be their workshop where they will continue manufacturing and assembling tiny homes to replace the conestoga huts one-by-one currently set up at the Aberg village and then at the proposed third village on Stoughton Rd. They plan to place 22 conestoga huts, to be upgraded over time to tiny houses, around the parcel to the north and east of the existing building, all surrounded by a six-foot privacy fence. They have shared that their plan is to begin occupancy in 2025, starting with a small group of existing Occupy residents who move from the other two villages, and begin adding one new resident per month so that the village grows slowly (and because it takes about a month to fundraise for and build a tiny house).

This is where their rezoning proposal comes in. The 205 South Stoughton’s current zoning is “Industrial-Limited”, which allows the assembly of tiny homes but does not allow the placement of tiny homes for residential use. Their request is for the parcel to be rezoned to the Tiny Home Village zoning district, created by Common Council in 2021, which would generally allow the uses that Occupy plans for the site.

In early 2023, before my term as alder, the Common Council amended the South Stoughton Road Revitalization Plan to add a map note to this area that may allow limited housing as a future land use in this general area, but more on that later.

An Occupy Site as a Neighbor

I’ve been talking to folks living in the Emerson East neighborhood about the impacts of Occupy Madison’s previous two sites on neighbors because I want to understand how Occupy’s residents would be as neighbors, and I’ve getting positive feedback from the Emerson East folks. They describe Occupy residents as regular, long-time members of the neighborhood who hold a big plant sale every year that neighbors look forward to.

I have heard from some constituents who are concerned about this proposal because of very understandable concerns about public safety and crime. I’ve learned that the Occupy sites work very differently than, for example, the Dairy Drive Campground in southeast Madison. Here is how Occupy describes the population who lives in their village communities: “Anyone who wants to participate is welcome as long as they agree with our mission and vision, are voted into membership, put in their sweat equity hours, apply and are accepted, agree to live in our cooperative community, follow the rules of their contract, the conduct rules and shop rules.”

Occupy requires folks to work for them for 160 hours of "sweat equity" labor before being eligible for a tiny home, which is when many folks who can’t follow through on that commitment drop off and are ineligible to join Occupy. During that time, Occupy’s existing residents get to know the new individuals determine if they would be a good fit to join their community and for independent living in a tiny home. Occupy residents hold each other accountable to their resident agreement, linked above, and they ask folks to leave if they can’t participate in maintaining a stable, safe living environment. I’ve now met some of the Occupy residents at neighborhood meetings who plan to move to the 205 South Stoughton Rd site to help build the new village if the rezoning proposal passes.

As a side note, if any of Occupy’s sites, or any other properties, do become a problem with nuisance activities, the City can invoke the Chronic Nuisance Property ordinance (which I’m currently working to update and to better account for violent offenses, please see my blog post from a few weeks ago for details about this) to require property owners to work with MPD and the City Attorney’s Office on a plan to abate nuisance activity and make sites safer on a specific timeline. About a month ago I asked Occupy Madison leadership to have a meeting with me and MPD East District leadership. In that meeting Occupy agreed to grant MPD access to camera footage if there are incidents and discussed how officers will access the site if needed.

At this point, based on what I’ve learned about how Occupy Madison’s sites work and based on what I’ve heard from neighbors who live near the other Occupy sites, I’m convinced that Occupy Madison’s residents are good people and would be good neighbors.

Site Appropriateness for Housing

My biggest concern with the proposal is about the appropriateness of this location for residential uses, like tiny homes, given the industrial uses of nearby properties in this area and given the freight traffic that Occupy residents would live near. Occupy Madison likes the site for its proximity to Woodmans (via the Stoughton Rd pedestrian bridge), the ten-minute walk to the D1 bus on Milwaukee Street, the ten-minute walk to the G bus on Dempsey Rd (via the ped bridge), its distance from residential neighbors, and the relatively short drive to their other two village sites for transporting supplies and newly-built tiny houses. I personally wouldn’t want to live there. It presents safety challenges including from freight traffic and pedestrian access because of the lack of sidewalk.

In Madison, rezoning proposals are evaluated based on their consistency with the Comprehensive Plan which includes future land use recommendations. Proposals to rezone to zoning districts that contradict the Comprehensive Plan generally do not get approval. The 205 South Stoughton Road site is included in the area covered by the Stoughton Road Revitalization Plan, which is a supplement to the Comprehensive Plan and includes details that are more specific than the Comp Plan. In March of 2023, before my term as alder began, the Common Council adopted a resolution amending the Stoughton Road Revitalization Plan to add a map note to this general area that says the following: “Due to the relative proximity to a small number of existing residential and commercial properties, the establishment of limited Medium Residential, institutional, or similar uses may considered in the area recommended for industrial located along the Stoughton frontage Road, generally south of Milwaukee Street and north of Robertson Road. Any such non-industrial uses would need to be identified in a detailed land use proposal and would be subject to all applicable land use approvals.”

I’ve been working with City departments so that the City is ready, if the rezoning proposal is approved, to arrange a sidewalk construction project in 2025 to fill this gap in the City’s sidewalk network between the Occupy site and the overpass pedestrian bridge to Woodman’s and Dempsey Rd bus stops. I also asked Traffic Engineering to look at adding street lighting along this stretch of South Stoughton Rd for pedestrian safety if the proposal passes. Note that these potential improvements would be funded by the City's Capital Budget as physical infrastructure, not the Operating Budget where the City pays for staff/services and has a deficit.

I’m waiting for the Zoning staff’s analysis of the site’s conditions for residential uses and I’ve asked them to include in their analysis a list of any other areas of the City where residential uses have been placed in or near industrial areas so we can see what those challenges look like in practice. I will share Zoning staff’s analysis in a future blog post when it’s available before the 6/10 Plan Commission meeting when this will be up for a vote.

Process and Next Steps

Occupy Madison filed their rezoning application with the City on April 8th. I worked with the Rolling Meadows Neighborhood Association to choose an area of nearly 300 addresses around and to the north of the 205 South Stoughton Road site to mail postcard invitations for a neighborhood meeting about the proposal on Wednesday March 13th for those invited neighbors. The Rolling Meadows Neighborhood Association organized a second neighborhood meeting about the proposal on April 4th which was advertised via their neighborhood listserv, neighborhood Facebook page, and via a weekly updates post on my alder blog for constituents. Once the public hearing dates were confirmed by the City, I shared another weekly updates blog post on April 20th that included the Plan Commission and Council dates where this rezoning proposal will be up for a vote.

The public hearings and votes on this proposal will be in the June 10th Plan Commission and June 18th Common Council meetings. The Zoning staff report analyzing Occupy’s rezoning proposal will be posted to this Legistar item when it's ready this Thursday evening, and I will share a direct link to the staff report in next weekend’s updates blog post. If you want to share your comments with the Plan Commission, you can email this address to have your comments added to the record: pccomments@cityofmadison.com. You will also be able to register to speak to the Commission during the public hearing on June 10th if you choose, but heads up that it’s going to be a very lengthy meeting with a lot of items so registrants may need to wait a while if this item happens to be placed later on the agenda. If you are a resident of District 3 and want to share your comments with me, please feel free to do so: district3@cityofmadison.com.

So far, I have heard from several constituents about this proposal – including several in support of this proposal as part of a solution to provide more housing options to get qualifying folks off the streets for a chance to stabilize their lives, and several in opposition raising concerns about the appropriateness and safety of housing at this site and about crime activity. Thank you to all District 3 constituents who have reached out with your thoughts.