My Thoughts on Tuesday Night's Vote on Student Housing

Greetings! 

Tuesday night the Common Council voted to approve a high-end development at Johnson & Bassett street. After a lengthy discussion lasting till nearly 1:30am, with a vote of 17-2 and 1 absentation, the item was approved, I voted against this development, joined by District 6 Alder Marsha Rummel. I'll keep this blog post brief and less essay-formatted. 

My Reasoning for Tuesday Night's Vote

1. Over 1700 students responded to a survey about the housing crisis, 200 students sent emails to Alders. 85% of them stated their opposition to luxury housing such as this one. On principle, when such a large amount of students voice their opposition, I will vote alongside them. Put simply, I ran on uplifting the student voice and that is exactly what I'll do.
2. I continue to believe this development went against the comprehensive plan. I'll refer to the the Campus Area Neighborhood Association's Streering Committee report, which does a great job explaining the details of this.
3. Engagement on this project was at an all time low. For example, the development got Urban Design Commission approval prior to a public neighborhood meeting taking place. That alone usurps much of the public's ability to have input early in the process. 

I do believe that there were non-affordability related reasons to deny this development, and I am disappointed that it was not explored enough by the Council. In some aspect, it certainly does feel like we've been strong-armed with threats of lawsuits. I continue to believe that if this sort of engagement happened in any other district, if a developer rushed the process within a few months, it would have never made it through Plan Commission in the first place. Alders received over 200 emails from students, 120 of which came within the first 24 hours of my call to action. I encourage them to speculate how many more it would have been if students were on campus in person.

Lessons Learned
I believe over the past three weeks, there have been many lessons learned by every party included (Students, the City, and Developers). Although Alders have been aware of the student housing crisis for awhile, they are now intimately familiar with many personal stories that have been shared with them. I encourage every Alder to read at least some of the survey responses, as students living in every district had the chance to respond. I hope that developers recognize the need for public engagement in projects such as this. It is not fair to the residents or the communities when such large projects get rammed through the process in a couple months' time. I also hope that Common Council recognizes that it is no longer feasible to build student housing just in the immediate downtown area.

What Now?
My statement on Tuesday night focused much more on where we as a City go forward from here. We had a surprise vote three weeks ago, and it led to a necessary but long overdue conversation on student housing. Going forward, I'll be exploring numerous possible ideas to address the housing crisis. Admittedly I will keep my explanation of these ideas short, because much more discussion needs to take place before they become concrete enough for introduction.

1. Upzone South of Regent St, and West of Camp Randall. I believe student housing should be centered around campus, and for too long it has only expanded towards the East. There are numerous lower-density housing units that can be upzoned both in terms of units, and increasing height.
2. Invest in the city's land banking programs. The better funded this program is, the more we will be able to use it to create real affordable housing.
3. I will continue to work with UW-Madison for them to conduct a scientific survey of the student population. The survey I sent out unarguably provided good qualitative data, but was never meant to be scientific and can certainly be improved in numerous ways. The city already allocated $9,000 in the last budget for this exact purpose, it's time to put it to use.
4. Review and update the downtown portion of the comprehensive plan. Madison will continue to experience growth, and young professionals continue to compete with students to seek housing downtown. The comprehensive plan does not account for this recent change of trends, and the sooner it's addressed the more prepared we will be. 
5. I'll continue to encourage development to take place. In my district, neighboring districts, and throughout the City. I will try my best to ensure that there are not unnecessary amenities taking up space that could instead have dwelling units, especially for developments marketing itself as student housing.

Final Thoughts
I am thankful for the massive engagement from students throughout this process. This was yet again another vote at the expense of students. Another vote where non-students felt as if they know whats best for us. Another vote where even when we do speak up for ourselves, we're sidelined. But we will continue to speak up for ourselves, most of us aren't even on campus yet and we've accomplished to start a discussion never held before. I'm cautiously optimistic. I look forward to working with both my fellow Alder colleagues, and housing developers to ensure that the type of housing necessary for students can be provided by engaging our community earlier on in the process.

I want to congratulate CORE Spaces on their meaningful win, and I look forward to working with them on future projects. I'll continue to seek every path possible to provide the type of housing needed for students, and ensure engagement remains high.