Milwaukee Jewish Federation and Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center officials were “very pleased” that the Whitefish Bay Plan Commission decided Tuesday to recommend that the village board review plans for expansion of the JCC’s facilities and of the campus’ north building.
“It gives us the opportunity to move ahead” and obtain “what we always wanted … a legitimate and meaningful review by the village of the campus improvement plan,” said JCC executive vice president Jay Roth.
“We look forward to working with the village,” said Stephen L. Chernof, chair of the Milwaukee Jewish Community Capital Project Steering Committee, which is in charge of the campus project. “We hope to move forward promptly through the process.”
But Gary Close, a frequently cited representative of the village residents opposed to the plans, expressed disappointment at the commission’s action.
“I think it shouldn’t have happened,” he told The Chronicle after the meeting at Whitefish Bay High School Auditorium, attended by several hundred people. “It should have been stopped tonight.”
The next step in the process, according to the village’s web site, will be for the village board to decide whether to accept the Plan Commission’s recommendation. The board could do this at its next meeting, scheduled for Monday, June 3.
If the board does accept the recommendation on June 3, the plans will go back to the Plan Commission “for review, recommendation and public hearing,” beginning with the commission’s June 18 meeting, according to the village web site.
According to a village press release and a letter sent to village residents, comments from the public will be heard “June 18th or later” if the process advances. Close, however, said that if opponents have the opportunity to speak at the June 3 board meeting, “we certainly will.”
Village administrative assistant Susan Landers said Wednesday that it has not yet been decided whether public comment will be heard at the June 3 meeting.
The federation and the JCC first approached the village with proposals for renovations and additions in May 2001. Roth contended in his statement Tuesday to the commission that changes are needed because the 85-year-old building housing the JCC is “antiquated” and “inadequate.”
Roth also pointed out that the JCC has lost members from a peak of some 3,300 “membership units” in the mid-1990s to about 2,600 now because the current facilities “can’t accommodate services that members want.”
The north building, which houses two Jewish day schools — Hillel Academy and the Milwaukee Jewish Day School — also needs expansion for additional classrooms and storage areas, said project attorney Bruce Block in his presentation of the plans.
In June 2001, the plan commission expressed reservations about aspects of the plan and deferred taking action. The commission also suggested that the federation and JCC modify their plans.
In autumn and winter of 2001-2002, federation, JCC and village officials met to discuss the plans, and the JCC and federation held open houses for village residents living near the campus. In response to neighbors’ and officials’ concerns, the federation and JCC “modified virtually every aspect” of its plans, according to a copy of its proposal.
The plans call for constructing additions to both of the large buildings on the campus. They also call for construction of an outdoor swimming pool, to be located either in a patch of land to the northwest that the federation would purchase from the village or on the current campus.
The new plans also modify the construction of new parking facilities in response to neighbors’ concerns about traffic; and withdraw the earlier plans’ requests for extended hours of operation and for an increase of the number of users on the campus at any one time, keeping that at 1,231.
None of these changes, however, have reduced opponents’ disapproval of the plans, according to Close, who confirmed that opponents had hired an attorney some months ago, though he declined to name the individual. Other than hoping to speak at the June 3 meeting and other venues, Close said opponents had “no particular plans” at this point.
“The intensity of land use has not been addressed in a residential setting,” Close said. In that sense, even with the modifications, expansion of the campus would still create “a square peg in a round hole.”
But Jane Gellman, JCC president, said, “We worked really hard to come to this point, and I believe that we have a plan that will meet the needs of the JCC as we continue to be a good neighbor and a member of the community of Whitefish Bay.
“The Plan Commission decision to move the project forward really was to me the only decision they could make at this point…. We trust that the work we have done will show our plan to be an outstanding plan that will be approved.”
In addition to the JCC and the two day schools, the campus also houses the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Children’s Lubavitch Living & Learning Center, the Coalition for Jewish Learning and the Jewish Family Services Child Development Center.
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