Officials and representatives of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center apparently met all of Mequon officials’ concerns about plans to construct a proposed family park/outdoor pool in that city — except for two issues.
Because of those two issues primarily, the Mequon Planning Commission voted 4 to 2 (with two commissioners absent) Monday night to table further discussion of the plans until a future meeting.
According to attorney Bruce Block, who represents the JCC, the two issues were:
• The effects of the facility on automobile traffic on surrounding streets, especially the intersection of Mequon Rd. and Market St.
• The effect of the facility on continued residential development of the area, particularly of the 35 acres to the south of the site.
Block and JCC executive vice president Jay R. Roth said they will work on resolving these matters before coming to the Planning Commission again sometime either in late October or early November.
On the first issue, Block and Roth said they have to discuss with Mequon city officials and the state Department of Transportation the possibility of putting a traffic light on the corner of Mequon and Market. Because Mequon Rd. is a state highway, the DOT controls placement of traffic lights on it, said Block.
Roth said that the JCC and the Jewish Home and Care Center, which jointly own some of the land around the site, will have to “work through” the issue of the land south of the site. “We’re willing to commit the land we own and do a deed restriction on it,”
guaranteeing that it can only be used for residential development, Roth said.
Otherwise, said Roth, “the good thing for us” about the meeting “was that every other issue that was raised during the first meeting” on Aug. 15 (see Aug. 19 Chronicle), including “storm water, noise, landscaping, building design — were addressed positively and got good feedback.”
Indeed, Brad Steinke, Mequon’s director of community development, and Mayor Christine Nuernberg, among other Mequon officials present, praised the project in general.
But Nuernberg said she wouldn’t vote to approve unless there was a resolution of the traffic issue, about which many citizens had expressed concern to her.
In response to concerns expressed at the August meeting, JCC officials have modified the plans for the facility, which they want to build on 7.5 acres just south of Mequon Rd., between Market St. to the east and Oriole Lane to the west.
According to Roth, JCC officials removed the large water slide, added two lanes to the lap-swimming pool and added a diving well and diving board. They also gave a different outside design to the planned clubhouse and modified plans for landscaping.
Unchanged parts of the plans include construction of four tennis courts, a 153-space parking lot, a playground and a picnic area.
Opposition to the project remains, however. Mequon Ald. Susan Nelson, who represents the district in which the site is located, was among a few members of the audience who spoke against the project at the meeting.
She told the commission about the “nearly unanimous opposition of the surrounding residents” to the project, said the tax-exempt project would reduce the property tax revenues available to the city even with a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, and said that for “the long-term health of the community” the project was “not one I can reasonably support.”
However, the Mequon Common Council may not have a role to play. The JCC is seeking a permitted conditional use in a residential district.
Therefore, according to Block, under Mequon statutes the Planning Commission “has the authority to approve the project on its own” unless two Common Council members request that it be brought to the council.
Loading ...