After a joint meeting with the Building Board, the Fox Point Plan Commission Monday voted six-to-one to recommend with some modifications the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s proposals for remodeling and expanding the north building and reconfiguring the north parking lot on the Karl Jewish Community Campus.
These structures lie on the 3.4 acres of the 27-acre campus within the borders of Fox Point. The majority of the campus lies in Whitefish Bay.
This does not mean the plans have final approval, as village president and commission chair Michael A. West said several times during the three-hour meeting to the more than 60 people gathered.
The next step, West told The Chronicle, is for the village board at its Aug. 13 meeting to set a date for a public hearing on the proposals. After that, the board will make the final decision, West said.
Nevertheless, Jay Roth, executive vice president of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, the largest of the seven Jewish agencies housed on the MJF-owned campus, said the Plan Commission vote was “a very positive” step and that he felt “very pleased” that the commission “recognizes the merits of the proposal.”
And Stephen L. Chernof, chair of the MJF steering committee for the campus project, who helped present the plans to the commission Monday, said, “We’re very appreciative to have received the recommendation for approval…. It was refreshing to see that the Plan Commission understands our needs and our willingness to work with the community.” He added that the recommendation “gives us a little momentum” toward approval of the whole project.
Village trustee and plan commissioner Elizabeth S. K. Garmer and some village residents attempted to table Plan Commission consideration of the proposal until October.
Garmer, who cast the dissenting vote, said she thought any action to recommend was “premature” for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the village had not done its own traffic study of the area.
Audience member AnnDre House Hohenfeldt, who lives near the campus, said during the public comments session that she was one of the some 60 signers of a petition asking the Plan Commission to wait until October so area residents could have more input. She added that “most” of the signers “do not want any expansion” on the site.
Commissioners John Crichton and Scott Yauck both said they had no objections to the proposed improvements to the north building — which houses the Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Hillel Academy, Children’s Lubavitch Living and Learning Center and the Coalition for Jewish Learning, MJF’s education program.
But Crichton proposed an amendment to the motion concerning the north parking lot. The MJF is asking that a part of the residential property it owns north of that lot be rezoned institutional to allow an adjustment northward to create a turn-around lane for buses.
Crichton said he opposed that rezoning because he and area residents don’t want that parking lot “creeping” northward. The commission approved his motion and added it to the recommendation.
When asked about this, Chernof said, “I think we can work with it, although we will have to study it.”
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