Zoning Protest Petitions Referred To Plan Commission In Wauwatosa

WAUWATOSA, WI—The Wauwatosa Community Affairs Committee voted on Tuesday in favor of sending a text amendment proposal, related to zoning protest petitions, along with its supermajority voting requirement in the city, to the Plan Commission.

The city has allowed owners or neighbors of land which is proposed for rezoning to file a protest petition, which forces any such map amendment to be passed by a 3/4 vote of the governing body.

The motion approved was for the Plan Commission to look at the number of percentages involved. Specifically with the number of citizens needed to send a petition to the Council and the percentage of members needed to pass.

Alderman Nancy Welch was the dissenting vote.

The Wisconsin legislature eliminated the protest petition provision in 2019 but the city chose to maintain its zoning protest provision independently from state law, according to a memorandum by Alan Kesner, city attorney.

"The Common Council recently suggested in its discussion that it now wished to eliminate the provision from local law in order to be more consistent with state law," the memorandum said.

The provision has been used in the past to limit or stop redevelopment when neighbors are not in favor of it, the memorandum said.

Public comment was not allowed during Tuesday night's meeting. Alderman Jason Wilke reminded people that public input will take place during the commission process. A public hearing will also be held during a Common Council meeting.

"It has been viewed as a limitation to new and novel uses of land, and sometimes its use has been seen to have a more negative impact by allowing such persons to object based upon the identity of the applicant for such changes," the memorandum said.

Alderman Jason Kofroth was the person who requested the agenda item.

"I think what is most important to recognize with the protest petition that it was alluded to already is when we talk about a democratic process, but then put a threshold of 20% of a group of property owners are able to then allow a minority group of council members which is 25% to be able to stop a project is not democratic," Kofroth said.

He added some petitions have stopped projects from being developed. Kofroth said such petitions have backfired on proposed developments.

"It puts that stain on the property and we never see developments of any level on those properties," he said.

Kofroth said eliminating the protest petition is not giving developers an upper hand or taking away public input.

"All that changes is that these approvals have a majority of the Common Council, a majority of the elected body democratically elected, to be on to approve these," he said.

Welch was in opposition to eliminating the petitions.

"I can't be more against this," she said.

Welch added there has been much attention to property owners' rights and the rights to protect the value of their properties. She said as soon as they exercise their rights it is considered an issue when it interferes with a preferred development.

"We need to have some balance here," Welch said.

Alderman Joel Tilleson asked if the council is allowed to change the minority percentage of votes needed.

Kesner said the city doesn't need to be consistent with the state law.

"We can have our law which either has no protest petition or different numbers that we chose to do," Kesner said.

Alderman Allison Byrne was in support of adjusting the numbers as opposed to eliminating the protest petition.

"I think that it would be wonderful if we thought this would only be applied to projects that had some sort of a higher good, but in my experience, that is not how it has been applied," Byrne said.

She added citizens need to have the ability to voice concerns for projects in their neighborhood.