What you may not know: Week of February 26

It's a full committee week for the Appleton Common Council but most of the attention will likely center on one meeting:

Joint meeting of the Finance Committee and Library Board's Building & Equipment Committee, Monday, 5:30 pm

The process of determining the fate of the Appleton Public Library will take a key step this week as committees of the Common Council and Library Board will meet together to receive details for the first time about a proposal for a mixed-use library project on the current site of the Soldier Square parking ramp.

News about the recommended site and project broke for the first time on Thursday. The proposal includes the library along with $22 million of private elements in the project, including apartments or condos and commercial spaces.

Aside from what's been reported in the media I have not heard anything about the proposal so, like many people, I will be looking forward to seeing the presentation on Monday night and learning more about what's planned. Please note that Monday's presentation is only informational and no official action will be taken. After Monday's meeting I'm hoping we'll have a clear and reasonable timeframe for the next steps in this process.

City Plan Commission, Tuesday, 4 pm

It will likely be overshadowed by Monday's meeting but on Tuesday the City Plan Commission will take up an item of local interest in the 13th district, as they have two items related to the expansion of the subdivision north of County Highway JJ and west of French Road.

The two items are a proposed rezoning and a preliminary plat addition for the fifth addition to the Emerald Valley Estates subdivision. The proposal calls for 23 new single-family lots located west of Providence Avenue. Two things of note with this proposal:

• The rezoning calls for the lots to be zoned R1B, which as we've discussed recently is still single-family zoning but allows for smaller lots and a greater percentage of lot coverage than R1A zoning.
• As I've noted previously, every large or small new development in the northeast corner of the city creates increased strain on limited infrastructure serving this area, including police and fire protection and schools.

There will be more of these rezonings and expansions coming in the years ahead: Much of the property north and west of this development is already expected to be added to this subdivision in future years. The challenges created by that development are not going away and will require increased spending to solve.

You can see all of this week's meeting agendas and the full schedule at the city's Legistar page.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as an alderman. Good governance happens in the open, and I remain committed to raising awareness on the issues coming before us.