This letter to Mayor Soglin from the Sherman Neighborhood Association was sent to the Northside News, and we are running it online as a Letter to the Editor. Views expressed in Letters to the Editor do not necessarily represent those of the paper.

Dear Mayor Soglin,

We are writing on behalf of the Sherman Neighborhood Association (SNA) to express our concerns regarding the City’s proposal to purchase the northern third of the former Oscar Mayer site for a bus barn.  The concerns are twofold: 

• The process: The City did not inform SNA that this use was being proposed.
• The use: Devoting 21% of the land to passive bus storage will not create the active vibrant site that our city deserves. 

Your office has made regular and repeated claims of wanting to involve the community in the redevelopment of the former factory site, however, we were not informed by any of our representatives about this proposal. Instead, we learned from news sources that a significant chunk of the land is now being proposed for bus storage and that the plan seems well past the inception stage as it has been reviewed by several committees and has multiple sponsors.

After Oscar Mayer announced the plant closure, the mayor’s office convened a strategic assessment committee and solicited input for a report that will now lead to a special area planning process. This seems, at best, like window dressing, since the bus barn could become reality well before any special area plan is adopted. So not only is this being fast tracked before a special area plan is adopted, it will also preemptively determine the outcome of that plan. Twenty-one percent of the land being used for a primarily passive activity would affect the use of the land for the rest of the site for generations to come.  

We appreciate the efforts of your staff in attending our neighborhood association meeting on Monday, March 3 following the release of the news article, but the comments that we heard–specifically that the ultimate plan is not to relocate all services but to keep primary operations on East Washington–were not consistent with the published transportation study. We are left unsure of what to believe, and disappointed in the continuously opaque process.

Our community has continued to express the desire for this property to return to being not only an employment driver, but a place where people can also live, interact, and be entertained. A living space, not a dead space as it has been for years. The OSCAR community-led group held two community input sessions. Only a handful of people said anything transit related and that was about services, not bus storage. The most common response was that people wanted to see a vibrant area regardless of the type of development that went there. Bus barn and even transit hub are not vibrant uses of land in a primarily residential area. 

In summary, we feel that the process has not been transparent and that the use for the land is inappropriate.  It appears that the city is being opportunistic at the expense of a better long-term plan for the area. 

Sincerely,

The Sherman Neighborhood Association
Development Standards Subcommittee