Town, gown leaders hope to learn from UW-Madison

Town, gown leaders hope to learn from UW-Madison

MADISON, WIS. -- When the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a master plan for its campus in 1995, the map outlining the changes didn't even recognize the neighborhoods outside the university's borders.

Lamarr Billups, special assistant to the chancellor at UW-Madison, said there was "almost no relationship" between the town and its neighbors when he was hired.

"I was certainly filled with trepidation any time I went to any kind of neighborhood meeting," Billups said.

To some Chapel Hill leaders, the situation sounds familiar.

"They seem like they were in 1995 where we are now," said Mike Collins, co-chairman of the grass-roots Chapel Hill group Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth.

About 100 community, university and business leaders are on a three-day visit to Madison to meet with leaders there and learn from Madison's experience with issues such as downtown redevelopment, town-gown issues and workforce housing. The trip, sponsored by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber's Foundation for a Sustainable Community, ends today.

On Monday, a group of about 25 from North Carolina listened to Madison city, university and neighborhood leaders talk about how they improved their relationships with each other.

In Madison, the university and the town have created two committees of university employees and neighborhood representatives that meet at least six times a year. The committees, jointly appointed by the mayor and chancellor, are considered a first step in the city's planning process for university applications.

Nan Fey, co-chairwoman of one of the Madison joint committees and a resident of a neighborhood bordering the university, said before the formation of the committees there was mutual distrust between the university and its neighbors. Now, neighborhoods are involved in planning discussions from the beginning, before the university even begins the design process.

"The quality of the dialogue has improved tremendously," Fey said.

Both university and town officials from Chapel Hill seem open to trying a similar process.

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser said that the thorough vetting process that plans get at the neighborhood level in Madison seems to ease their passage when they reach the city council.

"It creates for them a process, rather than just having the city council respond to the loudest dissenting voice," he said.

Chapel Hill Mayor Pro-Tem Bill Strom agreed that it would be worth considering such committees for Chapel Hill.

Growing pains

Like UNC-CH, UW-Madison is going through a period of major growth and redesign on campus. Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Management Alan Fish said UW-Madison is adding 7 million square feet of floor space to its campus through infill development and the replacement of about 40 buildings, most of them built in the 1960s, with denser, taller development. At the same time, Fish said, the university will reclaim 17 acres of green space, mainly by replacing surface parking lots with decks.

UNC-Chapel Hill is adding 5.9 million square feet to its existing 14 million square feet, and also hopes to create more green space in the process. The university also is working to design plans for a separate research campus, Carolina North, in the face of community concerns about transportation and the environment.

The trip's participants visited Madison's 351-acre research park Monday. That park, constructed in the 1980s, employs about 4,000 people. A second research park is in the works, with plans to create 10,000 to 15,000 jobs. The new park will be developed more densely and include commercial and residential space, a design similar to that being discussed for Carolina North.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton said Madison's existing park is an example of something Orange County should avoid.

"It was awful," he said. "It was this sprawling, totally pedestrian unfriendly, transit unfriendly, sea of parking between buildings."