A slightly whimisical tale concerning development restrictions

This past weekend I went back to my hometown, Oconomowoc, to visit friends. While there, I was reminded of the already infamous Pabst Farm development, which is rapidly turning into an example of what happens when you just let developers do whatever they want.

If you're unfamiliar with the Pabst Farm development, it's like this:

Once upon a time, there was a city of 12,000 people in Waukesha County. People called this place Oconomowoc, which was difficult to pronounce. Some people called Oconomowoc a suburb of Milwaukee. These people were not very good at geography. Anyhow, around a third of the land in the city was contained in the Pabst Farm area. One day, along came a developer who proposed putting a giant development of really expensive homes ($$$ to $$$$$) and a big mall. As this was being built, the city realized it didn't have enough staff to cover all this. So extra staff were needed at taxpayer expense. Then then developer realized that there weren't enough of non-rich folk to staff the mall. So there was a plan to have bus routes to get workers to the mall. Then the mall developer decided that they shouldn't bother w/the mall. City officials are currently confident they'll get a replacement developer.

Throughout this time, the development got miserable reviews from the press:

Ill-thought out.

Bad for the environment.

Sprawl-riffic.

Expensive.

At a meeting Tuesday, the county board approved contributing $1.75 million for a new interchange at Interstate 94 and Highway P in the town of Summit to support Pabst Farms, a $1 billion dollar development with a proposed 1 million-square-foot mall. Along with the county portion, Pabst Farms developers will contribute $1.75 million, the city of Oconomowoc will pay $400,000 and the state will fund the difference of the estimated $25 million project.

That's where the development is now. The End.

So there you have it folks. I know that some people complain about Madison's restrictions on development and redevelopment. However, ill-planned development and redevelopment is bad news for a city. There's nothing wrong with development/redevelopment. It just needs to be done in a thoughtful manner that adds to the city, instead of making a mess. So the next time you hear someone complaining about restrictions on re/development in Madison, think of what would happen if we didn't have some restrictions. Think of Oconomowoc...