By John R. Roby
Madison should focus on policies to encourage alternative transportation and mixed-use buildings and neighborhoods, according to a draft plan to govern the city’s next 20 years of growth.
Without the ability to annex more land, the plan also suggests nine key places in Madison where the city could accommodate growth.
The “Madison on Track 2045” draft, prepared for the city by consultant Orion Planning and Design, updates the city’s 2006 and 2010 guiding documents. When the 2006 comprehensive plan was adopted, Town Madison didn’t exist, the city had 20,000 fewer people and the area west of County Line Road was largely undeveloped.
Allison Mouch, a managing partner with Orion and the company’s project manager for Madison on Track 2045, told the city’s planning commission last month the plan assumes a moderate rate of growth over the next two decades. Madison’s recent history of 3% annual growth, she said, is likely to slow to a more sustainable 2%.
Consultants considered, she said, “where do we think Madison can grow, where does the city have the ability to accommodate it given environmental constraints, given transportation network constraints, given utility service, delivery constraints, as well as just the fact that Madison is landlocked, and there’s only so much land to expand.”
The draft document suggests tweaks to Madison’s six key development areas, which were identified in 2010 as the parts of the city and surrounding unincorporated areas most likely to grow based on infrastructure capacity, available land, development patterns and community desires at the time. Those key development areas, including Town Madison, were subject to more detailed planning in the intervening years.
Instead, the draft recommends a conceptual shift to nine “Key Opportunity Areas,” or places where the city can best accommodate growth and neighborhood change. They are:
- Old Madison Pike at the eastern edge of the city
- Midtown between Sullivan and Hughes roads
- County Line and Browns Ferry roads
- Wall Triana Highway and U.S. 72
- The Segers Road area
- Midtown along Madison Boulevard west of Celtic Drive
- County Line Road south of Hardiman Road
- Browns Ferry and Bowers roads
- Northeast of County Line Road and Madison Boulevard
“We looked at population growth, housing growth as well as job growth … so that we were making informed decisions about where the people were going to go, where they were going to live, where they were going to work,” Mouch said.
A major focus of the draft is County Line Road, which consultants called a “logical opportunity” for additional mixed and commercial uses, as well as industrial development south of the railroad.
“Creating safe and convenient east/west crossings for cars, bikes, and pedestrians should also be a policy focus,” the draft states.
The draft named the Browns Ferry Road corridor and Town Madison as having the highest potential to absorb new growth, with Midtown and the Madison Boulevard and County Line Road corridors as the main potential for new job opportunities, particularly in the professional, service and retail sectors. Midtown, the draft states, is “ripe for redevelopment” in terms of retail sales, service and connectivity, while the south of County Line Road would be suited for growth in industries like warehousing and transportation.
The draft also calls for concerted efforts to minimize car traffic, particularly for short trips. New housing that is connected to work and retail centers only by car, “will only reinforce the traffic and congestion concerns repeatedly voiced by residents,” it states.
Urban development, the consultants wrote, is trending toward multimodal transportation – building infrastructure that enables walking, cycling and public transit between neighborhoods and places people work, play and shop.
Noting the city’s traffic could become a barrier to development, the draft says, “More mixed-use buildings and mixed-use neighborhoods, such as The Avenue Madison and The Village at Oakland Springs, should be the predominant pattern for new growth.”
Madison is taking public comments on the draft through Jan. 24. A public open house is scheduled for Jan. 6. The Planning Commission is set to review and potentially adopt the final comprehensive plan in February.
