The Truman Olson Army Reserve Center, 1402 S. Park St., which is scheduled to close within the next four years, was earmarked for homeless services under federal government guidelines.Ald. Brenda Konkel has been writing about this issue over at her blog, and I've been scouring the available documents (which don't seem to be loading anymore?) trying to figure out exactly what the reasoning behind all of this is. It hasn't been easy, though. Heck, if the alders can't get answers to their various questions about this, how am I, a regular ol' resident, going to do it?
But after prioritizing a plan from Porchlight Inc. to create 38 spaces for permanent and temporary housing for the homeless, south side council members Julia Kerr and Tim Bruer sought an alternate site for the plan, citing concerns about the south side carrying more than its fair share of housing for low-income residents as well as the transitional housing detracting from economic development plans in the area.
One of the suggested alternatives was a site on the far east side on Water Utility land at 4002 Nakoosa Trail, which would involve a paper transaction between the utility and city as well as the city's purchase of the Truman Olson site.
At first blush, it would seem that an offer of free land for the development of a homeless services site would be a pretty cherry deal. Porchlight, Inc. and Goodwill Industries both submitted proposals for just such projects, and Porchlight was given priority with their plan of building both permanent and temporary housing for the homeless. The Truman Olson site, located at 1402 S. Park St. on Madison's near south side, seems like a good place for that kind of development: it's right on a bus line, nearby to grocery stores and both residential and commercial areas. If the people being served by such a facility are to be successfully integrated back into society, then they need reasonably easy access to cheap transportation, food, and other such amenities.
However, members of the City Council, the mayor, and developers decided that the Truman Olson site would be better used for more commercial development--part of an effort to bring economic progress to the area. Apparently, a homeless shelter wasn't part of the plans drawn up by the Wingra Creek BUILD Project, an effort to "conduct market and trade area study, identify business retention and attraction strategies, and develop alternative redevelopment scenarios for the area bounded by South Park Street on the east, Fish Hatchery Road on the west, and West Wingra Drive on the south."
So it was proposed that the city just buy the Truman Olson land (for an estimated $2.2 million in initial purchase and demolition), and find a different spot for the Porchlight plan. That site? Way over on the far east side of town, on Nakoosa Trail, nestled between the loving arms of a Wal-Mart, Cub Foods, a smattering of houses, and a bunch of industrial sites like a junk yard. And also pretty well off any sort of convenient bus line, which was supposed to be one of the requirements of any site chosen for the project.
The big argument on the pro side of this is that the Truman Olson site likely won't be ready for development until 2012, whereas a different site might be ready within a year or so. I'm all for timeliness in getting Porchlight's needed services up and running, but not at the cost of a) losing accessibility for the people who'll live and work out there, and b) millions of taxpayer's dollars.
Still, I can't entirely make an informed decision about this because all the facts have yet to be presented. That's what really makes all of this seem so weird. Instead of presenting a detailed argument for the land swap, alders and everyone else have essentially been asked to sign off on a pretty hefty check without knowledge of just what they're paying for. Somehow, that smells like a really bad idea.
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