Neenah council rejects rezoning of Shattuck school property for redevelopment as apartments, homes

NEENAH - Facing immense neighborhood pressure, the Common Council rejected a rezoning request to redevelop the 27-acre Shattuck Middle School property for residences Wednesday night.

Chris Haese, director of community development, estimated conservatively that the development would have had a taxable value of $18.7 million.

Before the council's decision, Northpointe Development Corp. made a series of late concessions to appease residents opposed to its redevelopment plan.

• Northpointe reduced the maximum number of apartments in the Shattuck school building from 100 to 89.

• It eliminated the 16 duplex units.

• It eliminated the 16 townhome units.

• It increased the number of single-family homes from 36 to 49.

• It increased the size of the greenspace from 2.9 acres to 4.1 acres and offered to donate the land to the city for a public park.

The concessions weren't enough. The rezoning of 600 Elm St. to a Traditional Neighborhood Development District failed 5 to 4, despite a favorable recommendation from the city Plan Commission last week.

Council members Lee Hillstrom, Cari Lendrum, John Skyrms and Dan Steiner voted for the rezoning. Council members Brian Borchardt, Kathie Boyette, Tami Erickson, Todd Stevenson and Scott Weber voted against it.

Stevenson said he received "an unprecedented amount of communication from all over the world concerning this."

A three-fourths vote of the council, rather than a simple majority, was required for passage because nearby property owners submitted a petition against the rezoning.

The petition, filed by Judd Stevenson, initially was ruled invalid by City Attorney David Rashid but later was supplemented to meet the requirements of the city's ordinance and state law. Judd and Todd Stevenson are brothers.

Northpointe, which is based in Oshkosh, has an accepted offer to purchase the Shattuck property for $500,000 from the Neenah Joint School District. Shattuck Middle School will become vacant in June because the school district is building a $171 million high school in Fox Crossing and will turn the existing high school on Tullar Road into a middle school for grades 5-8 starting with the 2023-24 school year.

Andy Dumke, co-owner of Northpointe, told The Post-Crescent that, with the rejection of the rezoning, he will walk away from the property. The school district, he said, probably will place the property back on the market to see if there's interest from another developer.

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What was Northpointe's amended plan for Shattuck?

Northpointe sought to convert the two-story Shattuck building, which dates to 1928, into a maximum of 89 apartments: 38 one-bedroom units, 33 two-bedroom units and 18 three-bedroom units.

Dumke said the number of apartments might have been reduced if Northpointe partnered with the city to reuse the auditorium and two gymnasiums for public use.

A medical clinic in the west wing of the building would have remained.

Dumke said the redevelopment of the Shattuck building would have cost $27 million and would have provided workforce housing. The project planned to use historic tax credits and federal housing tax credits administered by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.

The 49 single-family homes in the development would have fronted along Elm, Reed Street and Laudan Boulevard. The greenspace for the park would have been located south of Laudan.

Opposition to the plan was strong but not universal

Northpointe's plan, even with the concessions, drew fury from residents in the neighborhood.

Petitions, emails, letters, phone calls and texts, as well as comments during a public forum, overwhelmingly opposed the rezoning because of concerns the project would bring undesirable tenants, more crime, increased traffic and lower property values.

"I'm terrified for what's going to come if this vote is pushed through," Megan Florek told the council. "I think the divide is not something that we're going to be able to easily overcome."

Tamara Hasz aired her fears that the apartments would become home to people recovering from drug addiction and sex offenders. She was so against the redevelopment that she offered to buy the property herself.

"I will pay exactly what Northpointe has offered," she told the council, in reference to the developer's accepted offer of $500,000.

Others in the neighborhood supported Northpointe's plan for affordable apartments and single-family homes to accommodate people in search of housing.

"They're not aliens from another planet," Deb Langacker said. "They're going to be good tenants. They're going to be good homeowners, just like everyone else was when they started out. I bet you every single one in this room rented at some point in their life. There's nothing bad about renters."

Hillstrom said Northpointe listened to the neighborhood and modified its plan to reduce the density of the development. The parkland, he said, was a gracious offer that doesn't come often in an established neighborhood.

Without the rezoning, Hillstrom cautioned what could follow.

"You're most likely going to see a fence go up around this property," Hillstrom said. "You're probably going to see windows and doors boarded up because they don't want vandalism. The cost to maintain that building is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year that doesn't go to teachers or staff for the school system."

Northpointe was the only developer to submit plans to the city for the redevelopment of the Shattuck property.

Dumke said he wasn't interested in razing the Shattuck building and constructing all single-family homes, as some residents have wished.

"I've got a real passion for historic buildings," Dumke said. "Even if it made financial sense, I'm not knocking down the school. That'd be up to somebody else."

Contact Duke Behnke at 920-993-7176 or dbehnke@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DukeBehnke.

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This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Neenah rejects rezoning of Shattuck school for apartments, homes