President Hermes is not giving up on his campaign to put high density apartments in the center of Greendale in the Municipal Parking Lot area. Even though he published a letter stating that residences would no longer be part of the future plans for the redevelopment of the village center, President Hermes is now pushing members of the Community Development Authority for high density apartments. Please see the link attached at http://youtu.be/p9fPf6Z3uDo to the recording of the CDA meeting where John Hermes is advocating for apartments. He wants Greendale to become more like Whitefish Bay and Shorewood and insists that high density is the future for the village center.
Last year after the second listening session where villagers had their opinions heard loud and clear at the Police Department/Safety Building, President Hermes released a letter stating there would be no more residential ideas for this area. See attached pdf for his memo. Last summer President Hermes proposed an Ad Hoc Committee to come up with ideas for the downtown area looking on how to improve this area for the future. The Ad Hoc Committee met over 9 months and came up with 26 ideas on how to improve the overall area. All ideas were ranked on a 1 to 26 basis with one being the most favored idea; apartments were discussed and had a ranking of 22 out of 26, fourth from the bottom.
Find out what's happening in Greendalefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
It was the finding of the Ad Hoc Committee that the Municipal Parking Lot is a vital and needed space in this village for patrons of the village shops, the church and the school. It has been the consensus of the Ad Hoc committee that improvements which would either remove parking or create a greater demand for parking would be a detriment to the future of the Village Center.
Find out what's happening in Greendalefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Most of the trustees were against the idea of apartments after the listening session; and President Hermes is now advocating apartments with a new group, the Community Development Authority. We need to remind President Hermes that we do not want our downtown Greendale area to be a view of high density apartments looming over the village shops. We just received the designation of National Registry of Historic Places, and to put a new apartment building in the middle of the municipal parking lot area would be a detriment to the future of our village. Even though President Hermes insists that no parking spaces would be lost (mostly because the athletic field for the Middle School would be paved over) all the people living in these apartments would create a greater demand for parking, despite personal underground parking. Please take the time, again, to tell President Hermes how you feel about this idea. Please add the other trustees to your email as they represent you also. If you wish to talk to President Hermes, his phone number published by the Village is listed below, or please come to the next Board Meeting tomorrow on Tuesday and use the Public Comments sections at the beginning and end of the meeting to make clear that we will protect our village.
There is a misconception that adding to the tax base would lower property taxes. The way the mill rate works is that all the costs for all village services, including schools, is divided by the number of property owners. The residents of high density apartments would use the same services such as police protection, fire department services, snow removal, schools, etc. They would create a greater demand on services and would pay their fair share. When the new homes were added at the Ambruster school site, any impact to our tax bills was minimal for taxpayers at best.
You can go to our facebook page and find the original letter Hermes sent out to residents. Please forward this email to your friends and neighbors in Greendale. Again, please take the time to come to the board meeting, Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., and if you can't please call or email your opinions to President Hermes.
John Hermes - 421-2977 - jhermes@greendale.org
If you email, please remember to copy the trustees:
jbirmingham@greendale.org; rbarbian@greendale.org; schadwick@greendale.org; cgenz@greendale.org;asikorski@greendale.org; gturay@greendale.org