As of this writing, December 19th, the residential zoning advisory committee has met five times. Most of our activity has been focused on getting background information from city staff and a local attorney/professor familiar with some of the many arcane aspects of this issue. There appears to be general agreement among both committee members and city staff that the current system needs to change.

Numerous requests for variances in recent years, particularly from residential areas, are a strong indication that the thirty year old ordinances have become less and less useful as time passes. Part of the committee's work has been to look at how other cities have addressed this situation.

This process, to no one's surprise, emphasized that Madison has a fairly unique situation. Many cities this size and larger seem to be more concerned about rebuilding downtown and near downtown areas, with a shift away from owner-occupancy by families and towards larger rental units. Their zoning ordinances were designed to encourage this approach. It has been suggested by some committee members who have been around long enough to know, that this may have been the intention when our ordinances were written in the 60's.

Madison's recent trend has been for more families wanting to live close to downtown and retain and improve existing housing. This trend has run into limitations imposed by existing ordinances and the variance process has been stretched to extremes as a result. What to do about all of this is very much up in the air.

The committee has brainstormed and come up with many ideas but would like to hear from the public before selecting alternatives. We are in the process of publicizing our activities and possibly picking a date in late winter when an entire meeting could be devoted to public dialog.

In the meantime, the first few minutes of every meeting have been set aside to hear public comment. We are particularly interested in hearing from anyone whose plans for home improvement were limited or stopped by current ordinances. Any suggestions for changes would also be welcomed. The committee meets on the second and fourth Monday of each month at 6:00 p.m. in the Municipal Building. As usual, you can also call your Tenney-Lapham neighborhood members of the committee: GiGi Holland 251-8586; Diane Milligan 256-1474; or Bob Kinderman 251-1358.