| 7/6/00 |
Greg David, 920-262-9996
Jefferson County Land Trust
The Jefferson County Land Trust held a Tour de Sprawl on Wednesday
June 26. The Tour was designed to bring about awareness of urban
sprawl and its impact on our community.
The tour began on a positive note with a visit to the Watertown Market in the Old Mill District. Tour leader, Brett Hulsey, a Dane County Supervisor and Midwest Representative of the Sierra Club, explained how the Market is a prime example of good downtown redevelopment. This revitalization of the old mill district saved an old lumberyard from demolition and refurbished it into a shopping center of shops and other attractions. It has become a stopping point for tourists, as well as gathering place for local residents and shoppers.
Yvonne Deusterhoeft, the Market manager talked about the need for this type of development in a livable community. She also talked about the efforts and materials that went into the rebuilding of the old lumberyard, where the paving bricks came from, the recycled roofing structure, and the re-use of the old lumberyard itself. Ms. Deusterhoeft also noted the preservation of the old shoe factory on the corner of Milwaukee and South Water Streets into an apartment complex. She said that more redevelopment is planned for the old mill and adjacent properties.
Next the tour visited the sprawling development on south Highway 26. The tour group experienced first hand how difficult it was for a pedestrian to negotiate traffic on the corner of Bernard and Church Streets. Hulsey explained, "This type of development dictated by zoning codes and often subsidized by TIF districts, makes any type of pedestrian or bicycle travel nearly impossible and certainly hazardous to your health. It separates commercial, business and residential development from one another. This forces homeowners into their cars and on to a few arterial roads for the least errand. And this increased use of the automobile causes the traffic congestion, and a perceived need to build bigger and bigger roads".
Our tour finished at the Ed and Donna McFarland farm on Hwy. K just west of Watertown. Their farm has been in the news a lot lately because it has been imperiled by a USH 26 bypass alternative. Because of the sprawling and segregated patterns of growth, traffic has congested in the strip mall development on South Church street.
The typical remedy to this situation is road expansion and bypasses. Unfortunately, this type of remedy is only that, a remedy to a symptom, but not a solution to a problem. The solutions lay in downtown redevelopment, traditional neighbor hood development and mixed use zoning. Building bigger roads is a Band-Aid remedy that in the long run, only exacerbates the sprawl problem.
The Tour de Sprawl and and evening seminar will air on local TV Cable Access in the near future.