Madison planning department reports: permits, demolitions, PACE investments and ongoing legal dispute at Moody Park

Dewey, director of the City of Madison's Planning, Preservation and Design Department, and Bridal, the city's building inspector, presented the department's 2024 year-end report to the Common Council on Jan. 21.

Dewey told council the office issued 182 building permits in 2024 with a combined valuation of "better than $26,000,000". The department processed 468 permits in total and recorded 110 excavation permits. Bridal said the excavation ordinance adopted about 18 months earlier has helped reduce poor restorations to streets and sidewalks after utility and contractor work.

Code-enforcement activity included hundreds of nuisance and stormwater cases. Bridal said the department investigated 219 stormwater or related construction/post-construction cases last year and continued to focus on illicit discharges such as cooking oil or paint dumped into drainage systems.

Since Jan. 2022 the department has identified 181 unsafe-structure cases; staff said 104 have been abated and 77 remain active. Of the active cases, staff classified 54 as vacant or abandoned. Bridal told the Board of Public Works and Safety earlier in the day that the city will seek written plans from owners for the 23 remaining unsafe structures that staff consider outstanding and in active abatement work.

Bridal and Dewey highlighted voluntary owner-led demolitions and several owner abatement success stories across the city. Dewey said the PACE (Property and Community Enhancements) program produced roughly $4.5 million in investment for 2024, representing about a 7-to-1 or 8-to-1 leverage ratio of private to public dollars in targeted areas; the redevelopment commission's investments produced an almost 10-to-1 ratio in 2024, staff said.

The department also acknowledged a longer-running legal dispute involving Moody Park. Bridal summarized the litigation history on record, saying the city initiated enforcement in 2022 and that owners filed suit; a motion for summary judgment in the case was denied and the owner has appealed the court's decision to the state appellate level, according to staff. Bridal emphasized the time involved in court processes and the city's preference for voluntary abatement where possible.

Staff noted an audit finding related to the city's salt barn at the public works garage and said recommended corrective procedures were implemented. Dewey and Bridal closed by showing several before-and-after images of privately abated properties and developments under construction and reiterated that the department will continue neighborhood-by-neighborhood work on dilapidated and unsafe structures.