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Plan Commission presses developer for design controls, clarity on 20% workforce housing for LeCron rezoning
Summary
At its Oct. 4 meeting, the Middleton Plan Commission held a public hearing on rezoning 11.33 acres (the LeCron project) on Tribeca Drive from PUDG to MUA. Commissioners urged keeping design leverage (PDD) or adding requirements for ground-floor activity, pressed the developer for details on workforce housing and parking, and scheduled a rezoning vote for the commission's next meeting.
Middleton’s Plan Commission on Tuesday held a public hearing on a rezoning request for an 11.33-acre site along Tribeca Drive known as the LeCron development and challenged the applicant to preserve retail opportunities and better detail an affordability commitment.
Fernando, the applicant’s representative, presented aerials and site context for the LeCron site north of Parmenter and said the proposal includes seven multifamily buildings. "The total unit count would be 415," he told commissioners. He said the project’s name had the personal approval of the person it honors.
Alderman Charles Myers, in a written comment read into the record, said he was "not in principle opposed" but warned that rezoning the area "for an almost exclusively residential use, you will be making that area the entire community car dependent," and urged any approval be conditioned to include some amount of ground-floor retail.
Commissioners and staff discussed whether to rezone the site to Mixed Use Avenue (MUA) or retain a planned development district (PDD/PUDG) to preserve the city’s ability to require ground-floor commercial and more design input. Staff recommended selecting a standard zoning district rather than a PDD if the site is to be strictly multifamily, but several commissioners said MUA would not require ground-floor commercial on a noncorner lot and would remove leverage to seek the mixed-use fabric the commission originally envisioned.
Members raised several design and community concerns: identical building heights across the site, amount of surface parking and stormwater implications, and transit and park access. Staff measured walking distance from the project's center to the planned Bell Farms park at roughly 2,600 feet, more than a half-mile. Commissioners suggested alternatives such as adding variation in building heights (to allow first-floor commercial or covered parking) to reduce surface asphalt and improve pedestrian connections.
On affordability, the applicant said roughly 20% of units would be designated as a workforce housing component—primarily studios and one-bedrooms—but that the project would not seek WIDA financing and would not be a rent-restricted development under a land-use restriction agreement. The developer said they were "open to discussions" with the city about how such units might be memorialized but made no commitments about long-term income restrictions.
Staff also confirmed that airport-related height restrictions had been included in engineering analysis and that the area could accommodate buildings "around 8 stories or so, comfortably," depending on final design and constraints.
The commission did not vote on rezoning at the Oct. 4 meeting. Staff will complete findings of fact and return the item for a formal vote at the next Plan Commission meeting on the 20th.
