Monona launches 12‑month comprehensive plan update; consultants outline corridor‑focused process

Ben Rohrer, the project manager for Vandewell and Associates, told a joint meeting of the City of Monona City Council and Planning Commission on Jan. 12 that consultants and city staff will complete a draft comprehensive plan and work toward formal adoption in roughly 12 months. "Right around, this, you know, late December of, this year, we will be at the adoption process," Rohrer said as he described a four‑stage schedule of data collection, draft development, refinement with an ad hoc committee and final adoption.

The update responds to Wisconsin’s Smart Growth requirement for a 20‑year comprehensive plan and will include the plan’s nine required elements, Rohrer said. Vandewell plans to integrate two corridor studies—Broadway and Monona Drive—into the comp plan so recommendations for those streets are not siloed in separate documents. "The Broadway Corridor Plan talks about development up to 20 stories in some areas," Rohrer said, noting the presentation will explore a range of alternatives and visuals for corridor segments.

Consultants presented regional data to frame Monona’s choices. Rohrer cited recent regional projections showing 25% population growth in Dane County over the last 15 years and a projected 45% increase over 25 years; Monona was described in consultant slides as projected to grow about 16% over 25 years, though the team warned short‑term approved projects may already push those numbers higher. The presentation also flagged an aging median age, a relatively high share of owner‑occupied values and rising rents; the consultants noted the city’s housing stock has a large share built before 1970 and that recently added units are not yet reflected in federal survey data.

On engagement, Vandewell said the ad hoc committee will meet three times (early, middle and late in the process) and that staff will run mirrored public engagement: in‑person workshops, online surveys and stakeholder listening sessions targeted to landowners and business owners on the corridors. The consultant demonstrated an interactive polling exercise for the meeting and provided the group with the code for the tool used that night to gather quick preferences.

Members of the council and planning commission raised themes they want the update to address: encouraging a broader diversity of housing types to support ownership, protecting the commercial tax base while allowing carefully designed redevelopment, improving connections between parks and riverfront destinations, and exploring zoning that would permit larger, mixed‑use development in appropriate corridor locations. Several members cautioned that redevelopment in a built‑out city requires tradeoffs—higher construction and parking costs for infill—and emphasized the need to pair growth with service and maintenance planning.

Next steps: the consultants will collect more data, hold targeted stakeholder listening sessions and publish a project website and appendix with updated data for review. The joint meeting later moved to adopt a public participation plan that will guide the outreach phase (see separate article on the adoption).