A Milwaukee County-backed affordable housing project in Whitefish Bay is back on track after it was blocked by a village commission in January. On Tuesday, the Village’s Board of Appeals overturned an architectural review board decision.
Spoerl Development LLC is planning to build a three-story, 17-unit affordable apartment building, called The Hampton, at 4800-4818 N. Santa Monica Blvd. The site is located at the intersection of N. Santa Monica Boulevard and E. Hampton Road, near the border of Whitefish Bay and Shorewood. The intersection is considered one of the gateways to the village.
The project was designed to be in compliance with village zoning, and only needed approval for permitting. It went before the village Architectural Review Commission (ARC) twice, and during the second meeting, in December, the project was denied.
The denial proved controversial, as the Milwaukee County Housing Division had just awarded the project $3.2 million, with authorization from the county Board of Supervisors, to support the creation of affordable housing. “It just so happens that the same day this project went to the ARC that the county announced their grant for us, for an affordable housing development,” the developer Brian Spoerl, told Urban Milwaukee in January.
Expanding affordable housing, with a special attention to housing options in the suburbs, has been a policy priority of the county’s Housing Division under County Executive David Crowley.
According to a “Finding of Facts” produced by the commission, the project was rejected based upon a handful of considerations including concerns about local property values, parking; a subjective notion that one of the walls was “cold” and “not residential feeling”; and that it “still doesn’t feel like Whitefish Bay.”
The fact that such a building has to jump through so many hoops to be built is infuriating… glad that the rejection was successfully appealed.