WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — More steps in the YMCA-Aspirus expansion project are moving forward.
On Tuesday night the City of Wausau’s Plan Commission held a public hearing for the rezoning of 3rd Street from a residential district to a business district for the YMCA expansion. The approval would also come with a conditional use for the new daycare center at the expansion.
City Planner Brad Lenz explains the zoning district the YMCA currently holds. “Currently their property is in what’s called the R4 zoning district. It’s a residential district. The R stands for residential the four is called our general residents district. So it allows a variety of different uses, mostly residential uses. Churches and schools and so forth are allowed as well as multi-family developments. But it is currently a residential district.”
Lenz also explains the district the YMCA has requested for their expansion. “They requested to change their zoning to B4 which is our downtown zoning district. The B4 is a business district, it’s our central business district. It covers a lot of the downtown area. Currently, it cuts off sort of right at the Y’s property. That district is across the street from the Y and also to the south of the Y. So they requested just extending the downtown district onto their property from the west and from the south. They’re taking on the neighboring zoning of the properties next to them.”
A big part of why the YMCA wants to move into the business zoning district is to have more room to build their expansion. Chuck Ghidorzi presented slides on how the expansion dimensions would need the extra room allowed by the rezoning change. The B4 district allows buildings to be built closer to the sidewalk than a residential district.
Lenz describes the specifics of the dimensions. “In the downtown district buildings are allowed to be built closer to the street. So that flexibility allowed them to build their building closer to the sidewalk and use the space on the property a little bit differently than if it were in the R4 district where they’d have to meet a bigger setback distance with the building.”
Several people spoke in support of the rezoning for 3rd Street. But a couple neighbors to the project came forward with concerns of letting the YMCA become part of the business zone. Lenz says, “The neighbors had expressed the point that they thought this should remain a residential sort of buffer area between the more commercial areas in the city and sort of the residential area. So it was a question of exactly where is that cutoff line between the downtown zoning and the residential zone.”
The request was approved by the commission unanimously 7-0. The final approval now moves onto the city council in their next meeting. The commission also approved the vacation of McIndoe Street. Vacation of McIndoe won’t be final until approved by the DOT.
