Waukesha growth-- orderly sprawl?

Paddy Mac, the Journal Sentinel's "thoughtful middle" columnist, is on vacation, but left behind his response to a post on the Xoff Files by Jim Rowen. Says Patrick McIlheran:

On a more prosaic point, Jim Rowen, an urbanist who worked for the Norquist administration, contests my column on the grounds that suburban development will make Lake Michigan spring an engineered leak: Having gotten down to the radioactive stuff, New Berlin and Waukesha will water their growth by diverting water out of the lake.

But whatever the demerits of that -- and I've suggestedthey're less if they eventually put the water back -- the lake diversion has nothing to do with 5-acre lots near East Troy.

In fact, Waukesha seeks the diversion because its density and urban services mean it draws a lot of water from municipal wells. Waukesha, the biggest straw in the aquifer, is the least sprawling part of Waukesha County. It's got sidewalks, duplexes, buses -- all the urbanist virtues.

And while Waukesha talked about annexations -- that is, sprawling out a bit -- the fact is that it expands in a fairly orderly way, a planned way, a way that can be served by municipal services. The next step back from that is a sheer moratorium on any population growth.

If that happens -- if Waukesha truly can't supply people with water -- where will those people move? A funky duplex in Riverwest? Not likely. Some would move, probably, to 5-acre lots in places like the Town of East Troy, where they wouldn't worry about radium in the water because they'd be on a shallow well, recharged by rain on their ample back yard.

Rowen is correct that water is a key limit to growth -- but Waukesha's woes are unrelated to the rightness or wrongness of 5-acre lots.

To which Rowen responds:

I would contest the statement that the City of Waukesha's growth has occured in a reasonable fashion - - or in your words:

"And while Waukesha talked about annexations -- that is, sprawling out a bit -- the fact is that it expands in a fairly orderly way, a planned way, a way that can be served by municipal services."

"...talked about annexations...sprawling out a bit...fairly orderly...?"

It's been more than talk, and hardly orderly: the land mass of the city has grown more than 50% in the past 20 years while its drinking water supply was getting dirtier. That's hardly planning "that can be served by municipal services.".

Consult a 2005 report, Protecting Wisconsin's Water." prepared by the public interest law firm Midwestern Environmental Advocates - - in part with materials and data supplied by Waukesha.

As to orderliness: The report indicates that, according to city staff planners, Waukesha has never turned down an annexation petition brought to it by a developer.

Additionally: While the city is facing its well-known water supply issues - - and has put off complaince with the known, (and extended) deadlines for so long that it has said it will break them - - the water utility is still planning to add another 13 square miles to its service territory.

That hardly sounds like careful planning, or sprawling "a bit."

That this growth was encouraged even though the supply of potable drinking water was dwindling underscores how little careful planning has taken place in Waukesha.

You can read the report at http://www.midwestadvocates.org/, under publications.