New business sites should balance the needs of individual businesses
for access, visibility, and proximity to markets with the greater good
of minimizing public service costs, avoiding land use conflicts,
mitigating traffic impacts, and preserving community image and
character.
The following recommendations provide sustainable siting guidelines:
- Require new commercial development at designated nodes to express a
neighborhood character, i.e. pedestrian scale, sidewalks, integrated
with surrounding residential development, oriented to street with
side/rear parking, etc.
- Encourage compact residential development patterns and
pedestrian facilities near existing and proposed neighborhood
commercial nodes.
- Plan commercial nodes near potential employment centers such
that the broader (daytime) needs of nearby employees can be served
along with those of neighborhood residents. Such uses may include
daycares, dry cleaners, restaurants, health clubs, copy shops, and
professional offices.
- Locate future neighborhood commercial nodes at key junctions
in the local road network; and require that they be compact in overall
form and adequately spaced to prevent incipient strip development.
- Reserve community gateways for regional service/information-economy uses and high profile buildings.
- Accent community gateways through exacting land uses restrictions and design standards.
- Preserve a strong visual contrast along the New Berlin -
Muskego border through "statement" architecture, lower impact land
uses, and the preservation of natural features. (Failure to do so will
obscure community identity and cause the City to be perceived as an
adjunct of New Berlin.)
- Plan areas around reclaimed landfills for larger footprint
commercial/industrial buildings and those generating moderate amounts
of truck traffic.
- Enter discussions with property owners, neighboring
communities, WE Energies/Wispark and developers to plan long-term
eco-industrial development near one or both landfill sites.
- Land bank key parcels on Moorland Road for future office/mixed-use development.
- Amend Comprehensive Plan and Zoning to reflect primarily office development at currently designated "Business Park".