The Madison City Council set parameters for the negotiation of a budget between the City and the developers. The developers, apparently in good faith, were unable to come up with a budget that fit within those parameters. When negotiations came to an impasse, the developers backed away from the project. Broken? No! This is how it is supposed to work.
Unlike the Edgewater project which is being shoved down the city's throat, the Madison Library was a case where the public and private partners agreed to an approach and attempted to make the design and financing work. The developers, in this case, get credit for not trying to railroad an overbudget project through negotiations. To their credit they worked through the City and not through the press. That it didn't work shows that the parameters set by the elected officials of Madison did the job they were intended to do: set basics limit for public taxpayer participation in the project.
Those limits are good -- and part of what makes development in Madison well managed. As a friend of mine is fond of saying: "public participation in Madison is a full contact sport." As long as you accept that there are many interests that must be balanced in Madison, there's nothing broken about the development approval and consultation process. Despite what a developer is likely to tell you.
Some resources:
- Kristin Czubkowski's blog on the Madison Library Project (from the Cap Times)
- State Journal article by Dean Mosiman
- The mayor's take on this development
- Board of Estimates negotiations update
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