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1. What is the difference between a Town Hall Meeting and a Village Board Meeting?

The purpose of Town Hall meetings is for elected officials to hear the community’s views on public issues. There are no specific rules or guidelines for holding a Town Hall meeting. The format of the meeting can vary. Usually, the elected officials, along with Village staff, will make opening remarks and presentations. Following the presentation and remarks, the floor is opened up to questions and comments from the audience. Attendees generally present ideas, voice their opinions, ask questions of the elected officials and Village Staff.

In contrast, the purpose of a Village Board meeting is to conduct business of the Village. It is a formal process with specific agenda items that must be followed and where motions are made and voted on. There are limited opportunities for the public to make comments during a Village Board meeting. It is not an open format like Town Hall meetings.

2. What is the Village doing to try and attract business to Brown Deer?

This is a very complex question. It requires the public to answer the following question. What level of risk are the citizens willing to take and how much should local government get involved in the private market?

Here are the ways the Village has tried to get involved in the private market.

• Economic Development Efforts (PDF)
• Market Analysis of Brown Deer (PDF)
• Marketing Efforts (PDF)

3. Can zoning laws be used to keep certain businesses away?

Zoning laws regulate how land is used and how buildings are constructed. Zoning is a powerful tool but limited. Zoning can’t do everything, and it’s misused far too often.

Many community members think zoning legislation can be used to coax developers in a different direction and to address community complaints about lack of development.

Unfortunately, zoning codes are not a vehicle for forcing desired changes in a community. Here is a breakdown of what zoning can actually do well and what it can’t do.

What Zoning Can Do

• Zoning can regulate how land is used - zoning is most often used to separate different types of uses (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial) to limit the negative impacts of one use on the surrounding properties.
• Zoning can regulate the general form of buildings - Zoning can effectively regulate a building size in relation to the lot it is located on, often referred to as the building massing.
• Zoning can regulate the intensity of a use - Intensity refers to how much of a use is allowed in the zone. Intensity is generally controlled by the building density, floor area ratio, or the number of residential dwelling units in an acre.
• Zoning can guide the environment surrounding a building - These regulations contribute to creating an environment that is visually compelling to someone. This can be lot widths, windows on building front, distance between building, or recessed entrances for example.

What Zoning Can’t Do

• Zoning cannot force a certain type of business to show up - The local market and the demographics determine what kind of business opens up in the community. If there are not enough customers to support something it does not matter the zoning.
• Zoning cannot force an existing business to leave - If a business was lawfully operating, zoning cannot force it to leave. The best approach for encouraging a business to leave is for that community to stop supporting it. If a business cannot stay profitable in one location, it will find a new one where it can be profitable.
• Zoning cannot stop businesses co-locating in the same area - zoning cannot stop multiple versions of the same type of business from setting up shop near each other. A common criticism of development is that one neighborhood has too many of one type of store. Zoning simply gives permission regarding what types of uses can be built in a certain area, it does not state how many of that use can be built.
• Zoning cannot limit how many people are in one area - zoning cannot control people because people are not tied to the land. Families grow and shrink, and people move in and out of communities. People and population are too fluid for local governments to regulate through zoning.

4. How does Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) work?

The best way to explain this complex issue is with an example. Let’s suppose we create a Tax Incremental District (TID) of one property. This one property is currently assessed at $100,000. A developer proposes to develop this one property and build a new store. After they complete the project the new value on the property adds an additional $900,000 to the assessed value. This makes the assessed value on the newly developed property now worth $1,000,000. Who gets the taxes from the newly developed property? All the taxing entities (village, school, county, state, MMSD, etc.) would continue to receive taxes as if the property were assessed at $100,000. This is called the "tax base".

The new taxes that created an additional $900,000 in assessed value would stay within the TID. This is called the "increment". What does the municipality do with this new "increment" tax? The municipality can use the money to make additional improvements within the TID or it can help the developer. If the developer requests funding to help them complete the project, then state law allows a municipality to help developers using this new "increment" tax. The developer must sufficiently prove they would not be able to complete the project without TIF help because of higher than normal project costs. The state calls this the "but-for test". This new development would not occur ’but-for’ the use of TIF. The municipality then uses the new "increment" tax to help the developer over the course of the life of the TID. The maximum statutory life of a TID is 27 years. The "tax base" taxes would continue to go to all the taxing entities.

5. Why did the new construction include roundabouts?

Roundabouts, rotaries, or traffic circles as they are called in other parts, are increasingly being constructed at U.S. intersections and are quickly becoming a major part of the American landscape, including here in Brown Deer. Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. tallied about 300 roundabouts nationwide. Now, the United States has about 9,000. 

Wisconsin has fully embraced the roundabout concept.  Our state has 495 roundabouts, behind only Florida, Indiana, and Washington in total number.  Wisconsin ranks 2^nd in the number of roundabouts per person, with Nebraska at Number 1, and ranks 8^th in the number of roundabouts per mile, just behind Hawaii and ahead of North Carolina. 

Vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians can all benefit from roundabouts. Vehicles can keep moving through traffic, reducing commute time, and easing driver aggravation. Also, the starts and stops and idling at traditional traffic intersections cause vehicles to emit more gas and diesel so roundabouts are more environmentally friendly. Roundabouts also always have a center island, which can be a place of refuge for pedestrians. This provides a place of safety when crossing a busy intersection. 

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, roundabouts have been shown to significantly decrease the number of crashes, particularly those with serious injuries. Roundabouts make violent and deadly T-bone and head-on collisions unlikely. The collisions that do occur tend to be minor. 

Although roundabouts reduce the number of traffic accidents overall, many Americans are still unfamiliar with these types of intersections, and a lot of motorists have difficulty navigating them. In a roundabout, drivers are to yield at entry to traffic from the left, then enter the intersection and exit at their desired street.

Common Reasons for Collisions at Roundabout Intersections

Accidents at roundabouts usually happen because of reckless driving, a lack of understanding of the rules for navigating a roundabout intersection, and similar factors. Some of the main reasons that roundabout accidents occur include:

• Speeding: At most roundabouts, the speed limit is no higher than 20 mph. There is a good reason why drivers need to slow down when they enter a roundabout intersection – because they need time to adjust to vehicles that are coming from the other direction. While roundabouts force drivers to slow down, many drivers still enter and proceed through them at too high a velocity, imperiling others.
• Failure to Yield: One of the things that make roundabouts different from other types of intersections is that they serve as a continuous traffic loop without any stop signs or traffic signals. Because of this, it is up to drivers to understand when it is their turn to go and when they are supposed to yield to other vehicles. In a roundabout, drivers are supposed to yield to vehicles coming from their left, and if they try to jump in front of them, it greatly increases the chances of a collision. When approaching a roundabout, drivers are to yield to traffic already in them. However, some drivers believe you must stop completely at roundabouts while others may not know who must yield the right of away, dangerously entering the intersection into oncoming traffic. This is particularly true with drivers unfamiliar with roundabouts. As drivers become more familiar with roundabouts, the level of safety at intersections improves.
• Stopping Abruptly: As mentioned in the previous point, there are no stop signs inside roundabouts, which again means it is up to motorists to know when to slow down and yield to another vehicle, and when to go through the intersection. Failure to yield is one problem that can cause accidents at roundabouts, but at the other end of the spectrum, drivers might stop abruptly when it is their turn to go. This often results in rear-end collisions and could lead to multiple car crashes.
• Cutting roundabout: At smaller intersections, instead of going around them in a counterclockwise manner, some drivers turn left in front of the circles to save time. This endangers other vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

The presence of roundabouts is likely to continue to grow. Local municipalities, including Brown Deer, and the state Department of Transportation are always looking for ways to ease road congestion, improve safety, and lower maintenance and operational costs. 

There are things you can do to stay safe in roundabouts such as avoiding lane changes, avoid passing other vehicles when there are multiple lanes, not stopping once in the traffic flow except for accident avoidance, using turn signals, and being cautious of bicyclists and pedestrians in the intersection. This can help make traffic circles safer for all.