Bank seeks OK for ‘really dense’ bluff land development

A concept plan for the northern portion of the former Cedar Vineyard site that shows 186 apartments, condominiums and single-family houses as well as two commercial lots will be reviewed by the Port Washington Plan Commission Thursday, June 25.

The plan isn’t a building proposal, but rather a plan Waukesha State Bank, the property owner, can use to find a developer for the site, Bob Harris, the city’s director of planning and development, said.

“It’s essentially a marketing image,” he said. “They’re showing how much density could go there.”

The bank is seeking comments from the city and will use those to refine the plan, Harris said.

“It’s not a formal plan for the property. It’s their initial concept, and they wanted Plan Commission feedback before refining it,” he said.

The plan, Harris acknowledged, “is really dense.”

“My guess is a pretty dense development is going to be needed to pay for sewers to be extended there,” he added.

The concept plan that will be reviewed by the Plan Commission at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 24, shows 14 single-family lots along much of the bluff and another 11 single-family lots along the south side of the property adjacent to the planned Clay Bluffs Cedar Gorge nature preserve.

There are five condominium lots on the north side of the property in the plan, with two mid-rise condominium or apartment buildings with 40 units sited between these lots and the single-family homes.

The plan also shows two commercial building sites along Highway C, with two multi-story condominium or apartment buildings with a total of 100 units behind them. Sixteen attached townhouses would flank those buildings.

The city had approved a tax incremental financing district to help pay for the extension of sewer and water utilities for the Cedar Vineyard plan, Harris said, but it was specific to that proposal and isn’t applicable to any new development on the site. The concept is a sharp departure from the Cedar Vineyard plan, which called for only 82 single-family homes on 227 acres of land on Port Washington’s far southeast side — only 33 of them north of the Cedar Gorge.

That plan also called for 101 acres to be sold to the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust and Ozaukee County for a nature preserve, as well as a vineyard and winery to be part of the plan.

That plan also included a significant amount of public access to the bluff and beach below.

The Cedar Vineyard plan, first proposed in 2015, has not materialized. Late last year, the bank announced plans to split the land into three parcels. On the east side of Highway C, the 79 acres north of Cedar Gorge would be planned for a development and the southern 131 acres sold for either development or conservation. 

The Land Trust has since reached a purchase agreement for the southern parcel and is working in concert with Ozaukee County to raise the funds needed to acquire the land and turn it into a public preserve.

The bank plans to sell the remainder of the property, a roughly 30-acre parcel on the southwest side of Highway C, to a buyer who wants to build a house and horse barn there.