A group of Bayside residents and property owners is suing the village over incentives it's providing to a redevelopment project.
The village attorney said the case appears to have no merit, and the project developer said it would not prevent him from moving forward with construction work.
Village leaders recently voted to create a tax-incremental financing district and use the district to
contribute $34.9 million to a development led by Milwaukee-based Cobalt Partners LLC and Bayside-based La Macchia Holdings LLC.
The $84 million development consists of offices, retail, restaurants, residential, a hotel and a new North Shore Library on 27.4 acres.
The project site is northwest of Brown Deer and Port Washington roads.
The development and previous iterations of it have drawn opposition. It continues to do so, even after the village approved project plans and the TIF incentives. Bayside's Joint Review Board gave the final approval on Wednesday.
A group called No Bayside TIF of Wisconsin this week filed a lawsuit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court alleging the village improperly conducted public meetings to gather feedback on the incentives proposal.
No Bayside TIF alleges a public meeting held on Dec. 1 on the proposal is invalid because it did not offer an option for people to attend virtually. That's according to a copy of the complaint provided to BizTimes.
"Due to the ongoing public health situation and pandemic, almost all local public meetings are being held by remote means such as Zoom or other similar methods," the complaint states. It says residents have asked the village to add a virtual option, and village leaders has refused.
The complaint also alleges the village did not provide proper notice of the meeting. The village provided updates through the Bayside Buzz email newsletter, and on a Nextdoor social media group. The complaint states not everyone is a member of the Nextdoor group, nor does everyone receive the newsletter.
The group wants the court to nullify the actions taken at that meeting. This would include approval of the TIF district and incentives.
Milwaukee lawyer Joe Cincotta is representing the plaintiff. Cincotta also represented a group of Wauwatosa residents opposing a proposed high-rise there.
Bayside village attorney Chris Jaekels said on Wednesday that the village had not yet been served papers in the lawsuit. However, he had seen a draft of the summons and complaint.
Based on the draft complaint, Jaekels said the group had no grounds to sue the village.
Scott Yauck, president and chief executive officer of Cobalt, said he would not pause work due to the lawsuit. Demolition commenced this week.
"We're proceeding, and we don't think it (the lawsuit) has merit," Yauck said.
[caption id="attachment_539683" align="aligncenter" width="639"]
Demolition work occurring at Cobalt's Bayside development district.[/caption]
The TIF incentive will help pay for new infrastructure, site work and traffic-safety improvements. The village anticipates the project will create about $84.2 million in new property value.
Cobalt and La Macchia introduced their first set of plans, featuring a 30-story residential tower, for the 27-acre site in 2018. Those plans were met with criticism from residents, and didn’t move forward.
They tried again the following year, this time proposing an apartment tower at the site that would not exceed 15 stories. But those plans were withdrawn just a few months later.
The latest version of this development is less dense, does not include a high-rise and offers a variety of housing styles.
Plans call for, among other things, 300,000 square feet of new office space, a 100-room hotel and up to 650 residential units, which would be a mix of apartments and townhouse-style units.
