GM Left Janesville, but Voters Want a Say in What Comes Next

Janesville still has a vacant tract where General Motors once built vehicles. On Tuesday, Wisconsin voters in the city decided they want a say in the biggest deals that could bring the property back to life. With all 40 precincts reporting, Rock County’s unofficial tally showed 16,779 votes in favor and 9,932 against. At 62.82% yes, the result gives City Hall a clear answer on who should sign off.

The ballot measure covers the former GM and JATCO sites. For projects costing more than $450 million, it calls for majority voter approval of proposed development agreements, projects, sales, and leases. The dollar figure refers to the project cost. A deal that clears that threshold would have to go before voters. They’ll have a real proposal to judge when someone brings one forward.

A data center brought the question to a head. Janesville had worked with a Colorado developer to explore a campus at the roughly 250-acre site. The City Council voted unanimously in June to let the agreement expire. In September, it approved a separate 12-month moratorium on data centers.

By Election Day, the earlier proposal had already fallen away. The referendum would apply to a qualifying project even if the next developer comes to town with something entirely different in mind.

From Wisconsin Public Radio:

In the months since the potential data center project was taken off the table, the city has worked to get public input on the future of the GM site through a survey and community workshops.
The city has also established an advisory board to help guide the redevelopment of the former site. The board began meeting in September.
Erdman said those efforts have been an encouraging start.
But for many in the community who opposed the data center proposal, she says, there’s still a lot of work to do to rebuild community trust — regardless of how next week’s referendum turns out.

Residents got the measure on the ballot through Wisconsin’s direct legislation process. They circulated a petition for a proposed ordinance and gathered enough signatures to put the question before the city. City staff warned that adding a vote could make it harder to attract large projects.

A developer looking at several sites may favor one where officials can give a firm answer sooner. Janesville also faces environmental cleanup costs.

Every extra month makes a complicated deal harder to finance.

From Wisconsin Public Radio:

That effort came after the city began working with a Colorado-based developer last year, exploring the possibility of bringing a data center campus to the roughly 250-acre GM site.
Those development plans were essentially scrapped this year.
The Janesville City Council voted unanimously in June to let its agreement with the developer expire. And in September, the council unanimously approved a 12-month data center moratorium.
While the data center proposal may be dead, the ballot initiative remains in the hands of voters.
Nick Faust, assistant to Janesville’s city manager, said the city could not provide any comment on the referendum ahead of the election.
“We encourage residents to review the referendum language and related election materials as they consider the question before them,” he said in an email.

I can see why a city trying to get an old industrial site back into use would worry about losing an investor. I can also see why nearby residents want to see the terms before someone commits them to a project that size. A developer can walk away and look for another site.

The neighbors will still be there after the deal closes, living with whatever the project brings to their streets. I’d want to know who pays to clean up the property, what the city is putting into the deal, and how many permanent jobs the project is likely to bring once construction is over.

The hard part comes when somebody shows up with a plan that answers some of those questions and leaves others open. A proposal with a large price tag might bring little lasting employment. One with fewer jobs than residents hoped for might still pay for cleanup the city would otherwise struggle to find.

City officials will have to explain those tradeoffs in terms a person can understand without a lawyer or consultant sitting next to them. Voters will have to decide how much uncertainty they can live with.

Janesville still has the same property to clean up and the same work of finding somebody willing to build there. What changed Tuesday was who gets to weigh the terms of the biggest proposal. If a developer comes in with a good plan, the city ought to put it in front of the people who will live with it and make the case in daylight.

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