Politician of the Year

Cieslewicz ushers in responsible growth

By Jennifer Pfaff

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz

Redefining a neighborhood or city requires careful orchestration of well-crafted policies, commitment to a single vision and cooperation between people with divergent interests.

That’s the challenge Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz faced when he took office nearly four years ago with a plan to redevelop underused areas of the city into self-sufficient neighborhoods with increased density, said friend and colleague Steve Hiniker, executive director of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin.

“Dave has a vision that’s been very clear since Day 1,” he said. “He has strong views on the aesthetic aspect of architecture and a sense of place. That’s why he ran for office.

“Development seemed to just be happening. He wanted to create policies that make development happen in the best way for the community.”

And that approach spawned cranes throughout the city in his first term. Madison would not be experiencing such a construction boom without a leader committed to looking at what makes urban living attractive for both residents and developers, Hiniker said.

Cieslewicz’s ability to see the tangential, yet crucial, components that drive urban growth has marked the mayor as Wisconsin Builder’s Politician of the Year.

“Mayor Dave would like to see greater density in new housing developments,” Hiniker said. “His motivation is to get more people in the city. Why would the builders be interested in that? Dave understands profit motive. You can get more money out of a condo than a single-family home.”

With that understood, Cieslewicz then looks for ways to enhance the potential. He promotes transit lines and street cars, strong public schools, public health and environmental initiatives, said Kathleen Falk, Dane County executive. Those elements make the city a more attractive place to live, and as more people move in, they need places to work and shop and be entertained.

Having grown up in the same area as Cieslewicz, Falk said she thinks she knows how the mayor comes by his development preferences.

“He grew up in a community where you walked to school, walked to the store,” she said. “He comes from a neighborhood that was a model.”

Cieslewicz eventually put his urban-planning instincts to use when he founded the 1000 Friends of Wisconsin to promote environmental integrity. Realizing that sound environmental practices must address development needs, he was instrumental in working with a wide range of professionals to craft the state’s Smart Growth legislation, which requires municipalities to carefully think out how development can best occur in their towns, Hiniker said.

But the process isn’t always easy, and the mayor learned some lessons along the way. An unexpected level of opposition to the Midvale Plaza project, a plan to revamp a floundering strip mall, taught him the importance of talking to neighbors as early in the development process as possible, Hiniker said.

“His willingness to turn [around] a neighborhood in distress, to work with the neighborhood, is the hallmark of what he does,” he said.

Cieslewicz’s passion for urban planning and development isn’t confined to his own hometown. As a member of the Dane County Collaboration Council, he works with smaller towns and villages to help them retain their distinctive styles.

“Dave is reaching out to other communities to understand how they want [their communities] to feel,” Hiniker said. “He can work with other officials, other builders, to look at policies that allow that.

“Working with politicians and businesses and using his status as mayor for publicity, he can promote these ideas. If nothing else, he is a great communicator.”

And through all of his efforts, Falk said, Cieslewicz is moving Dane County into the future.

“Because he is of a new generation, he is able to connect with the next set of leaders,” she said. “He has a great sense of humor, and he uses it effectively to get things done.”