Plans in Progress

The Southeast Area Plan and Southwest Area Plan work that started in 2024 continued throughout 2025 with Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the process. The Downtown Area Plan started in November 2025.

Staff hosted over 100 opportunities for people to share feedback on these plans. Some of these included:

Online commenting maps
Resident surveys
Pop-Up events at a library, food pantry and other locations
Focus group meeting in partnership with nINA Collective
UW People Program outreach with students
Neighborhood and business walks
Family-friendly neighborhood events
Check-ins with City Boards, Commission and Committees

A map that shows the boundaries of two approved Area Plans in green and three in progress Area Plans in blue. The background in the City of Madison in grey. — The Area Plans in progress are shown in blue.

Southeast and Southwest Area Plans

Community Feedback Summaries

For the Southeast Area Plan community feedback identified the following priorities:

More affordable housing and a variety of housing types
Desire for more walkable destinations
Address the needs of people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities with transportation improvements
Maintain current parks, add park space, and improve tree canopy

For the Southwest Area Plan community feedback identified the following priorities:

Address speeding and safety
Desire to make more walkable destinations
Lack of affordable housing options
Maintain and manage existing rental housing better to make sure affordable housing remains safe and high-quality
Need for more accessible and inclusive community gathering places

Story Maps

Staff created “Story Maps" to share information about the Area Plans. A Story Map is an interactive website that combines text, maps and images to help explain the Area Plans. Each Plan has a Story Map that explains what Area Plans are and highlights topics covered in the Plans. A second Story Map was created for each Plan to share the draft actions.

Downtown Area Plan

The Downtown Area Plan kicked off with a public meeting in December 2025. The Downtown Area Plan is part of Envision Downtown Madison. This is a public-private partnership with Downtown Madison Inc. (DMI). DMI is creating a Downtown Investment Strategy at the same time. The 18-month process will be closely coordinated with DMI's work. The City and DMI will share public engagement opportunities and create complementary recommendations.

Downtown has seen significant change since the last plan was adopted in 2012. Downtown added nearly 9,000 new neighbors, and the population and amount of housing both grew by about one-third. The number of employees working downtown has decreased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This presents both challenges and opportunities for how Downtown spaces are used.

Topics being considered as part of the Plan include:

How to best accommodate continued growth Downtown
Incorporation of the Madison Lakeway project, which proposes improved park and recreational spaces along Lake Monona in the Downtown area
A proposed Amtrak passenger rail station
Strategies for a stable mix of businesses and redevelopment of key sites
How spaces along streets and terraces are used for parking and deliveries. And in some cases, how these areas are used for outdoor dining and other gathering spaces. This is also referred to as “curb management".
Parks, plazas and pedestrian spaces