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Homeowners say they are 'devastated' over proposed massive senior housing development

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WAUKESHA, Wis. — Homeowners living in a small neighborhood off Summit Avenue on Waukesha's far west side started getting letters from the city. The letter was an agenda for the planning commission showing a newly proposed senior housing unit to be built next to them.

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Nicole Brylow holds petition and newspaper article where she learned the 11 unit facility was actually a 118 unit senior living facility.

"It says a rough idea of where it is going to go and it is going to be 11 units,” said Nicole Brylow, who received the letter and lives next to the proposed facility.

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Nicole Brylow holds letter that includes the agenda item where it says "proposed 11-unit Senior Housing Project."

She says at first her family was upset to hear a piece of wooded wetland would be developed, but then they learned 11 was not the true number.

“Then we find out 118. That is a way bigger number than 11. And then we weren't sad, we were devastated at that point,” said Brylow.

Watch: Why neighbors are so upset about a proposed senior living development:

Proposed senior living housing in Waukesha

It is unclear how it went from 11 to 118. We reached it to the mayor’s office but they told us the mayor would not comment until after the proposal was in front of the planning commission.

Angela Widmann's family has been in their home since the 1960s when her grandfather built it. The proposal takes a dead end road next to her house and makes it a road into the senior facility.

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Angela Widmann stands in front of her family's property and the house her grandfather build in the 1960s.

“It is 118 units, it is 4 stories, it is a combined 145,000 square feet development,” said Widmann. “There is nothing in this area that is over two stories."

I reached out Alderman Dean Lemke whose district the senior housing facility will be built in. He did not get back to me. I also reached out to every alderman on the planning commission. But no one responded.


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