The Plan Commission approved amendments to city zoning legislation Monday that would prevent new lakefront redevelopments, including the Edgewater Hotel, from building closer to lakes.

The amendment, proposed by Ald. Lauren Cnare, District 3, states that the lakefront setbacks of existing buildings cannot be exceeded by new buildings, redevelopments or alterations on the site.

Setbacks, or the distance a property’s development must be from the lakeshore, have become a point of contention in the increasingly heated debate surrounding the $93 million Edgewater redevelopment.

“My gut tells me the Edgewater already exists at a current setback,” Cnare said. “It hasn’t caused any problems for us, it hasn’t been a hotspot for water pollution or anything else. Let’s acknowledge the Edgewater is already there.”

Another amendment formerly proposed by Ald. Mark Clear, District 19, addressed the way in which lakefront setbacks were determined. Previously, the average of the setbacks of the five adjacent properties on each side of a property was the determining factor. Clear’s amendment made it so that this ordinance was only applicable to residential properties.

Many members of the public present at Monday’s meeting raised concerns about the setback’s effect on the quality and health of Madison’s lakes and the appearance of the shoreline, an issue that many who opposed the change in ordinance felt was a defining quality of the city’s character.

Bob Dunn, president of Edgewater developer Hammes Co., said much of the recent focus among his associates and city officials has been on balancing and addressing a growing number of issues the project encounters.

Dunn said the discussion of the proposed building height led to a need to remove a level from the current edifice that in turn led to issues with public space, which led to issues of setback from the lake.

“In doing all of that, we were encouraged that this would be addressed in the rewrite of the zoning code,” Dunn said.

Opponents of not only the ordinance change but the current plans for the Edgewater redevelopment elaborated time after time that changing the ordinance to accommodate the Edgewater would create an influx of commercial real estate to Madison’s lakefronts.

Clear said he wanted to address what he perceived to be a mischaracterization of the ordinance. His proposal, he said, would merely change how setbacks were determined; there would be no change to the stipulations regarding usage of said properties.

“I do not accept the argument that this would create a slippery slope,” Clear said.

Ald. Julia Kerr, District 13, expressed her concern that altering the ordinance for the benefit of a single project would be spot zoning and not in line with previous city policy.

“By the discussion we’re having, we’re making sure it’s designed to benefit one project,” Kerr said.

Cnare’s proposal saw a tie vote among the commission members and had to be broken by Commission Chair Nan Fey.

The new ordinance language will go before City Council on Feb. 23.