88Nine’s Tarik Moody Joining City Plan Commission

The City Plan Commission will gain a new voice under a pending appointment by Mayor Tom Barrett, and it’s one that is likely familiar to regular radio listeners.

Barrett nominated Tarik Moody to serve on the citizen-led commission. Moody, 47, is an on-air host and director of digital strategy and innovation at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee.

He’s been with the station for 14 years, and has called the same Milwaukee neighborhood his home for equally as long.

“I’m a proud resident of Riverwest,” said Moody to members of the Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee on Wednesday morning. “I think it’s the best neighborhood in the city.”

But Moody’s qualifications don’t stop at his knowledge of Milwaukee neighborhoods. He was formally trained as an architect.

A 1996 graduate of Howard University, Moody practiced architecture for more than a decade in Detroit and Minneapolis before joining 88Nine.

He told the committee that one of the projects he was most proud of was working on what is now the Delta Airlines terminal at Detroit’s Wayne County Airport.

The broadcast personality often used “the architect” as a nickname in past years at Radio Milwaukee and his twitter handle is @hoboarchitect.

Buildings and music are far from the only things Moody is well versed in. He’s quite the foodie. He co-hosts a weekly podcast, This Bites, about culinary news in Milwaukee.

The committee unanimously endorsed his appointment. It next goes before the full Common Council.

The City Plan Commission provides design oversight on rezoning requests, land sales and other built environment issues.

Most of its decisions take the form of recommendations to the Common Council, but it has final oversight over a couple dozen development incentive zones including The Brewery, Midtown Center and Reed Street Yards.

Moody is filling a vacancy on the commission. Former Department of City Development deputy commissioner Martha Brown‘s nomination, submitted last fall, was withdrawn.

Moody will join Stephanie Bloomingdale, Allyson Nemec, Brianna Sas-Pérez, Ranell Washington, Catrina Crane and Willie Smith. The latter three all joined the commission after June 2019.

Appointees serve two-year terms and are paid $3,000 annually.