Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Sales of county parkland suggested

Steve Schultze's report in this morning's paper on a Milwaukee County audit report includes this.
Selling parkland would likely prompt strong opposition. The County Board overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by County Executive Scott Walker in 2007 to give up 176 acres of Bender Park in Oak Creek for commercial development in exchange for other property north of the park. Park advocacy groups also have objected to the idea of selling off parkland.

The paper explainded further when it reported in June 2007 that Bender Park plan fizzles.
Developers Industrial Realty Group, of Los Angeles, and International Risk Group, of Littleton, Colo., had proposed a land swap in which the county would give up 176 acres of the 300-acre Bender Park in exchange for a polluted, 132-acre former industrial site north of the park.

While there were concerns about environmental clean-up costs, the 132-acre tract was on the lake shore, as is the part of the current Bender Park that was to be retained.

Similar concerns, if I recall, kept the county from acquiring the Lakeside Power Plant site. That site was also lake shore property, and would have connected two existing lake shore parks. Somehow the environmental issues did not the subsequent prevent private development of the site.

No comments:

Post a Comment