Housing does not belong in parks!
June 7, 2025 | Topics: Issues, Places
Preserve Our Parks explains its opposition to the proposal for apartments in McGovern Park
By Preserve Our Parks, with an introduction and photography by Eddee Daniel
Introduction
Milwaukee County Parks are in financial straits. This is not news. In 2021 the Wisconsin Public Policy Forum published a report on the “troubled finances” facing the Parks System that it titled “Sinking Treasure.” It documented decades of declining revenues and mounting unfunded capital needs. Among those capital needs is aging infrastructure such as the McGovern Park Senior Center (pictured above). Now there is a proposal to construct apartments atop a rebuilt Senior Center in the park.
It is a solution that creates far more problems than it solves.
Preserve Our Parks (POP) has drafted a set of talking points that explains its opposition, which follows. But the bottom line is simple: Housing does not belong in parks.
An apartment building of any size would necessarily involve many elements that are incompatible with public park land. These include increased traffic at all hours in the park and the neighborhood; additional parking required; lighting at night; deliveries and other services for the residents; privacy fencing and security for the residences; policing the residential property and managing inappropriate behaviors that spill over into the park, not only by residents but also potential guests. The list could go on.
Among our concerns is the lack of details available. POP has learned that the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services has been planning this project since 2017. But we found out about it only recently. Presumably a lot of time and planning has already gone into a project that should never have been considered in the first place. We still do not know the size, cost or any other concrete details of the project because they have not been made public. The talking points that follow are based on many conversations with many people and the best information we have been able to gather.
The McGovern Park Senior Center is a bustling operation. I personally recommend stopping by sometime when it is busy, as we have done, and talking with the people you find there. You won’t find much support for this proposal.
What is needed is a solution to the fundamental problem, adequately and sustainably funding Milwaukee County Parks.
~ Eddee Daniel
Preserve Our Parks’ Talking Points regarding the
Proposed Jewish Family Services’ Senior Housing Project at McGovern Park
About the McGovern Park Housing Proposal
The Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, working closing with Jewish Family Services (JFS), has proposed to locate a major senior housing project in the grounds on McGovern Park, to be located near to where the current McGovern Park Senior Center is located. Reportedly, the senior center would be replaced by a 4-story apartment building, with JFS being granted a long-term lease of the needed parkland and with the agency promising to recreate a new senior center, or, perhaps, a community center, as part of the overall project. Details of the proposed project are not available, but it would utilize a significant portion of the park.
Preserve Our Parks’ Concerns with the JFS Housing Proposal
Preserve Our Parks is not opposed to the idea of combining senior housing with a new senior center, just not in a park! The concept has been done successfully in other communities without taking park land. Examples have been shown that if it is done properly and outside a park setting, it could enhance the entire neighborhood in which the housing project was located.
Housing is incompatible with parkland. Our County parklands are not “shovel-ready” vacant lands ready for delivery to the next non-park real estate developer. Our parks are a precious resource acquired by our ancestors and delivered to us and our heirs for public parks and recreation use.
This project is in conflict with McGovern Parks’ long heritage. McGovern Park has been part of the park system and used exclusively for park purposes for nearly 100 years. It was transferred by Milwaukee County to the Park Commission in the 1920’s.
The project does nothing to financially support our Milwaukee County Parks. County government and JFS has made no promises in writing about ANY additional funding to the County Parks in exchange for utilizing this precious County park land. As the draft lease calls for $1 annual lease payments to the County, this project does absolutely nothing to make our parks financially more secure.
No County government and JFS housing project plans have been offered to the public. At none of the meetings or discussions with concerned officials have County or JFS staff provided any plans, even concept sketches, of what they propose to create at McGovern Park.
This senior housing building is in conflict with the fabric of the nearby community. A large multi-story apartment building in the park, along with its associated lighting, traffic, parking, loading dock, and security needs, is incompatible with the adjoining neighborhood of one-story single-family homes and with the adjoining park uses.
Why use parkland when vacant parcels are available across the City? Clearly, the McGovern Park site chosen by Milwaukee County is not the only vacant land in the City of Milwaukee. We have a critical need for additional affordable housing for seniors, but why focus on parkland when there are ample locations elsewhere that might be usable without jeopardizing our Milwaukee Parks heritage.
The JFS housing development jeopardizes a thriving, active senior center community. While admittedly the McGovern Park Senior Center is 50 years old and in need of capital investments, its seniors are thriving there. JFS would disrupt that world and while the agency has said it would replace and even enhance the activity areas, no details have been provided. In fact, JFS has suggested in some discussions that the existing center, focusing on senior residents, might be replaced by a generalized community center function. That is troubling. This would be a multi-year development which would impact the senior centers’ and park users’ activities for up to a five-year development period.
Was there a consideration of climate change impacts? While Milwaukee County and JFS have claimed that the footprint of the project will take up no more land than the existing building and parking lot, the lease documents suggest a much bigger area of parkland to be dedicated to the new construction and parking lots. Creating a new road entrance from Sherman Blvd. has been suggested. At a time when area agencies such as MMSD and local governments in the region are investing heavily in green infrastructure to mitigate climate change impacts, it is unwise and contradictory to plan new impermeable surfaces on Milwaukee County’s parkland.
The proposal’s Federal funding of $2 million is insignificant against the total project costs. Milwaukee County has suggested that $2 million in Federal funding would be jeopardized by any development delay. In reality, that potential grant is a fraction of the estimated $16-30 million total cost of the proposal. Even if looming Federal cuts do not impact that grant, the grant itself is too small to prompt the County into making a hasty, unwise decision.
NOTE: You can help save McGovern Park! This is the second post related to this issue to appear in The Natural Realm. The first, which includes a copy of the letter POP sent to the Mke Co Health and Human Services director, many more photos, and information about how you can help, is here.
About Preserve Our Parks
Preserve Our Parks, Inc. is an independent, volunteer-driven nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Milwaukee County parks and green spaces. Our mission: To advocate for and promote Milwaukee area parks and open spaces and to strive to protect the tenets of Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine.
For more than 25 years, we have been a leader in advocating for the protection of Milwaukee County park lands, halting many proposals to develop, privatize, or sell local parkland and lakefront spaces. More POP info, including past accomplishments, is available at www.preserveourparks.org.
Eddee Daniel is a board member of Preserve Our Parks. Milwaukee County Parks is a project partner of A Wealth of Nature.