Habitat 'Plan' At County Grounds On Agendas Next Week

Without a genuine effort to widely explain it, two Milwaukee County Board committees are about to approve a plan to provide habitat protections on the County Grounds in the wake of the recent Board decision to sell significant acreage there to UWM.

A bit like adding air bags to a vehicle after it has crashed, but here is the committee schedule anyway:

Economic Development Committee, Monday, 9 a.m. Courthouse Room #201 and then the Parks Committee the following day, Tuesday, also at 9 a.m. in the same room.

I am hearing that the 'plan' keeps changing, and that means even less time in the murky County process for a meaningful public review before the committees vote and move the plan to the full Board for a final vote.

Allowing UWM to build its new school of engineering and a research and innovation innovation in Western Wauwatosa - - far from the rest of the UWM campus - - will have profound consequences on local and regional land use, development, traffic patterns and air quality.

Trying to provide habitat protections on the remaining land after the sale was approved is last-ditch, and backwards, at best.

The last thing this looming planning disaster needs is a quickie habitat protection scheme fumbled to adoption by the County Board.