Park or housing? City weighs bluffland use.

La Crosse officials are considering whether 160 acres of city-owned bluffland intended to be a park would be better used for residential development. The University of Wisconsin System sold the former Experimental Farm to the city in 1963 for $38,900 with the understanding it would become a park.

Despite the original intent, city council member Andrea Richmond said,“If there’s an opportunity to put some taxable property up there, we should really take a hard look at it.”

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/park-or-housing-city-weighs-bluffland-use/article_d0812c9c-26db-11e1-9e8d-0019bb2963f4.html

 In October, Dr. Rob Horwich donated a conservation easement on 140 acres he owns in Crawford County, WI to the Mississippi Valley Conservancy.  The easement protects the land from development or other uses which diminish its natural values.

“When you live on the land you begin to feel attached to it.  The only real way to protect the land is through easements,” Horwich said.

Horwich’s property includes a stretch of the Hall’s Branch of the Kickapoo River and woodland habitats of oak and hickory and maple and basswood, with floodplain forest and sedge meadow along the river.

The land is adjacent to a unit of the state’s Kickapoo Wildlife Area and another MVC private land easement, protecting over 900 acres of contiguous habitat.

 Horwich said the mature forest on his land harbors rare warblers like the hooded warbler and other forest-interior nesting birds. 

“I love the sound of the wood thrushes.   I’ve heard them here on the land and know that they’re here for the good habitat.”...