City, county on board but nature preserve plan is complex

While Ozaukee County and the City of Port Washington have signed off on the proposal, plans to create a 135-acre nature preserve on the Lake Michigan bluff will require a complicated array of public grants to fall into place if the project is to happen.

“This is an intricate land purchase relying on the alignment of several grant applications of the county and the (Ozaukee Washington Land Trust),” Ozaukee County Administrator Jason Dzwinel told the county Natural Resources Committee last week. “If one grant effort fails, it could be critical to the option to purchase.”

The Land Trust and Waukesha State Bank have agreed on the sale of the land, which includes roughly 1-1/4 miles of Lake Michigan bluffs and shoreline, that would form the proposed Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs Nature Preserve on the far south side of Port Washington.

The price of the sale has not been publicly disclosed, although county Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck told the committee that it is “well under the appraised value.”

To make the deal happen, a number of government grants, totaling $1.725 million, must fall into place. They include:

• A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Joint Venture grant for $300,000, which was applied for in 2019.

• A $125,000 Wisconsin Coastal Management Plan grant.

• A second U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Joint Venture grant for $300,000, which is being applied for this year.

• A U.S. Fish Wildlife Service Coastal Wetlands grant for $1 million.

The grants require a local match of $920,833. All of the match funds would be provided by the Land Trust, except for $200,000 from the county.

In addition, the Land Trust is simultaneously applying for a $1 million Coastal Wetlands grant. It would be used to provide matching funds for the county grant requests.

For the grants to be awarded, the Ozaukee County Board must accept the land parcel and the grant funds, which supervisors are expected to vote on when they meet on July 1.

Without that vote and the matching funds, the land purchase cannot go through.

“We would have to return the (grant) monies” in that case, Struck told committee members. “We won’t be able to spend the money until the other funding comes through.”

The Land Trust recently began a fundraising campaign to raise the money to purchase the property.

The City of Port Washington Common Council last week threw its support behind the plan, approving a resolution 6-1.

The resolution is needed to support the county and Land Trust to receive the Coastal Wetlands grants.

According to plans submitted to the committee last week, the developable areas of the parcel “present ... significant challenges to provide infrastructure and connections to water and sewer service because of distance, topography, wetlands and storm water management.”

It also provides access to Highway C and a parcel to the north that is developable. 

If the sale goes through, OWLT would deed the property to the county to incorporate it into its parks system.

Besides being valuable undeveloped bluff land, the property is a primary environmental corridor and migratory bird flyway and contains important wildlife habitat. 

The nature preserve land originally was seen as a part of the larger Cedar Vineyard development that would have totaled 240 acres, including a 79-acre housing development.

But when that deal fell through, Waukesha State Bank, which owns the property, divided the project into three parts, one of which was Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs.

If the parcel becomes a county park, the plan is to develop it over time with grant funds as was done with Lion’s Den Gorge Nature Preserve, just to the south, where no county funding was used to make improvements, according to the document.

Lion’s Den Gorge costs the county $15,000 to $25,000 per year to operate “and the county can anticipate the same for this parcel,” the document said.

A conceptual site plan shows the nature preserve will have three scenic overlooks, a staircase to the Lake Michigan shoreline, a paved bike trail paralleling Highway C, a bathroom and parking lot and a walking trail and boardwalk.