Give Our Community a Reindahl Library+Housing Option

In 2014-15, the need for a new library/community center for Madison's northeast side was studied by city staff. Three general locales were considered, during a library staff-led planning process that had both good and questionable elements. During this period, parks and library leadership discussed and– with the encouragement of the alder at that time– endorsed siting of the new library inside Reindahl Park, co-located with a park pavilion to replace the park's Modernist shelter.

Contact was finally made with the Greater Sandburg Neighborhood Association late in 2015. The Parks and Library directors presented only the Reindahl Park site option. GSNA leadership was receptive, but expected that other site options would be presented during the promised 2020 Reindahl master plan revision process.

In 2016, when the library staff's report on the siting process was released, The Reindahl Park area came out on top, in part because library staff changed the site rating tool, reducing environmental considerations. The library's report actually rated the East Town mall area highest for socio-economic impact, while noting that the city was offered a free library site in that area, but refused it.

Participants in this public process have still not been provided the opportunity to consider one of several park-adjacent sites, nor other sites nearby (including one much closer to the majority of residences).

Because neither housing nor mixed use developments are allowed inside parks, siting this facility inside a park. precludes the more fiscally sensible "condo" style approach used for Madison's Pinney and Sequoya PLs, and for Milwaukee's most recent five libraries. This will resultsin millions of dollars in lost income for the city. Meanwhile, housing above the Pinney PL and mixed used along aside it, are genating property tax revenue for the city. This amounts to millions of dollars lost over the lifetime of these facilities. In 2021, the mixed-use Pinney and Sequoya PL sites generated ~$225,000-272,000 in net property tax revenue. Also, these city-owned condo spaces gained in value along with the rest of the Madison property market, so could be sold by the city at a profit if necessary.

Since 2014, Library and Parks leadership, as well as two mayors, have advocated single-mindedly for an in-park site for the library+pavilion (Imnagination Center). However the map of the most recent (2o13) master plan for Reindahl Park does not show such a facility. In 2019, our community was promised that final siting of the library would not be decided until that master plan was revised. It was promised this would happen in 2020.

Meanwhile, with support from city Parks, Engineering, and Water utility staff, Library leadership caused the city to spend $12,000 to have structural soil borings done for their preferred in=park site, near Reindahl Woods (even though this habitat needs to be protected from light pollution). Also, millions of dollars have been spent on design of a site-specific in-park facility, and fundraising for the in-park facility has begun, even though no master plan revision process has been completed, and without requisite approval of the in-park site by the city's Parks Board of Commissioners.

Oddly, the library/pavilion co-location promoted by city leadership, including Parks and Library directors, will not save public funds. It will actually cost over $16 million, or around $2.5 million more than the recent Tenney Park Pavilion and Pinney PL facilities combined (inflation-adjusted). This sum may not include the potential demolition of the Modernist shelter, and definitely does not include construction of the two pedestrian/bicycle bridges or tunnels that will have to be built over/under HWY 151 (E Washington) and HWY 51 (Stoughton Rd), to provide safe public access to a Reindahl Park site.

In 2019, the library staff's fixation on their preferred in-park site near the Woods became the biggest rationale for forcing the route of a sewer pipe through Reindahl Woods, the park's only WDNR-defined old-growth wood stand, Over 36 mature trees, most rated by an arborist as "high value") were cut down. This was done despite a "Save Reindahl Woods" petition (with 272 signatories), supporting a sensible and likely less costly alternative route for the pipe slightly to the north of Reindahl Woods.

Among the trees cut down: Project Inventory Tree #260. It was a native shagbark hickory that had a Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) indicating that it was over 150 years old. Subsequent pipe trenching in Reindahl Park to a depth of 25-45 feet has severly disrupted and fragmented the habitat for this one-acre woods, putting ten bur oaks (some over 150 yearts old) and several other mature/native park trees at risk.

Adding insult to injury, after the sewer trench was filled, city Parks leadership directed contractors for the Madison Metropolitan Sewer District to pave an unneeded path over the refill, further fragmenting this precious one-acre habitat. More recently, during the Summer 2021 Encampment by homeless people, Parks and other city officials and departments failed to protect Reindahl Park's trees. Parks leadership is now claiming that 17 more mature native trees were damaged and will need to be destroyed. Three large trees were already cut down this past winter, without public notice or input.