Park or housing for La Crosse, Wis., bluffs?

A choice between designating as a park 160 acres of city-owned bluffland overlooking the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, or allowing residential development on the site is now before the city council, according to the La Crosse Tribune.

While housing may generate much needed tax revenue for the city, it would likely eliminate a significant portion of the 12 miles of public trails built in the Upper Hixon Forest since 2001.

According to the La Crosse Tribune, the city council in early December postponed a decision to designate as a park the former Experimental Farm site in order to give staff time to study the potential for housing there. On January 10, the council will hear public testimony before taking up a resolution that would designate the land as a park.

The University of Wisconsin System sold the bluffland to the city in 1963 for $38,900 with the understanding it would become a park although it was never zoned as such. Without that designation, the city can't apply for grants to improve the increasingly popular trails that have since been built there.

Marvin Wanders, owner of 360 Real Estate Solutions, is a past president of Human Powered Trails, the local trail advocacy organization that built and maintain the trails. He recently agreed to be the unpaid executive director of a new group to promote silent sports in the La Crosse area, according to the newspaper.

Wanders said the nonmotorized trails boost regional tourism and contribute to a quality of life that lures professionals to La Crosse. "I think you're better off to continue this as a silent sports focus," Wanders told the newspaper. "You will get much more value ... better than you ever would by using this as home lots."