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Veterans’ park planned

City may use eminent domain

By Angie Landsverk


The city of Waupaca wants to create a veterans’ park downtown and is using legal measures to acquire the property for it.

The property it wants for the park is at 105 Jefferson St.

When the common council met on Jan. 15, it voted 8-0 to allow city staff to move forward with acquiring it through eminent domain.

Aldermen Paul Hagen and Chuck Whitman were absent.

Once the location of Verna’s Clothing Store, the building on the property is vacant and has been for years.

It is across from the Waupaca Area Public Library and City Hall, and adjacent to Bank First and the Waupaca Thrift Store.

Eminent domain allows a government to take private land for public use.

The legal process is known as condemnation, and includes compensating the property owner.

“We want to get the ball rolling,” said Brennan Kane, the city’s community and economic development director.

About five years ago, veterans’ groups approached the city about creating a park to honor Waupaca’s veterans, he said.

Kane said the Jefferson Street property is the preferred option for the public memorial area.

He told the council this is one of the next steps in planning for the redevelopment of Waupaca’s downtown.

During the last two years, the council adopted the Downtown Redevelopment and Streetscape Plan, as well as the Waupaca Riverfront Master Plan.

In both plans, the property at 105 Jefferson St. was identified as a redevelopment opportunity, Kane said.

Last October, the city’s Plan Commission adopted a resolution establishing the need to create a park honoring the community’s veterans.

It recommended the Jefferson Street property be acquired for it.

The property is owned by Subitch Revocable Trust.

City staff has tried contacting the owner in the past.

“The city has made continuous efforts over the past few years to engage in discussions with the current property owner,” Kane wrote in a memo to Mayor Brian Smith and the common council.

Kane further wrote that “those efforts have gone unfounded and no communication between the property owner and city representatives has occurred.”

He also noted multiple violation letters and municipal ordinance citations have gone unclaimed or unpaid.

“The property has continued to deteriorate. It is becoming a public nuisance in the community,” Kane told the council last week.

The eminent domain process includes getting the property appraised.

Proper notification also must be sent to the property owner, Kane said.

He estimates it will take between six and eight months for the city to acquire the property.

“Depending on the willingness of the property owner to negotiate with the city, the estimated time may be extended should the city need to utilize additional legal measures to acquire the property through the court system,” Kane wrote in his memo.

The city’s 2019 capital budget does not include funds to purchase the property.

Kane said it was not included in the budget because the city was “uncertain of the process we were moving forward with.”

A funding source will be determined when the cost of acquiring the property is established.

“It was in our plan to purchase it. We’re just moving up when we do so,” the mayor said.

When Ald. Lori Chesnut said she heard Bank First is buying the property, Kane said if the bank did, the city would retract the eminent domain process.

He said the building continues to deteriorate.

The sooner the city is able to get the building down, the better off it will be, Kane said.

“Especially since it’s not occupied,” Smith said.

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