Board Funds Crisis Housing in Uptown Neighborhood, Demurs On Southside Dog Park

2436 N. 50th St. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

A unique approach to affordable housing will receive $1 million in funding from Milwaukee County following the board’s approval.

KG Development, led by Anthony Kazee and Jamie Gray, are planning to redevelop a former Jewish Home in the Uptown neighborhood into affordable housing and crisis beds. The project will be the first of its kind in Wisconsin, according to James Mathy, Housing Division Administrator.

The plan is to turn the three-story building at 2436 N. 50th St. into 41 units of affordable housing, with 20 of them being crisis units. The 20 set-aside units would be used for people experiencing a housing crisis because of eviction or domestic violence.

The board voted unanimously in favor of granting the funding to the project.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s past coverage.

Board Approves Penguin Exhibit Funding After Design Snafu

The board voted Thursday to approve an additional $1.5 million in funding for a new Humboldt Penguin exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

The funding request was a source of controversy for members of the board. The funds are needed to expand the scope of the project after the project team caught a design error. In short, the sand filters are too big and an additional structure must be built to hold them.

The penguin exhibit at the zoo is old and needs significant repairs, Zoo Director Amos Morris told supervisors in January. The project received a $3.5 million grant from the state, approximately $450,000 of which has already been spent on design and would need to be returned if the project is scuttled. Supervisors were faced with spending $1.5 million and getting a new penguin exhibit, or spending $450,000 and getting nothing, Morris said.

“I think we beat up on the department a lot in Parks and Finance [committees],” Sup. Steve Taylor said.

During those meetings, supervisors were upset that an error was costing the county more than $1 million. Though, most of the board agreed that, despite this, the project was worth supporting because the exhibit will need fixing sooner rather than later.

“It’s an embarrassment,” Sup. Sheldon Wasserman said, “but we can’t lose the overall $3.5 million.”

Sup. Liz Sumner, chair of the Finance Committee, also noted that while the situation was “not ideal” it remains a worthwhile project and urged her colleagues to support it.

The board voted 15 to three in favor of the spending proposal. Supervisors Deanna Alexander, Peter Burgelis and Juan Miguel Martinez voted against it.

“I’m not comfortable with a $1.4 million mistake,” Burgelis said.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s past coverage.

Board Pauses South Side Dog Park Funding

A proposal to plan a new dog park on the south side became mired in parliamentary confusion Thursday.

Sup. Ryan Clancy sponsored a resolution allocating $75,000 from the county’s rainy day account to plan and design a replacement for the shuttered Runway Dog Park, which was closed because of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations; the dog park sat on land controlled by the airport.

The proposal received a mixed reaction as it worked through the board’s committee process in January. The Committee on Parks and Culture approved the project, while the Finance Committee voted to hold the resolution in committee. This set up a parliamentary problem for the board.

Under state law, a spending resolution must receive a recommendation from the Finance Committee, but by holding it the committee had not rendered a recommendation. As the county’s attorney, Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun, told supervisors, it would be illegal under state law for the board to vote up or down on the resolution without a recommendation from Finance.

This set off a long debate among supervisors as to what the board should do: Should they refer it back to Finance? Should they hold the resolution at the board level?

The board ultimately voted to hold the resolution for now. Some supervisors on the Finance Committee, including Sumner and Steve Taylor, suggested that sending it back to them would be pointless, as it is unlikely the committee would vote differently, given the context surrounding the project.

That context, as several supervisors explained to their colleagues, came from Parks Director Guy Smith during the committee process.

The project was ranked as a low priority in 2024 when compared to the many other infrastructure needs throughout the parks system. And, Smith said, the department has a long list of projects this year that are already funded and little capacity to take on more. Parks staff likely wouldn’t get around to the project until December. Thus, under perfect circumstances, the soonest a dog park could be constructed would be 2026. Additionally, Parks may return to the board for emergency funding from the rainy day account, and Smith was wary about using funding at the beginning of the year for a dog park project that couldn’t begin until nearly 2025.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s past coverage.

Parks Projects Approved

The board unanimously approved $500,000 for a slate of infrastructure projects and workforce spending in the Parks system this year.

Parks officials previously told supervisors they considered these to be “high-impact” projects because the department can implement them rather quickly, and others could potentially leverage private donations to the Parks system.

One of the larger projects on the list involves converting the wading pool at Tiefenthaler Park into a splash pad, which would be cheaper to operate because requires little or no dedicated staff.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s previous coverage.