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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2017, the Waukesha County Business Alliance, the Waukesha-Ozaukee-Washington Workforce
Development, Inc and Waukesha County surveyed businesses to gain greater insight into their relocation,
expansion and workforce projections and needs. When asked “If you were going to relocate your business,
please choose the top three factors that would be most important”, park and recreational opportunities
ranked very high. Other very high ranked factors included K-12 education system, near distributors and local
roads.

In order to provide a long-term approach to enhancing quality of life through outdoor recreation and open
space preservation, Waukesha County continually updates its comprehensive Park and Open Space Plan.
The purpose of the Plan is to act as a guide for the acquisition, preservation, development and management
of park, recreation and open space lands in the County, specifically for the five-year period from 2018-2022.
As an integral component of the Comprehensive Development Plan for Waukesha County, the Waukesha
County Park and Open Space Plan serves as a guide for land use decisions pertaining to County-owned parks
and open space lands. This plan is an update to the previously adopted 2009 Park and Open Space Plan.

The State of Wisconsin, Waukesha County and local municipalities have the opportunity to coordinate to
provide the residents of Waukesha County with a full range of outdoor recreation opportunities. Typically,
sites and facilities for intensive non-nature-based recreational facilities are provided by city, village and town
governments, and are not specifically addressed in this plan. It is not the intent of the Waukesha County
Park and Open Space Plan to serve as the plan for the individual units of government within the County, the
State of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) or Non-profit Conservation Organizations.
Recommendations for the provision of State and local park sites and facilities should be identified in the
planning documents specific to those entities and should be referenced in the County Plan. The County Plan,
however, should assist towns that adopt the Plan in qualifying for available Federal and State funding in
support of the development of park and associated recreation facilities.

This County Park and Open Space Plan is also designed to meet State planning requirements for outdoor
recreation funding programs, thereby affording the County eligibility to apply for, and receive, available
State and Federal funds to assist in the acquisition and development of recommended park and open space
sites and facilities.

Inventory data needed for the preparation of the Park and Open Space Plan is provided in previous chapters
of the Comprehensive Development Plan for Waukesha County. Such data include historic, existing and
projected resident population and household levels (Chapter 2), the location and extent of environmental
corridors, natural areas, flood lands, and other important natural resource-related elements (Chapter 3),
and the existing and planned land use patterns (Chapter 7).

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