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Madison Area Community Land Trust Housing as if Everyone Mattered |
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BUYING A HOME Features About |
HistoryIn October, 1995, the state of Wisconsin placed a 15-acre undeveloped site abutting the Mendota Mental Health Center grounds on the State's surplus land list. The State intended to sell the site, most likely to a private for-profit developer. Area residents and people from other parts of the city had been gardening on 4 acres of the site for 15 years, and using much of the rest of it to bird-watch, walk their dogs, and simply wander the land. Alarmed at the prospect of losing this valuable resource, concerned gardeners and neighbors, facilitated by the Northside Planning Council, began meeting and planning. Three non-profit groups (the Madison Area Community Land Trust, the Urban Open Space Foundation, and the Community Action Coalition) joined together to form the Troy Gardens Coalition. Several representatives from the University of Wisconsin joined the Coalition in the fall of 1996 when the State added a 16-acre landlocked undeveloped area to the north of the original site to the surplus list. The Coalition developed an innovative proposal for integrated land use, one that combined housing with open space and agricultural uses. This proposal, known as the Troy Gardens Development Concept Plan, was approved by the Common Council in 1998. After years of fundraising and development work, the Madison Area Community Land Trust, with financial support from the City of Madison, succeeded in purchasing the property from the State of Wisconsin on December 28, 2001. Immediately upon purchase, the Madison Area Community Land Trust leased the conservancy land to the newly established Friends of Troy Gardens.
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