Meeting with Mayor regarding Houses in James Madison Park

The mayor will be holding a joint meeting of the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association and Capitol Neighborhoods to present his ideas about how to deal with the Lincoln School and three houses in James Madison Park. The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 on Wednesday August 30 in Room 300 in the Madison Municipal Building. Please come if you can.

Various ideas have arisen recently regarding the homes and Lincoln School Apartments located in James Madison Park. One idea is to sell the homes with a long term lease on the land. Both land and homes are currently owned by the city and managed by the Parks Department. The mayor has floated the idea of moving the homes. The Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association (the part of James Madison Park in which the houses are located is within the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association boundaries) and the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation have both taken the position that the houses should not be moved, largely because the are local Madison Landmarks. The CNI Executive Council, at its August 10 meeting took the following preliminary position with respect to the three houses in James Madison Park:

The houses should not be moved because of the historic significance of their location. The city should retain ownership of the land underneath the houses and sell the houses while providing a land lease agreement. Fifty percent of the proceeds from these properties (resulting from sales, leases, rent, property taxes, etc.) should be earmarked directly for James Madison Park.

Please join us for this discussion.