The City has also aggressively pursued the permanent acquisition of land in the more heavily developed eastern half of the City. With the addition of the 27 acre ProHealth Park located east of Sunny Slope Road between National and Cleveland Avenues, the City of New Berlin has acquired no less than 12 separate parcels of park land in the eastern half of the City adding up to at least 135 additional acres. The acquisition of park and open space between 1997 and 2000, more than doubled the City-owned inventory of park space in just over 3 years. That means that despite more than doubling the inventory of park space over the past four years, we have also managed to grow the fund used to buy future parkland and open space. We have managed to do this by negotiating with landowners and developers, and through extensive use of grants, along with county, state and federal funds.
Development has an impact on all of our lives.
One of the fields where I used to play as a child is now a condominium complex. Houses where childhood friends lived were cleared for the new Jewel-Osco store. While many of us would love to be able to lock the doors to the community and not have anything change, that is simply unrealistic. What I have tried to do is to make sure that change is, whenever possible, a net benefit to the community. We continue to reject at least 100 development proposals for every one that is approved and built.