Grant to help create county’s Ansay preserve

A $200,000 grant from the Metro Milwaukee Sewerage District will establish a permanent conservation easement  in the City of Port Washington to create a 96-acre nature preserve west of Stonecroft Village on the city’s south side.

The $200,000 grant to the Ansay family will pay the closing costs for transferring the property from the Ansay family to Ozaukee County and leave $100,000 to be donated to Ozaukee County to help cover the costs of developing the nature preserve, dubbed the Ansay Family Nature Preserve County Park.

Supervisors on the county Natural Resources Committee are expected to recommend accepting the grant when it meets on Thursday.

The County Board is required to vote on whether to accept the grant.

The nature preserve is seen as the third piece in what essentially could be a regional draw that includes Lion’s Den and Clay Bluffs Cedar Gorge nature preserves and  is already drawing tens of thousands of visitors from Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison and beyond.

The donation of the land by the Ansay family through Belgium Farms LLC was accepted by the County Board in November.

It consists of two parcels located west of Stonecroft Drive and north of the Kara Estates subdivision on the west side of Highway C.

Only passive recreational uses will be allowed, such as hiking, birding, fishing, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, wildlife viewing, nature study and limited hunting.

The $100,000 from the grant amounts to a cash donation from the Ansay family that officials say would “kick start implementation” of the park.

Proposed improvements to the park, which includes a number of wetland areas, will likely include hiking trails, boardwalks, a fishing shelter, picnic shelter, bathrooms, a park road and parking on a six-acre parcel included in the conservation easement.

In an unsigned memo to county officials from the Ansay family, the intent of the land donation is to “facilitate a new and fresh people place, encouraging all people to enjoy and respect the environment” and to “secure and protect sensitive natural areas (e.g. Ulao Swamp Natural Area) for future generations.”

County Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck said Tuesday that development of the park “is a little way out.”

“This first year (2025), we will be looking at planning and doing inventory work (on wildlife and plants) and starting to work toward the master plan of the property. We probably won’t be doing anything in the way of ground disturbing,” he said.

“We’ll start securing funding in 2026  and 2027. It’s probably a three to five-year timeline for full implementation of the land improvements.”

There is no current public access to the property, he said, because no parking is allowed on Stonecroft Drive or on Highway C.

“We will try to get that in as soon as possible,” he said.

The new preserve represents the second publicly accessible parcel on Ulao Creek, the first being the Ulao Lowland Forest natural area off Ulao Road east of I-43 in the Village of Grafton.

Lion’s Den Gorge is the most visited park in the Ozaukee County park system, drawing more than 30,000 visitors a month in the summer from as far away as Chicago and Madison, officials say.

The Ansay property was annexed as part of the proposed VK development, a sweeping high-end, mixed-use subdivision that would have extended from the Lake Michigan bluffs as far west as Highway 32 and north to nearly Dynna Drive, that never came to fruition.

Ozaukee County and the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust acquired the 134-acre Clay Bluffs preserve in fall 2022 with the support of several federal and state grants and contributions from local partners and private donors.

Clay Bluffs is so far undeveloped, although work has already begun to plant native trees and a ground cover on land that has traditionally been farmed.