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County staff present restrictive‑covenant mapping and plan June 17 "fill‑and‑file" event
Summary
Dane County planners briefed the Zoning and Land Regulation Committee on a project mapping historic restrictive covenants across roughly 4,000 parcels and described a planned June 17 public "fill‑and‑file" event to allow residents to record a form identifying discriminatory covenants in the land record.
Senior planner Bridget Van Bellegham updated the committee on the county’s Prejudice in Places project, which has identified roughly 4,000 parcels with restrictive covenants or historic plat language that may include racially restrictive wording. The project team has processed and mapped those records and prepared a white paper summarizing methods and preliminary findings.
Van Bellegham said the greatest concentrations of affected parcels are in Madison (especially the west side), Shorewood Hills, and Monona, with many documents dating from roughly 1930–1970. The team found a range of wording in historic records; the most common phrase identified in the search was phrasing equivalent to "only members of the Caucasian race." Staff plan to share the dataset with UW libraries and the National Research Covenant Research Coalition for broader research use.
County Executive Agard asked staff to coordinate a public event—described as a "fill‑and‑file" event—currently planned for June 17 at the Eli Energy Center, later in the day to accommodate working residents. The event is intended to help residents identify whether their property is affected and, if so, complete a short state form that flags the historic restrictive document in the record; filing does not remove the historic document but adds a record expressing the county’s position. County staff said the Wisconsin [transcript: "Rollers"] Association has offered to pay the $30 filing fee for people who participate, and the register of deeds would process submissions in batches. Staff proposed substantial staffing and volunteer support (including notaries and title professionals) to serve a projected 400–500 attendees during the event.
Committee members praised staff for the research and outreach planning and encouraged broad notice to county supervisors and neighborhood groups. Staff said the event is intended as the first large public push, followed by targeted events and follow‑up outreach based on lessons learned at the June event.
