Park committee approves 30-foot maintenance easement to Brown County for Renard Island causeway access

The Green Bay Park & Recreation committee approved a 30-foot-wide maintenance access easement to Brown County across Bay Beach Amusement Park property to allow county crews to reach and maintain the Renard Island causeway. The vote was taken by voice and the motion carried after a second.

Director (speaker 3) told the committee the issue has been before the city several times since 2015 and that prior negotiations stalled over the easement width and whether the county would receive public-access rights. "Let's just handle this as a maintenance access easement, only," the Director said, describing the agreement as a narrowly tailored compromise that gives the county legal permission to perform maintenance work without granting public access from the park to the causeway.

The Director explained the 30-foot width is centered on the causeway and is narrower than prior 60-foot proposals. He said the easement specifically protects the park's maintenance drive along the shoreline, prohibiting county use that would block park access. The Director described maintenance activity the county performs or may need to perform — mowing, use of sheep for vegetation control, annual inspections by engineers and scientists, and limited construction deliveries such as topsoil or riprap — and said the easement would permit those tasks.

Committee members asked whether the county had relied on access across adjacent private property (a nearby McDonald's parcel). The Director said even if the county had partial access across adjacent private land, the last portion of the causeway exit is on city property and thus requires city authorization. He also noted the city lacks clarity about long-term development plans for Renard Island — a master plan exists but no development funding — and that the city reserved the right to revisit public-access decisions if the county sought to open the island for general public use in the future.

Before the committee vote the Director said the agreement had not yet been presented to the county board and recommended that any committee approval be subject to county and city law-department review and approval of final exhibits (chiefly a map attachment) so that minor exhibit edits can be resolved at staff level without returning to committee. A committee member moved to approve the easement with that contingency; the motion carried by voice vote.

Next steps: the Director said the county board still must review the agreement and the law department must approve the final exhibits; the easement will not take effect until those approvals are complete.