DCPREZ-0000-07104 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

One day last November seventeen wild turkeys traversed the ridge of the Riley property in full view from my porch. I have regularly observed the red fox, flying squirrels, woodchucks, Canadian geese, the Great Blue Heron, various hawks, the great horned and smaller owls, the pileated woodpecker, and a great variety of song birds and other animals. Ruffed grouse were once plentiful but they have now disappeared. I believe this may be due to rimy own house and that of my nearest neighbor, and now the Rileys propose to build another house accessed b y a road that traverses approximately pprcximateiy one- half mile of farm field road. Now that I'm older and I hope wiser, I have very different thoughts about what is appropriate for the rural countryside of Dane County. I have enjoyed many years of observing the wildlife in a country setting, and no one would believe me if i said that I would not make the mistake again of permanently altering the beauty of a 40 acre woods by building my own house and, at that time, selling a portion of it where another house has been constructed. (Some years later I sold another 5 acres to Thomas Wolfe who has kept it as a scientific nature study site.) Today i hope i would have enough sense to keep the entire parcel as a picnic and nature study site and maintain my residence in Madison. I know that this sounds like the same old story of those who already live there trying to prevent newcomers, but my concern is really for the preservation of the visual character of the rolling hill landscape and the wildlife. Deer Run Heights is a concentrated residential - area but no one sees the houses from highway 14 or Cleveland Road and it is thus less offensive to the eye, although it has no doubt affected the wildlife habitat. I f we must have more housing in rural Dane County perhaps it is best to concentrate it in densely wooded areas, but there are grave consequences for that strategy as well. Liza 8ardwell wrote a book about Madison and Dane County in 1973 titled MORE IS LESS. I hope that all who are interested in the future of the city and the county will read it. Twenty-five years later it is still applicable to the urban sprawl surrounding Madison. However, it doesn't address the issue of the visual pollution that now afflicts the rural landscape with countless "subdivisions" of ugly architecture. Nor does Dane County seem to be addressing this issue adequately. Mine may be the extreme view that the only good architecture in the unique area of the Ice Age Preserve would be invisible architecture, but goverment agencies in other countries and in the United States have accepted the responsibility of overseeing the visual character of buildings, as well as sound and lighting pollution, especially in unique landscape areas.