Parks

The process of expanding our parks has been a slow process but an unqualified success. Despite, or perhaps because of, the extensive forests in the residential areas of our city, Lake Forest Park started with fewer city parks than many surrounding cities.

It has long been a goal of the city, and one that Semra supports, to slowly and intentionally expand and improve the city’s parks.

But land is expensive, and land appropriate for city parks or adjacent to existing parks becomes available very rarely. So, the city has slowly acquired new parkland when available and used increasingly creative ways to finance those purchases.  A few years ago we partnered with Forterra to secure the lakefront property and hold the property for us for a couple of years until we gathered enough grant funding to cover the majority of the cost.  Recently we partnered with Ms. Rose to allow her to live her days out on her property which we were able to purchase at a 2024 price.  This land will eventually be an expansion to 5 Acre Woods.  Semra supported a new policy to be able to accept gifted property if the opportunity allows.

The next step is to ensure a balanced distribution of parks across the city.  Keeping an eye out for opportunities to add parks where there are none is important to Semra.  Being able to walk to a park to relax, play, and gather is something everyone in LFP should have access to.