(Okoboji)– The Okoboji City Council Tuesday tabled a proposal for a land swap with 17 Oak Condominiums that would help necessitate a project by the city and Imagine Iowa Great Lakes to spruce up an adjoining park, known as “East Lake Park”, on the east side of Highway 71 across from Kum ‘n Go. The area is bordered on the north by the Hattie Elston boat ramp and access which is owned by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
City Administrator Michael Meyers told the council the land the city would convey is not lakefront property…
“It’s just a proposal to make this proposed park area more open and make it completely public so that there’s no private land being traversed over or crossed over. And then of course all this discussion we’ve been very cognizant of clearly delineating public and private property here so these property lines would be fenced off with a split-rail fence and it would be very clear what is public and private property.”
Councilman Jim Delperdang said any action by the city to act on the conveyance now would be premature at this point, saying approval should be sought first from the DNR to make sure it’s okay to have some of the parking and a portion of the park itself on their land. He says the scope of the project got too big…
“30 or 40 percent of that project is on DNR land and they didn’t need to do that. They could have kept it within the boundaries of the city controlled land and made this a lot less painful here.”
Other council members agreed and voted unanimously to table the matter, adding it should be up to Imagine Iowa Great Lakes to get the necessary approvals from the DNR.
