Hasmer Lake Community Park Master Plan

A SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis was initally conducted by MSA as part of the proposal documents after an on-site meeting with Village Staff. Below is the result of the meeting.

On December 2nd, 2022 the Village of Jackson held their annual tree lighting ceremony along with holiday crafts, caroling, and gifts. At this event, members of the Parks and Recreation Commission hosted a booth to raise awareness of the project and encourage community members to take part in the survey.

The Survey was launched online from November 28th-December 22nd. During that time the Village collected 219 responses. The survey asked questions about Hasmer Lake and what residents currently enjoyed about the DNR site and what they may like to see in the future.

The village also garnered interest into converting the public lot by the park and ride into a Veteran's Memorial. The community was highly supportive of this idea. The Village plans on allowing the American Legion and VFW to move forward with this project

The next step of the master plan process is creating initial concepts based off the site investigation and soliciting of public feedback. Typically, multiple options for the site are generated and then parts of each are either combined, omitted, or modified to move the plan into a final concept. However, after discussion with the needs of the community, we decided to move the concepts into two plans of action.

The first plan focuses on utilizing the space of existing DNR parcel in conjunction with the parcel owned by the Village of Jackson. Using this concept plan, the Village hopes to encourage DNR cooperation into better optimization of the space and creating a cohesive design between the two.

The second concept plan focused on limited DNR interaction and the acquiring of an adjacent, privately-owned parcel to be included in the design. Both concepts have to incorporate a significant grade change from Rosewood Lane to the shoreline of Hasmer Lake and providing accessibility to all abilities is pertinent to the needs of the community.

The final master plans consider the two options for either acquiring land or working with the DNR. It is also possible to fully acquire either land parcel in the future and build off the initial shelter and pathways to combine the two options. MSA wanted the plan to be flexible to accommodate for the future of Hasmer Lake Community Park, and the resources it has to offer.

Through the master planning process it became evident that the Village's first priority at Hasmer Lake Community Park will be to provide shelter space and restrooms for the public use of the site. Other amenities will follow as the Village is able to work with the DNR or acquire new land. The phasing plans below show the recommendations based on the existing conditions of the site, the Village's priorities, and their ability to work with the adjacent landowners to acquire or develop on the land.

This phasing plan splits the plan into two phases.

The first phase includes the development of the village parcel, starting with the 4-season shelter, park entrance sign, connection of the multi-use trail, ADA parking stall, ice skating rink and site furnishings.

The second phase includes the expansion of parking off the existing DNR lot, natural playground, shoreline seat wall, gravel seating area, shoreline restoration, site furnishings and stormwater management.

The second master plan also has two phases.

The first phase includes the development of the village-owned parcel with: angled parking, the open-air shelter, park entrance sign, playground, canoe and kayak facilities, and site furnishings.

The second phase introduces the acquired parcel, amenities include: the firepit seating area and shoreline wall, yard games, ice skating rink, accessible path connections, shoreline restoration and site furnishings.