A difficult stroll around Cedar Lake
Posted on May 30th, 2008 – 8:11 AMBy James Shiffer
Earlier this week, Ron Werner took me on a most unpleasant walk around Cedar Lake, one of Minneapolis’s famous Chain of Lakes. Lovely trails border three sides of the lake, but most people think the southeast corner, a place of lush green lawns that meet the lake with gazebos and docks, is all private property.
It isn’t. A strip of shoreline all around Cedar Lake is owned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. A handful of lucky property owners have essentially used that public land as their own lakefront, thanks to agreements that date back to the 1930s.
This strikes Ron, 61 and a retired park board employee, as wrong. He offered to show me how inaccessible this parkland is, and I took him up on it. We met at the corner of the lake and struck off on our journey. We got a fine view of the backs of lakeside mansions. We walked over docks, sidestepped canoes, pushed through bushes, admired gazebos and sculptures. We were careful not to crush the plantings. Nobody was home, or at least in their yards, during our unannounced visit.
Things got really hinky when we reached the canal that connects Cedar Lake to Lake of the Isles. Here, property owners have built fences down the slope. Getting by meant either climbing over the fences or balancing on a rotting wooden rail, trying to keep from falling into the canal. Ron wanted to turn around, but I felt compelled to finish our journey. He made me go first.
We had to creep around poison ivy and sometimes swing ourselves around trees that grew right up along the shore. Finally we reached the bridge where Burnham Road crosses the canal. We were done.
One of the property owners, Tom Nordyke, told me the next day that he didn’t know whether his lake frontage was park board land.
“I have no idea,” he said Wednesday. “I’ve never checked that.”
Nordyke rented the property before he bought into it seven years ago, so it wasn’t the kind of transaction that would have brought that fact to his attention.
I have to confess that I was surprised that Nordyke didn’t know whether his lakeshore belonged to the park board. After all, he presides over the whole Minneapolis park system. Nordyke was elected to the park board in 2005 and is now board president. His web site describes his main goals, among them: “I want to demand equity in the quality and access of our parks in every part of our City”
Nordyke said he knew the park board owned some of the shoreline. But he said that in his time on the board, no one from the staff or the public has ever approached him about putting a trail through his part of Cedar Lake. Should such a proposal surface, Nordyke said, “I’d probably have to recuse myself.”
Dawn Sommers, a spokeswoman for the park board, confirmed that there is a “contiguous strip of land” owned by the park board, and that property owners over the years have conferred with the agency when they wanted to make improvements or plantings on city land.
“It’s never really been a board-identified priority” to put a trail or otherwise make that land accessible, Sommers said.
It doesn’t look like it’s going to be a board-identified priority any time soon, no matter how many Cedar Lake visitors decide to venture onto their privatized parkland.
85 Responses to “A difficult stroll around Cedar Lake”
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May 30th, 2008 at 9:14 am
That is very surprising that the park board doesn’t keep this clear of ‘abstructions’ like fences. Personally ok with walk-ways, docks and the like but obstructing the actual pathway should be a no-no.
They should take a lesson from the DNR and stay on top of everything and take the ‘conservative’ side of things. Nothing should be ‘grandfathered’ in but I know it does happen.
Awesome article and video by the way. Very professional.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I think it’s worth a campaign! As many of us as are interested in such things should go for a hike until either (1) a homeowner falsely accuses us of trespassing, or (2) one of us gets injured and then sues the park boards, or (3) someone wakes up to the need for trails there.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Thanks to Mr. Shiffer andMr. Werner for finally bringing this outrage to the public’s attention. I run regularly around the lakes in Minneapolis and have known for years that the fenced-off lakeshore on Cedar is, indeed, public property. I’ve often considered running though these people’s yards but never worked up the nerve, instead diverting my route from the bucolic shoreline to the paved streets. I suppose we have to take Nordyke at his word, in which case he is grossly ignorant of the law (or policy) that is designed to keep the city’s lakeshore accessible to everyone. The alternative explanation is that he is blatantly violating it. In either case, he is not fit to hold any position with the park board, let alone president.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I believe the park board should make a walk around Cedar Lake accessable to all. This might be as simple as a natual looking trail that is wheel chair friendly. It would mean home owners on this part of the lake may need to rethink their landscaping, fences, etc.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Way to invite a whole slew of people wondering through these backyards. Regardless if the land is public or not. Unless a proposal has been made, I don’t any point to this article.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Wow! Thanks for the article.
I would love for the Park Board to return that part of the trail to the public. I’ve always wondered why the city leaders had left this strip of land out of the reach of the public.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Put a bike trail all the way around it.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:12 am
‘His web site describes his main goals, among them: “I want to demand equity in the quality and access of our parks in every part of our City”
Nordyke said he knew the park board owned some of the shoreline. But he said that in his time on the board, no one from the staff or the public has ever approached him about putting a trail through his part of Cedar Lake. Should such a proposal surface, Nordyke said, “I’d probably have to recuse myself.” ‘
You wouldn’t have to recuse yourself Mr. Nordyke, you could actually support what you have said on your website.
Unless of course, now that it’s in YOUR backyard what’ good for the rest of us doesn’t apply to you. Shameful.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
rb, “regardless if the land is public or not”? Do you lack reading comprehension? The main point is that it is public land. People wouldn’t be wandering through back yards, they would be wandering through park land.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Even in the socialist uptopia of Minneapolis well-connected commisars (Nordyke) still have special privileges.