Geneva Shore Report
THE COMING LAKE PIER ATTACKS
The Geneva Shore Report staff has been writing often and consistently about what has happened ever since the pandemic brought Chicago up to visit Lake Geneva and made a whole bunch of those people fall in love with both Geneva Lake and Lake Como. The developers down there, and even those up around the lake, did not fail to pay attention. Property prices have skyrocketed, especially for anything near the water, on either lake.
Lake Como has special problems as a recreational destination. It’s only about four feet deep in most places and the bottom, during summer, when the shallow lake is not frozen over, is covered with underwater growth that rises up either to the surface or near the surface. Unlike Geneva Lake, which reaches depths of 150 feet, the shallow nature of that smaller lake creates problems for fishing, swimming, boating, and more. The purity and clarity anyone encounters when experiencing the waters of Geneva Lake, in almost any way, are almost entirely missing when visiting and recreating on or around Lake Como.
What is happening to both lakes, because of the new developer’s interest (and therefore their efforts to turn the lake’s beauty and nature into monetary returns) is a rush to add piers and boats. The rage is not to build allowable piers in front of waterfront homes. No, the rage is to build piers for rental users, through either straight up renting, where a customer shows up at a pier and rents a boat hourly or the day directly from a boat company, or (and growing wildly in popularity) the other two types of ‘rentals.’
The first type is the kind of boat rental wherein a customer purchases part ownership in a boating operation in order to have privileges to use the boats that the operation purchases, services, and keeps on the lakes. The second kind of ‘rental’ is called keyholing, wherein a customer purchases a home off the lake but is allowed to be a member of a clubhouse that has boats for usage by the owners of the homes (Symphony Bay is an excellent example of this kind of boat rental).
Over on Lake Como the owners of Geneva National are attempting to build piers to emplace and slip a hundred boats. That’s one hundred (100) on that small lake. Then, since this owner recently inherited the resort, it is very likely that the resort will be sold at a greater profit than before. Meanwhile, the local residents, those on the water and off, have to put up with a hundred new boat drivers (most of whom do not know what they are doing or have been drinking to add to the ‘recreation’ of the boating experience), the trailers, the cars parking, and so much more.
In Lake Geneva, the Lazzaroni family wants to replace their short pier with one a hundred and thirty feet long. That pier would stick straight out from the south end of Big Foot Beach and would then create a sort of private harbor. The Lazzaroni’s have slowly but surely made that part of Big Foot into their very own, at the expense of all those who live around the area or enjoy the beauty and benefits currently available.
Part of the problem these developers are having is the difficult riparian right situation of lakes in Wisconsin. The DNR is the steward of these lakes, but not the owner. There is no real owner once a person steps off the shore. The cities and villages around the lake really have almost no right to determine pier or boat regulations, although they get together and assume some rights (like giving the Lake Geneva Police out on the water police powers, the Water Safety Patrol whatever rights it has, and so on). The DNR has taken a lead role in trying to decide the pier issues, but they are not protected from lawsuits, and neither is the Town of Geneva if the Geneva National proceeds with its plan. Geneva National is only a Homeowners association, aside from the resort structures themselves. Many residents around the lake are forming associations in order to raise the money necessary to civilly sue the Town of Geneva, the DNR, and the developers, all involved up to their ears in this looming mess.
The people of Lake Geneva need to keep up the fight, over crowding will become a very large problem. Keep the town small and quaint.
Another fact I would like to is the fact that it’s time did Lake Geneva take that lunch out of the middle of town where it’s causing traffic jams and no place to park your boat except across the street so the boats are tied up at the pier while the driver locate a parking place for his trailer and vehicle across the street then he asked to walk back this in my opinion is just stupid! It’s time to build a decent lunch somewhere on the lake with a decent amount of accommodations for vehicles and boats. Let’s face it you want the town growing but you don’t want to grow with the town, so when you invite all these people to build a home and enjoy the lake they have no place to launch but these tiny little 20 car launches which are not going to make it like I repeat take the launch out of downtown and relocate to some of the land that you have, make it safe and enjoyable for everyone