Natalia Hernandez: Connecting Local Residents to Our Public Harbor
Meet Natalia. Natalia is outreach specialist for Harbor District, Inc., a nonprofit headquartered in the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences building and which functions in concert with the local Business Improvement District, BID 51. Harbor District, Inc.’s vision is “a vibrant waterfront community where diverse businesses, people and ecologies thrive together.”
Natalia is proud that the keystone public amenity projects Harbor District has helmed into existence were driven by local resident feedback through the Water & Land Use Plan. “One of the aspects, when talking to neighbors, was that they wanted more green space in the city,” Natalia recalls. “If you look at a map, the inner city has less green space than a suburban city or suburban areas of Milwaukee County. That was one thing we thought we can do that right away. There was a plot of land just outside our offices that we were looking at all the time, and it’s kind of like, well, what can we do with that? Maybe that’s a possibility to make something happen. So, we got to work!”