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June 25, 2007
I've Got Good News, And I've Got Bad News
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| I've written a few blogs about the need for the city
to build parks with amenities like recreation components and restrooms.
Unfortunately, in order for the city to do this neighborhoods need to form
"lighting and landscape districts" and assess themselves an annual cost
to pay for these parks. A "basic park" like Baroni Park scheduled to be built adjacent to the Doe Mill development, will have grass, a picnic area, and a children's play structure. But the neighborhood said no to a basketball court and restrooms, which was the "enhanced design". The annual cost for the basic park was $64, and it was $119 for the bigger, better park. Recently the Ceres/Highland Neighborhood Park design was completely rejected by residents. They decided that they wanted to pay for neither a basic, nor an enhanced park. The city is looking into options that might reinvigorate interest in a park, but the decision by neighbors can be seen as nothing short of disappointing. Where will those kids play? Roughly 40% of the available ballots for the vote were returned. That's a pretty good rate of return, so you can't blame indifference for the decision not to build Ceres/Highland Park. That's the bad news. The good news is that some anonymous member of the community recently donated $40,000 to the city earmarked for Baroni Park. It is to be used to build a basketball court. I guess that makes Baroni an enhanced basic park. It also makes the donor a local hero. The donation was made one year after the Baroni neighborhood voted not to build an enhanced park. The contrast between people unwilling to part with $60 per year to turn a vacant lot into a place for families, and someone donating $40,000 to close the gap on an already funded park, is stark to me. For the record I live in a lighting and landscape district that maintains an enhanced park. Frankly, I'd pay more to have tennis courts added to the park, and I don't play tennis. I hear people complain all the time about developers not paying their fair share for parks. Maybe they could chip in a little more money, and probably will as part of Nexus fee increases. But some citizen's in our town are electing to pay even less than their fair share. They're electing to pay nothing. Note: I think most of the parks built in the last several years were actually paid for by developers as part of developments. I don't think these include "neighborhood parks", but I could be wrong. |
Posted by Lon at June 25, 2007 10:34 PM