Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/22/2010 03:07:04 PM PST
GRAND TERRACE - The state has agreed to fund construction of the city's first park west of the 215 Freeway, agreeing with city staff's determination that the area is "severely underparked."
If the City Council accepts the proposal, a state fund for park development will pay $2,130,636 to build a 3.07-acre park on Grand Terrace Road.
Grand Terrace has two parks and one playground east of the freeway.
Temporarily known as West Side Park, the project will include exercise equipment and walking paths.
"Taking a leisurely walk through the garden and reading plant description cards provides physical and mental health benefits that are not available in other city parks," Community and Economic Development Director Joyce Powers wrote in the grant application. "Building an active park in this critically underserved community will increase the potential for a healthy mind and body, create positive emotional and social experiences and significantly improve the quality of life."
Neighbors attended eight meetings and expressed enthusiasm as well as some suggestions, Powers said. Bobbie Kay Forbes, a 25-year resident, said she has monitored proposals to make sure they're family friendly. "I think it'll be good for the neighborhood - there's a lot of children who can't really go to a park," she said. "I want parks everywhere." Forbes said her biggest concern was that the park not include basketball courts, because as a real estate agent she hears many people complain about the coarse language of men playing basketball at parks.
Powers said Thursday that she is especially excited about built-in educational opportunities.
"There's a conservation area, a low-water landscape area. Part of the educational experience would be to identify the plants that are low-water and that sort of thing," she said.
The city will have to pay for upkeep, which staff estimates at $50,000 per year.
The proposal is not currently on the tentative agenda for the next City Council meeting, Dec. 14.
Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/ci_16683528?IADID=Search-www.sbsun.com-www.sbsun.com#ixzz167cOWlr8
Gramps Adds Comments from the Email InBox:
#1 Grand Terrace has: Rollins Park, Pico Park, a Pocket Play Ground , Karger Pocket Park, and Susan Petta Park. It also has land set aside for a Dog Park, and the frontage to Blue Mt. Park, already established and needing development and or maintainable.
#2 Yet, I am for a park on the West Side of the freeway. Many children and families will be served by the added facility. However, the idea, to not put in a basketball court because adults may curse is an additional insult and non service to youth in the area. They who would use the court during the week after school. To design a public park with the limited use of only those in the neighborhood suggests that folks on the West Side do not use Pico Park, Rollins Park, or Susan Petta Park, nor will they use the Dog Park or Blue Mt. Park when they are built.
#3 Public Parks should be public, and have a wide variety of uses, yes including a basketball court. The West Side is the far from a school yard and the children there should have a basketball court or a tennis court closer to home.
#4 If we take State Money, we are the ones who pay taxes to the state, is this the best use of those funds, a park to look at a park to walk in? I am not so sure. The high annual operational cost is also questionable being designed not to host basketball or sports of any kind other than walking. We have to ask is this a Get we want to Have?
#5 If grown up men on weekends are cursing in public and it offends you, call the police and file a complaint it is a public nuisance offense to conduct one's self that way in the state of California. (Oh that would cost added law enforcement costs most likely not included in the $50,000 operational costs.)
#6 Some folks adjacent to the park would like to see it as an open space maintained by the city and not widely used by the public. This of course would increase their property values. However, I am not so sure that the public should be providing such enrichment protection for a few when the city has denied the same courteousness to others elsewhere in the city.
#7 A park is a park, and it should have some sort of sport or activity that will draw folks more than walking. This will cause noise and yes an occasional boing boing of a basketball, or a vulgarity for what ever the reason. Perhaps the park could be named by a business or businesses who sponsors it and they pay for the Naming Rights to off set the cost of the park operations. Start off with all those businesses who had their Park Development Fees Waived for example. Perhaps, they could put an add on a bench or table for say 1000.00 per year, 50 such adds would pay for the park operations. Where is the 50,000.00 going to come from?
#8 I support the idea of a park on the West Side, I also have to remind folks that this property was intended to be used to replace the Terrace Pines Mobile Home Park that Doug Jacobsen Removed on Michigan Street as part of his development. These homes or mobile home spaces constitute some of the Low and Middle Income Housing elements the City is short on in its total housing element requirement. Doug Jacobsen is not being held to his obligation to replace the homes he has removed. This I do not support. Especially after Mr. Jacobsen Sold the land to the City on which the park is being built. And after Mr. Jacobsen and Staters had their Park Development Fees Waived. This I can't be silent on.
#9 I support a West End Park, I do not support the total of the transaction impact on the city or the state, or the above suggested design constraints. Unless the transaction can be justified and balanced and the planned use expanded this deal is a bad deal for Grand Terrace and the State of California. The biggest benefactor of the transaction is Doug Jacobsen who plead for the Park Development Fees to be waived on his development, now he wants to sell land to the city for a park. Yes I have a problem with the transaction(s), and the future obligations the city will have to take on.
