Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Naptystaffand then lastly project specific comments these are the comments that address a specific project in the CIP the first one we had a couple comments questions about the timing for the Van Dyke master plan implementation we we had comments about this project as we mentioned last year the comment last year was that the Van Dyke park improvements are specifically identified in the comprehensive plan and the Planning Commission continued to support that but based on the other priorities that are developing in the CIP this was one that the Planning Commission felt could have been deferred and that was deferred in the CIP but it's now coming up again with

Matthew RiceMr. Rice. so I'd like to ask a question to both of our guests in the audience um if we could start with parks that would be helpful we talked about a variety of issues my role as the liaison to PRAB means that I attempt to provide summaries of projects and the importance of the projects more helpful if they heard it again from a more qualified person to make the statements. So a few things. I'd like to hear about the connection between the Van Dyke master plan, which is something that we've supported strongly, and the Willard Sherwood, and how those two things are connected and any sequencing that would happen between the two projects and any dependencies between the two.

James FeatherAnd I might add the Blandon Boulevard master plan as well. There's some integration there.

Stacy SummerfieldstaffYes. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm Stacy Summerfield. I'm the parks director. And, yes, so you'll notice in the CIP, we have the Van Dyke master plan has been pushed back a little. was because of the desire to complete the design and to kind of know the final look of the Willard Sherwood project. One of the things that I know you're all aware of, but the Willard Sherwood building includes the senior center moving to that location. And so we have quite a vibrant senior population, about 1,500 members. Right now we're gaining about 40 members a month. And so if we move to that location, they're moving away from Green Acres, outdated building but green acres also has pickleball on site bocce on site outdoors and so

it does move where we would be looking at for the van dyke remodel it would change the population that's using that a bit and so thinking about the ways that that connects that building to the park additionally there's four children's classrooms on the first floor for youth programming and so how we connect that that building over to Van Dyke because there is a connected outdoor playground but it's not an outdoor space like Van Dyke to take kids over to you know a more natural playscape and so that has been the impetus behind us moving the Van Dyke master plan out is so that we know really what the site adjacent to Van Dyke will look like as well as the traffic patterns of that of course it's going to be bringing a lot more people to that site and how traffic flows

was a master plan our master planning process was started in 2018 for Van Dyke and in that in that design it did move the parking lot out of the center of the park and slide it over towards Sherwood so now that we know what the parking and traffic movement through the site will look like with the Willard Sherwood building that'll help us consider the parking for for Van Dyke as well and then we have also been working hand-in-hand with the Blenheim Boulevard project currently looking at how we can make sure our signage matches up there's a complete signage plan that's developed for that pedestrian signage letting people know where amenities are along Blenheim and then matching that up with we also have a signage project rolling out in the parks that's updating park

signage to be more inclusive of multiple languages visual impairments and so making sure that those two match up one of the other big pieces that came out of the 2018 master planning process which ended because of covid so we would look at kind of the the community feedback we got there but then we would engage in a full new master planning process for the park because of course 2018 was before pickleball became a thing and now it is a huge thing for our community members so we would be restarting the the master planning process but that master plan showed more of a pedestrian connection to Van Dyke Park so instead of utilizing kind of the central entrance there the way it is now for mostly cars limited sidewalks it would be more interconnected with the Blenheim

Matthew Ricedecade that Green Acres is not is not able to be renovated to serve a useful as a city facility without hundreds a million I don't even know the right numbers they're atmospheric but in order to bring the building up to standards it's just not not conceivable and so I appreciate you discussing the connection we've already spent millions of dollars the county has outlaid huge amounts of money already on this project and I very very much want both of these things the Van Dyke master plan and the Willard Sherwood Center to continue I think it's difficult imagining the amount of time and effort invested by Ms. Sommerfeld and her predecessors and and then just doing a u-turn on the willard sherwood and by extension requiring a complete rethink of van

Paul CunninghamThank you, Ms. Summerfield. As a user of the senior center of Green Acres, I believe it may be some time before I transition to my new place of recreation. And as such, I am hopeful that we keep Green Acres up at least in a usable condition until I can get to that stage. in my time frame. A comment I would make when it comes to this process, because having watched it for a long time, I think it's been an excellent process. Sometime before 2018, the Planning Commission spent three years in a row trying to encourage the City Council to actually adopt a master plan for van dyke park and the city council was reluctant uh since the adoption ultimately of a master plan we've gone through a number of iterations and not only for van dyke

park but it seems that master planning has become the activity du jour to get anything accomplished in the city if we're going to do it we set out with a master plan for what we're going to do so we now complete a significant number of master plans and I don't know that we have a review process to find out how many of them get completed and end up on the shelf because they were a good thought process but they're never integrated and adopted, and how many actually are implemented in the form in which they're developed and adopted because of the time legs between doing master plans and moving forward. From that standpoint, I would ask, is there a way we can look at the master planning process now, such as Van Dyck,

and find a streamlined way to make it efficient to continue working and including the modifications to get to the goal of doing some of this. Because hopefully, or ideally, I guess, we would get a master plan and we would go out and we would implement it. And I think our experience, especially with the Van Dyke master plan, says that we have kept the issue alive and well, but we have had to deal with a lot of change as we moved along this process and we're not done yet

Stacy Summerfieldstaffi think there are two things that can really help us one i appreciate the way the van dyke cip is laid out in the in that there is master planning funding built into the process as well as implementation funding i think i have a number of or the parker's department has a number of master plans that the planning is funded, but then the actual implementation of the park is not. And so I agree with you. I think sometimes it happens where we come up with a great plan, but then it's never implemented mostly due to money. The reason I came in late tonight is that we are in the process of building a parks foundation. So I was over at that meeting. And I think that is something that can, it was a big topic of discussion tonight because

we, of course, are finishing the redevelopment of Theis Park. So talking about how we can leverage private dollars through naming rights and a number of different avenues in order to help offset the cost of implementing some of these master plans. We also have a funded master plan to look at the Westmore School site. Of course, there's no funding for implementation afterwards, but I think ideally we can build a robust parks foundation that would help us leverage private dollars so that we can come in looking at a realistic kind of cost share between the city and the Parks Foundation, being able to offset some of those costs.

Paul Cunninghammaster plans to take existing facilities and give us something that is excellent that the community will honor will use and will use for a very long period of time because they will be functional for a long period of time and pay back that investment in in the utility and benefit I think if there were other ways, and I'll commend you on getting a foundation which will help move some of this along, because moving costs out of the budget and out of some of this in order to maintain control of tax rates while still making progress, I know is a value and a goal of the city at this time. I think that's probably what I have to say because I know that the progress is slow. I don't know that it ties into any existing project with parks and rec at the moment.

But I think your input and continued input on what's functional master planning and what's not will be useful as we move forward. Thank you.

NaptystaffWell, some of the issues, as we noted, were I think when the recommendations are kind of the bigger picture CIP-wide, as opposed to focusing on a specific project, even if council is reacting and listening and doing something about it, I feel like they're the kind of things that won't necessarily show up in a single year. some of those things are still priorities. The Van Dyke master plan was the only project-specific one, and the recommendation at the time was that planning commission is okay deferring this, and it was deferred. So now it's back and what do you want to say again? So I don't think that there's anything wrong happening with it. I would also say that, you know, we stay pretty high level with these.

Paul CunninghamAnd the playing field changes. As I alluded to earlier with Ms. Summerfield, there was a time when getting a master plan was like pulling teeth and worse than going to the dentist. And today, if we need a master plan, it is a small amount of funding, and so we put it at it whether we're going to use it or not because it gives us a talking point or an anchor on which we could move forward. But are we spending so much on these small master plans that are not going to go anyplace that we have lost focus of what is the core that we're trying to accomplish. And before we had none, now we have one for everything. And then we revise them and all of that goes into the cost consideration as times shift

Matthew Ricea GIS based program that would allow us to be able to look at things like this and it's been wildly successful so maybe some things that we do recommend are listened to and implemented and it may not always happen at city council level it may be happening by really really good staff that hear good ideas and frankly we do spend a lot of time on master plans We spent a huge amount of effort in us small area plans and We have an implementation group that meets to figure out how to implement those and Maybe that's the kind of effort. We need more of people that are meeting on a regular basis to Look at that plan and say how do we put this into action and so um anyway, I think that's all my thoughts for now and I should

Kirsten LockhartI mean, for installation planning, you'd call it the concept of operations. What is going to happen in that place or in that building or at this time? And then once you know that, then everybody who's a stakeholder in that can come and participate. So, you know, where, to Mr. Cunningham's point about master planning, that's great, happening in a vacuum. So I'd have to think more about, you know, what the staff impacts of that are, what that looks like, who champions that. But, and this isn't a knock on, you know, the current staff. It's hard to not to know what you don't know. But, you know, to your point that it's historically been rare, it's about to become not rare. So, you

NaptystaffSo we have the four from the previous side, the three that we've added. And now if we could step through these and see if we want to carry any of these forward, if there's any that are conflicting, See if we want to do anything with them. It's the first timing for the Van Dyke master plan invitation. We had some mixed comments on that I think some of it Commissioner Rice you've mentioned today, but how is coordinating with the village Sherwood and the blend of our improvements? Do we want to say anything about that specifically?

NaptystaffThank you again, Chair Feather, members of the Planning Commission. On January 6th, the city council had a work session meeting. The only item was discussion of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which was on hiatus for quite a while. It's still in the phase of collecting information. Essentially, their consultant had some interview questions for city council so they could provide feedback. So we'll be following this project as it starts to re-initiate itself, and we'll probably

engage page set up for a while so they'll be wrapping up the planning phase for this and moving toward construction and additionally there'll be a consideration of additional funds and a word of contract for the George Snyder trail this is also a project that's mentioned in the comprehensive plan for your upcoming meeting on January 26 we'll be having our public hearing on the capital improvement program of leaves as we've discussed you will have a presentation on the urban forest master plan you just received a presentation on that in December as you may recall but the public hearing is scheduled on this on January 27th with City Council and we are going to ask this planning commission to provide a formal recommendation to them you won't necessarily need a public