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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPark and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes 03-15-1999Minutes of the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission Meeting March 15, 1999 Page 12 Present: Chair Anderson, Commissioners Wahl, Willegalle, Fiemann, Musliner, Thompson, staff Blank, Hurlburt, and Pederson; SRF consultant Barry Warner Absent: Commissioner Priebe CALL TO ORDER Chair Anderson called the March meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. in the Mooney Lake Room. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A motion was made by Commissioner Wahl and seconded by Commissioner Fiemann to approve the minutes of the February meeting as presented. The motion carried with all ayes. 3. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS a. Athletic Associations. None were present. b. Staff. There were no staff presentations. 4. PAST COUNCIL ACTION Council approved soliciting names from the community for the new activity center. The deadline for submittals is the end of this month. Any suggestions received will be presented at the April meeting. Council awarded contracts for new playgrounds at Lacompte, Green Oaks, and Turtle Lake parks. The Council accepted the PRAC 1998 annual report and the 1999 work plan. 5. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a. Barry Warner, consultant from SRF. Eric introduced Barry Warner and mentioned some of the other consulting projects he's done for the city. Director Hurlburt was also in attendance and once again explained the area that the partial urban expansion covers. It is basically the area east of Vicksburg all the way over to I-494 and north to the Maple Grove border. She explained that no new development will be allowed in this area until the comprehensive plan is approved sometime in early 2000. She stated that the joint meeting on March 31 st will be the first time for all groups involved in updating the comprehensive plan to get together and discuss it. The public is invited to attend this meeting. Commissioner Thompson asked how we make sure we get input from the 80% of the population that doesn't show up at public meetings. Hurlburt said we'll be using newsletters, cable tv, the newspaper and committees like the park board to get the word out. Mr. Warner said it is very difficult to get meaningfi l participation from the community. Commissioner Willegalle asked if random calling is a way to reach people. Hurlburt said this is a possibility. PRAC Minutes/March 1999 Page 13 Mr. Warner was in attendance to begin guiding PRAC through the process of updating the park and trail portions of the comprehensive plan. He talked about parks being comprised of many different elements. Athletic complexes are the powerhouses, community parks are the flagships, the trails are the fabric that pulls everything together, and the neighborhood parks are the building blocks. That's because they are evenly distributed throughout the community. The neighborhood parks in Plymouth are passive and meant to serve a clientele within a four to six block area of the park and focus on preschool and elementary aged children and senior citizens. Wherever there are elementary schools located in a walking neighborhood, the school served as the neighborhood park. They have the same components as regular neighborhood parks. We've been building one to two neighborhood parks per year. The most recent one was Three Ponds. Director Blank talked about how tennis courts have been designed as a drive -to facility. Every other year we receive requests for tennis courts in neighborhood parks. Tennis courts are expensive to build and to maintain. They can double the cost of building a neighborhood park. The last request came from the Shiloh neighborhood. This issue needs to be addressed when planning the parks component of the comprehensive plan. Commissioner Wahl said he doesn't see the tennis courts being used very often. He said that Bass Lake gets very little use. Commissioner Willegalle said that Parkers Lake and Zachary have fairly high use. Director Blank said the senior population is going to grow dramatically in the next 11 years and we need to plan for their needs when redoing the parks plan. Today's seniors are active and participate in active types of programs, not just card playing, bingo or shuffleboard. They're golfing, playing tennis, skiing, etc. Staff previously worked on neighborhoods that have deficiences and portrayed them on a map for discussion at the meeting. The area around West Medicine Lake Park has some deficiencies. This is a difficult area and may not be able to be changed. Since West Medicine is quickly becoming the focal point in this part of town, we may have to come up with more trails leading to this park so people can get there, Director Blank said. Service area 46 is a built out neighborhood, but has some deficiencies. Two schools provide the recreation opportunities here, even though there is no actual neighborhood park. The Luce Line trailhead is located here, also. There is a parcel in the southwest corner of Plymouth on Hadley Lake. It's a beautifid piece of property, very manicured, high up, overlooking the lake. It offers 300 to 400 feet of shoreline. This could be a perfect picnic area. Going north from there, is service area 32, served by Greenwood Elementary. South and southwest areas of Plymouth may not be adequately served. Several other neighborhoods were also discussed, with no immediate plans for how to improve the areas that show deficiencies in terms of parks and trails. Director Blank said the 10th playfield will probably end up being west of Vicksburg. For most of the next 10 years, Director Blank said it will be difficult to say if there's going to be a need for a 10th playfield. This is the most expensive thing left to build and is also the most iffy. There may be some opportunity to work with the school district on this issue, too. PRAC Minutes/March 1999 Page 14 Commissioner Fiemann asked about the area west of Fernbrook and north of Schmidt Lake Road. Director Blank said it's a development called Silverthorne, and it will have a small park. West of Vicksburg is basically rural residential. We own land west of Mud Lake, which came out of the Lake Camelot development. Some parks could be developed here. Fiemann asked about the high density area. Director Hurlburt said there is 100 acres there but it will have fewer children. There is a gap here in the regional trail that needs to be sorted out and worked out with Hennepin Parks. Within another year or two the regional trail could come down from Maple Grove as far as the northern border of Plymouth. Commissioner Willegalle asked if Fernbrook would go south across the Luce Line. It is not an active issue at this point Director Hurlburt said. Mr. Warner then asked PRAC to look at areas west of Vicksburg. He stated that there are pockets of demand here. Commissioner Thompson asked about the disk golf people. Director Blank said they aren't sure what they want to do. It's been a popular attraction, so he thinks their group will be back in the fi ture. Right now there is a plan to put a playground at Elm Creek Playfield. Director Blank stated that we are hearing more often that people do not like private parks. They don't meet their needs. HOA's don't want to pay for the maintenance and upkeep. Staff is currently looking at a piece of woods across from Hollydale golf course that could be the neighborhood park for Plumtree East and West. One of the Plumtree developments has a private pool for its residents. Mr. Warner said there are several issues that need to be considered when working on the parks comprehensive plan: 1) private parks, 2) mini parks, 3) trail connections, 4) new parks and their timing, 5) park renovation, 6) joint park with Maple Grove, and 7) clarification on school parks. A playground replacement policy would be an appropriate thing to have in the comp plan, as well as a policy on private parks. Chair Anderson asked about the usefi lness of mini parks. Director Blank said many communities have them. He said mini parks usually are less than two acres in size. The maintenance gets costly. Just as much time is spent on these parks as on those that are 10 acres in size. Commissioner Thompson asked if we get random counts of park users. Director Blank said we have done counts in the past of hockey rink use. The cost to maintain a playfield like Elm Creek is $110,000 annually. Chair Anderson asked about private parks. Hurlburt said they aren't exclusive to Plymouth. The same developers that build here, build in other cities. These private parks yield mixed results. There is no policy right now for how to deal with private parks. This would be the appropriate place to begin discussing this. b. Activity center update. Approval of the preliminary budget is on the Council agenda for March 16. Bids will be due on April 20 and will hopefi lly be awarded by April 27. No major changes have been made to the actual design, although some trimming has been done to the plans. Bidding both products that were looked at for turf, Astroplay and Astrograss. Director Blank said he would be happy to bid this project and have a 5% PRAC Minutes/March 1999 Page 15 contingency. All the consultants are coming in on Wednesday for a day long meeting to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Bubble may be up by November 15, 1999, if all goes according to plan. 6. NEW BUSINESS There was no new business. 7. COMMISSION PRESENTATION None. 8. STAFF COMM[_]NICATION The next regular meeting will be April 8, but commissioners were reminded about the meeting on March 31 st, to which they are invited. 9. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 9:40 p.m.