Homestead Park plan.
City of Snohomish graphics
SNOHOMISH — After hearing watershed concerns, the City Council wants to take a closer look at the plan for Homestead Park, on the city’s west side, before agreeing to hire a designer to refine the concept.
The concept’s already out, featuring a playground, a disc golf course on the southwest side and a trail loop on the future Homestead Park’s wild 10 acres.
Snohomish parks board chair Paul Kaftanski raised concerns to council last week that it appeared there hasn’t been a strong public process to arrive at what the city already has outlined to be in the park.
Kaftanski’s career included a lengthy stint as Everett’s parks department director, and more years in general project planning and municipal administration.
Homestead Park, at 2000 Ludwig Ave., is widely seen as the city’s next major park project.
The city is asking people what they think of the features presented at a survey open through Dec. 16 at www.snohomishwa.gov/
homesteadpark
In a “point-in-time” look at survey results so far as of Nov. 13 published in the parks board agenda Nov. 15, though, people love the playground but had mixed feelings about a disc golf course. Among 98 responses, about half the respondents said they like the disc golf course idea. One-fifth, though, said they didn’t like it. All the other ideas for what to put in the park received favorable survey responses of more than 70% or better, and no other feature gathered so many dislikes.
In master planning, usually after that process gets along further is when the features are decided, Kaftanski said.
The council last week pulled back a scheduled vote to hire a designer for the park, and voted in unison to make this an action item that carries a call for public comments at a future meeting.
This vote is set to be on the Dec. 3 council agenda, city administrator Heather Thomas-Murphy said, and the city will have more information for council by then.
The city currently has a springtime deadline to show the state it has produced a large-picture plan. In August, Snohomish won a state Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) grant for $147,324 to help pay for a consultant to restart work on the master plan design.
But five months from hiring to deadline is an “aggressive” timeline for a firm to create a master plan, Kaftanski said. It might indicate the consultants will be presuming what will be in the park, he said in his concerns.
Councilwoman Lea Anne Burke said this park’s feature programming was “fairly advanced” without much public input.
In its grant application, the city said it would hold three public town halls about the park together with its hired design firm. The plan goes that at the second town hall, they would present three versions of park layout plans.
Thomas-Murphy said if there’s too much delay, the city can’t get the project accomplished within terms of the grant.
Council members asked if deadline extensions are available.
The city can ask to extend to the end of June, the state office’s spokeswoman Susan Zemek told the Tribune. The grant only is for designing the park; it does not seem to stipulate what goes into the park, Zemek said.
“I don’t like the idea of losing the grant money, but this is a very important community” park, Merrill said, and “don’t want grant money” determining the schedule, Merrill said.
Additionally, Kaftanski said, the city’s plans to construct the park won’t be until 2029, leaving a lag time to produce a design before working to start building.
The city was having a different company design Homestead Park, Averill Field and Cady Landing as a three-project package. Work for Homestead Park and Cady Landing were halted due to “unforeseen circumstances,” the city wrote to the state.
