City Council - Parks and Recreation Committee

okay okay let's resume our next uh committee meeting this afternoon is Parks and Recreation and that is chaired by council member Williams thank you very much president Hamill um we have one agenda item on our agenda today and that and that is agenda Bill 23922 I'm joined by council member Huffman and council member cotton today um and our subject is the naming of the Northwest neighborhood park and to discuss briefly uh some uh playground options so to summarize what we're going to be dealing with as part of a private residential development project known as as Aurora Court a new neighborhood park will be designed constr constructed and dedicated to the city the need for a neighborhood park in the Northwest Corridor was identified in the recommended facilities section of the 2020 parks recreation and open space plan and building and dedicated a uh dedicating a public neighborhood park is a condition of of of approval of the Aurora Court preliminary plan flat the developer partnered with the parks department staff to so to solicit Park name ideas and gather input regarding playground programming options the results of the name ideas voting and the playground option survey were shared with the Parks and Recreation Advisory board and the board members have selected by majority vote and recommend the name Northern Lights Park this name is being forwarded to us at the city council for review and final final Final approval in accordance with Park policy P a.1.

z00.01 previous Council action was the approval of the 2020 Parks and Recreation and open space plan so right now I'd like to turn it over to Parks and Recreation director Nicole Oliver and Parks development manager oh there you are um Lane Potter go ahead Lane thank you so I'm going to cover the park name and design and just to note this presentation generally follows the exhibits that are in your packet but I've summarized The Nine Pages of names that you got and the um engage Bellingham survey and then added some photos so you can get a sense of the current site conditions and existing conditions out there um so as council member Williams mentioned this uh neighborhood park will be a new park that will be completely construct designed constructed and then dedicated to the city as a public part uh Park in the north part of Bellingham this is showing in the red some areas of the city that have been identified in our current Pro Plan as not meeting our level of service goals for our neighborhood parks which is that half mile safe walk route so this park will fulfill that yellow circle there the Northwest neighborhood park so as a condition of the Aurora Court preliminary plat which is five phases of residential development this is the third phase that they're doing now where this first Park will be uh designed constructed and dedicated they will then be doing um a second phase of Park with phase five and completing the trails uh that you see in the exhibits that we'll we'll

talk about in a moment so this park is located in the cordada neighborhood uh just north of Costco North of mahogany and west of Northwest Avenue you're seeing highlighted in blue the larger parcel that's left to be developed um with phase three through five of the development they've completed a multif family building and then a first phase of infill tool housing already uh the first Park that they'll be building with phase 3 is just under an acre it's about 80 ft by 350 ft it's a more narrow Urban Park we'll see some um a site plan later showing more detail but essentially there will be some some Hardscape kind of a Meandering path through the site that creates two active programmed areas for playground equipment the second Park will look very similar uh no design yet because they're still working through what houses in form that Final Phase of development will take so we will see that design at that point so we're just looking at the the first Park it's labeled as Park a in your graphics this is a couple photos just to show you what it currently looks out there um with Phase 1 and two already built so you can see that um townhouse infill toolkit housing form um the orientation of the Town Homes facing one another with the small yards and then the um the narrow Park um just a note this the park space will be wider than what you're seeing here between the town homes it's about 80 ft um so this is just showing the overall site plan and you can see here um Aurora Court phase 3

and the green area is the park that we're discussing today it will continue to another park there will be a safe Crossing across snowfield to the Future Park with phase five the pink line that you're seeing is showing in solid uh part of a trail that's already been built with previous phases of development and then the dashed pink line that will be coming with phase five ultimately heading All the Way North to Northwest Drive creating a really nice loop system um for this part of town you'll be able to Loop all the way on sidewalks and back through the site the developers also ensuring that each um Dead End Street will have access to that trail on the west side of the development and on your right you're seeing photos of phase three uh in its current state they're just doing um civil improvements right now getting the site uh ready stubbing utilities and so looking for approval of this park design so they can go ahead with construction of residential units and park this is their park preliminary design so in this uh graphic that you're seeing North is oriented to the right so this is the 80 ft w wide by about 350 ft long you're seeing that Meandering path Wind Through the site creating some open field play areas some nice Landscaping um it will have standard Park Furnishings they're looking at some sort of um seat wall lighting um to help with some safety on site and then again having the town homes oriented facing towards the park it's really different than any of our parks

that we've designed in the sense that there will be um residential units each having access and kind of visual and eyes on the park so it'll be a really nice uh inter phase but it's typically um when we're designing our Parks we have you know one big public access to Parks this is a little different having the units directly oriented and facing the park so we've been working with them on all those design details we've been meeting and reviewing this with our park operations and maintenance team for about the last two years to come up with this design um looking at different fall surfacing um distances and you'll see in your packet you likely saw the results of our engaged Bellingham survey on the two different play nodes for this phase um where we landed in direction from the developer staff input from our design and development team um and Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was on this kind of Parkour bamboo jungle um play feature for older kids um we've gotten a lot of feedback that our parks are maybe um don't quite include enough for that um older kind of young adult teenage demographics so we're trying to start including some more of those features in our parks and then we have um more of a bouldering kind of climbing interactive feature um that's recommended for the other play node and these were um based on public input but also based on uh they wanted the developer and and working with us really felt as though there's going to be direct eyes on a park very close to

people's homes so really making sure that things are also kind of aesthetically pleasing that they fit with the natural surroundings and blend well with the park so that's why we ended up on these uh two recommended play uh area equipment so we're coming to you all today also to talk about the part name on your left is just a quick summary of our Park naming policy we created an engage Bellingham project page we posted the site sent mailers to all the residents of rora court and um solicited input on names we received around I think 143 unique name ideas and around 730 actual votes on those names you have the nine pages of names in your packet it so I have summarized those on the next slide um The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board met earlier or in December and went through the names discussed all the names and put forward a name recommendation so some of the frequent suggestions we got were that kind of Arctic or Northern themed name that follows the plat there's street names like snowfield and um Arctic so we had a slew of names that fall that theme we had a lot of place-based name ideas uh Memorial names and requesting that we consult with tribes for the naming of the park I have listed the top eight in terms of sheer just vote numbers you'll see some old favorites on there that we typically get with when we go out uh to the public for Park names um ultimately the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board really liked that kind of Arctic or Northern themed name and so they uh

recommended Northern Lights Park and so so we are bringing that forward uh to you all for a discussion and final approval thank you thank you very much Lane that that was a wonderful uh presentation and as I'm looking at these names I am really surprised that Kirkland's signature was anyway um now I'd like to have the committee discussed so uh council member Huffman thank you um yeah always fun to read through the suggested Park names I definitely had a couple Chuckles uh shout out to Sean sers for somehow getting 55 votes in one way or another um if you don't know Sean he's very much alive still so like the commemorative aspect was funny but um I think the the the name that Rose to the top is lovely uh so I will move approval okay it it's been moved to accept the recommendation any further discussion okay um any further discussion Michael just on the name uh do we have any other parks that have the word North in them I can't think of any off the top of my head is there any North Ridge Park oh North Ridge thank you okay are there any further questions or discussion points seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor please say I I all opposed motion carries Michael this didn't have to do with the name uh can I just bring up some other point of discussion well we're at the end of our meeting time okay okay um seeing no further business seeing no further business the committee meeting is adjourned thank you com my