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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-03-04 - MinutesFAYETTE E CITY OF FAYETTEVIIIE. ARKANSAS DEPARTMENTAL DENCE TO: PARKS AMD RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD FROM: DALE D CLARK, PARKS AND RECREATION DIRECTOR DATE 11M4-4 I ttb SUBJECT: PRAB MEETING ON MONDAY MARCH 4, 1996 AT 5:30 PM IN ROOM 219 OF THE CITY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING I. Approval of PRAB minutes - February 5, 1996 Regular meeting - February 12, 1996 Special Meeting II. Jefferson Playground - Jefferson Student Council (Denise Airola) • III. Report on Fayetteville Senior Center IV. Report on PRAB Park Tour - Richards V. HMR Budget Proposal - Waite VL Other Business 56.46 • • • PRAB REGULAR MEETING MARCH 4, 1996 The meeting was called to order by Bill Waite at 5:30 pm in room 219 of the City Administration Building. Members Present: Members Absent: Reason Absent: Staff Present: Media Present: Guests Present: Ackerman, Driver, James, Mackey, McCutcheon, James, and Richard Stone Stone - out of town Clark, Dugwyler, Orzek Northwest Arkansas Times, Michelle Todd Morning News, Bill Bowden Norman Koehring (COA), Daryl Rantis (architect), Betty Turner (COA), Andy Lucas (COA Board) I. MOTION:WAITE/DRIVER The minutes from the approved unanimously 7-0. February 5, 1996 PRAB meeting were The minutes from the February 12, 1996 Special meeting were approved unanimously 7-0. II Jefferson Playground - Jefferson Student Council (Denise Airola) WAITE - Denise Airola will be scheduled in April agenda and not today. III. Report on Fayetteville Senior Center Turner - We have had this before you in the past and there are several things we wanted to talk to you about tonight. Introduced Daryl Rantis, an architect and he will fill you in on the changes. Rantis - I want to go over the changes with you from when you have seen it last. We have added adult day care and area agency on • aging and offices in the existing residence. We also added parking to accommodate the adult day care and a shed to store tools for the community gardens. Those are the major changes since you have seen it last. The project is on Walker Park/Archibald Yell site. We have decided to keep the house site in tact and add these buildings where the barns existed so we added the agricultural buildings. We kept everything on the same contour. We preserved the large trees on the south and the only trees we will disturb will be on the hedgerow. The house has administrative services separated from the Senior Center. The second floor will have a caretakers unit. This is an Adult Day Care facility. We are going to survey to see exactly where the slave graves are to make sure we don't run into those. There is an assessable walking trail and a small pavilion in the woods, sign age up front to help Seniors to cross traffic, and an existing orchard that we are going to bring back with ornamental plants/trees. Garden plots will be able to be used by the Seniors. If the Seniors don't use them up, we are hoping to rent them to the community - community garden. Building was designed to be energy conscience. Mackey - Is the operation used 24 hours per day or is it just a daylight operation? Rantis - Daylight. Mackey - Is there water aerobics? Turner - Not at this point. • James - Will there be a separate entrance for the maintenance man staying in the home? He will be living upstairs? Rantis - He has a staircase in the back. He also will be able to observe the entrance to the facility. The building also takes advantage of collected rainwater to irrigate all the plants and the planters. The landscaping will be using native plants that will require very little irrigation - environmentally sensitive. Ackerman - Any changes in your construction costs. Rantis - Yes. We have added. Ackerman - Still within the budgeting numbers that we had? Rantis - It has been added. Ackerman - When is the date of construction? Rantis - We are hoping for August and completion within a year and two months. Ackerman - okay. Waite - Is this going to be phased? Rantis - Yes. Phase I, II, and the Adult Day Care being a phase and the office would be the fourth priority. Waite - What do you expect to start in August? Turner - Our primary concern is the Senior Center and the parking lot (Phase I). Driver - Do you have the funding to complete Phase I? Turner - We think so. We are looking into additional funding. • McCutcheon - Would you please talk about the number, people, etc... • Turner - The Senior Center that we have now is on Sang Avenue and • has absolutely no parking after the program vans are there. We anticipate the attendance in the Senior Center along will quadruple from 30 to 40 people. The day care, at the present time, varies daily from 15 to 18 people. We are licensed for 20. I expect around 26 at the new one and I expect it to be full. We will also be providing the home delivery meal from this facility. Koehring - We deliver over a hundred meals per day at this point. Turner - We expect an explosion of Seniors in the next few years and this facility will handle future needs. We see this facility as being adequate for the next fifty years, we hope. Sang will be transferred over to be a meal transfer center - about 500 meals per day by the county. Clark - Please speak about the facility on Wood Avenue. Koehring - It is the Area of Aging owns the property on Wood Avenue and we rent space from them for the Adult Day Care facility. The Area of Aging wants to dispose of that property and move in offices near our facility. They are helping us considerably with the finances on this project. Every state has federal funds funneled down to them for aging programs. Every state, through the Department of Human Services, set up Area of Aging with in their area. In Arkansas, there are eight separate agencies. We contracted to do that in Washington county and we have to renew that contract every three years. • Clark - Is who's name will the facility be in? Koehring - We would anticipate that it would be in the City's name and hold the deed. We are just promoting the project for our Senior Citizens. Rantis - There are a few other things I would like to bring up. I wanted to make sure that everyone is clear on the maintenance agreement that the Park's will provide the mowing of the area, which we discussed in a meeting recently. Our next step is to vacate the easements on the property. We have to create a legal description of the property. We are looking to square off the property for parking lot purposes. Driver - What is the purpose of vacating the easements? Rantis - There are a number of lots that were flagged residential and a few roads too. Therefore, there were easements given to the utilities, but none of the utilities were ever ran. So we have to go through a formality of vacating those before we can proceed on a large scale. Driver - What year was that done? Turner - 1960's. Driver Clark, have you looked at the redrawing of this to see how it meshes with the additional parking? Clark - Yes, there is absolutely no conflict. The property was plated as a subdivision. They should be willing to vacate the easements. • Driver - What do we need to do to formalize this? Rantis - I am not sure about that. What we will do is do a legal description squaring the property off. When we go to vacate the • easements, that is what we will show. The lot lines will still exist, but the roads and the utilities will be vacated. Waite - Clark, is there much we need to do? Clark - I will have to get with the legal department. I don't think there is much for us to do. Waite - I don't see much problem since the City owns the property. Clark - I think it would have to come before City Council since it is a legal thing with the utility company. Waite - Rantis, find out what you need to do and we can go to the city attorney, then I don't see a problem. Rantis - The final thing that we are here for this evening, is to get your approval to send off for large scale development. We have to go through vacating easements before we can send off for large scale development. Driver - We have pledged about the maximum we can. We do understand that you do have additional phases. When you are asking for this Board's approval to proceed to large scale development, are you asking this Board to commit more of the Park's resources? Rantis - No. When anything comes up for large scale development, I understand that Park's looks at it as money in lieu or green space. I am asking to waive certain fees. We are asking for your approval on behalf of the Park's Department. Waite - I don't see a problem with a fee waiver as long as it is • City property. I don't see that fees would be in order. Driver - What is your current funding structure? Turner - $350,000 Council of Aging, $350,000 City of Fayetteville Community Development, and $500,000 Parks & Recreation over a two year period. That is what we have at this point. We are just now trying to get private pledges. Driver - What other sources are there? Turner - We are looking into grants. McCutcheon - What is the total anticipated cost? Turner - 2.5 million. Waite - Do you have sufficient funds for the first phase? Turner - Funds committed should cover phase I. Mackey - Private donations would be tax deductible, right? Turner - yes they would. Mackey - I move that the architect move forward with the large scale development plans and approach the Planning Commission with that. I also move that we waive the fees and vacation of all easements that are not necessary. James - Is everything squared away with Park's Department and the maintenance agreement? Clark - We would help with the ground maintenance, the normal mowing, not flower beds. We would not get into developing the building or maintaining flower beds. Waite - Do we have a second motion? • James - Second. • • • MOTION APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 7-0 Waite - Lucas, you didn't have to speak! Lucas - I am an observer. I am on the Council of Aging Board of Directors and I am also on a Sub -Committee to help raise the funds. Waite - Good luck and I would like to thank each of you. IV. Report of PRAB Park Tour - Richard Richard - many of us had the opportunity to visit several parks for some of the projects that are included in the HMR budget. I would like to recap of our field trip and sites we visited. We started off with Wilson Park and started with the new trail which seemed to have pretty heavy use. We did see the maintenance facility and met with Bob Braswell. We saw how cramped they are. They are under stress trying to provide maintenance out of a small facility. We did see the pool, which evidently needs a fair amount of maintenance. We are looked at the Castle. It is very interesting, as it is the only piece of art that we have in our Park. It is a unique sculpture, which also is in need of maintenance. It is a unique feature. We then went to Vandergriff School to look at our satellite Youth Center/Gym. It is about a week away from completion I think that facility is going to be a real potential for us as we do continue to develop it as a satellite Youth Center. We then went to Davis Park and looked at the grant area and the playground equipment. We went to Lake Fayetteville Park North and spent a fair amount of time looking out the fishing piers and construction the volunteers have been doing to make that area more assessable. We went to Lake Fayetteville South, soon I hope it will be named Veterans Memorial Park. Talked about the plans the local veterans have for the Fourth of July. We looked at the Greathouse Park bridge or what was left of the bridge. We ended up the tour at Walker Park. We saw a lot of soccer games going on. It had a lot of usage. We also visited the Senior Citizens site that we saw earlier in the presentation. We did have about a three hour tour and did have a chance to look at numerous facilities. I have three major take-aways that I would like to add. I encourage any of the Board Members to add to this. First, it really impressed me with the huge maintenance commitment that we have with the current facilities in place. Just the mowing and the maintenance of the structures, the allocation through HMR is very much needed. We saw some clear evidence of this need. I also saw the need to expand the maintenance facility and we also have a need for additional personnel. Second, I was really impressed by the contributions that the volunteers in our City are making to our Parks. Especially at Lake Fayetteville North where I saw what all the volunteers had accomplished on the fishing piers. I was also very impressed with all the work the Veterans have done at Lake Fayetteville South and how they have made a real dedication to reclaiming that Park for the use of all citizens in Fayetteville. I was very impressed by that. Finally, I was impressed with the huge potential that we have in our Parks. We still have a huge opportunity to provide recreational facilities for our citizens. We haven't even started to develop Lake Sequoyah Park yet. There is just a tremendous opportunity to continue and try to acquire additional land. Driver - If we knew that you could speak that well, we would have been making you do these reports all along. Waite - It is hard to add on to that. Driver - Many sentiments were relayed, while we were at Davis Park, on redesigning that Park. We would be interested in finding out exactly what would be involved to restore the pond and wetland area. We need some numbers attached to it to see if it is feasible. Waite - Clark, can we ask the City Engineer about that? Clark - He has been out there. I will go back to him for those answers or to another source to get the answers. Driver - A full appreciation of that property is not going to be possible until its design is restored from the condition it is in today. Clark - Let me re -visit with the City Engineers office or we will pursue it through other engineers. 110 Ackerman - We also toured the small lake acquisition that we recently attained. We might want to consider putting up a small fence to mark our boundary. It is a beautiful parcel of land. We need to look at that. Waite - Is the developer putting the trail in? Clark - The trail was not to be hard surfaced. It was just to be a path. Driver - They were going to install it and put gazebo(s). It might be good to talk to them. It provides a way for the children to walk straight to the Root School. Marking that would help them. Clark - Waite, one comment I would like to make on Richard's presentation is that we refer it as a Community Center at Vandergriff and Holcomb and to utilize those facilities in the near future. Hopefully, we can get some of our youth's basketball programs in those and get our season shortened considerably. We are trying to get some public meetings in both of those areas. Waite - We need to get those meeting scheduled as soon as possible. Clark - It would help with defining our role in conjunction with PTO meetings and the principal. Waite - PTO is fine as long as it is opened further than PTO meetings. Make it apparent that is for more than just children and school parents. James - It appears to me that we can't continue to put a Band-Aid • on our pool situation. In certain areas, it sounded like we were walking on eggshells at the pool where concrete was crumbling under • • • our feet. I know there was a major renovation over there several years ago. It seems if we don't do something in the near future we won't have a place for the kids to swim during the summer. It may take getting a pool somewhere else or creating a water park like over in Siloam Springs. Waite - We are looking at expenditures right now for that purpose around $30,000. Major funds are projected in the future. It is attractive to keep the pool there, if we can. Clark, do you see it feasible to renovate it. Do we need to start over on Wilson Pool? Clark - No, I don't think so. That would mean about 2 million dollars. It does need work. We did the last one in 1984. I don't know how much of the deck is bad until I get people in there to inspect it. The dressing rooms also needs to be addressed. Waite - Is there still a leaking problem? Clark - Leaking was not a problem this past year. We redid the filters and pumps. McCutcheon - How much was spent last time? Clark - $400,000 ? Not sure. Waite - $700,000 ? Not sure. Clark - Was a complete renovation. Waite - The leak was a major problem and very expensive. Clark - The attendance runs about 500 per day. The location is good. Waite - With the raising growth rate, it would be nice to have two facilities. I would like to see maintaining Wilson for many years. Clark - We need to discuss putting in small ones for neighborhoods or do we build large ones again. Driver - I would like to schedule another parks tour. We need to cover our new green space parks and more. Waite - How about one in April, June, July, and in August. Maybe have April being a Saturday morning and the summer months in the evening since it stays daylight longer. Ackerman - Clark, how does this effect you and your staff? Clark - No problem. Waite - How does the Board feel? Mackey - I prefer Saturday mornings. James - I prefer evenings. Dugwyler - Mackey, is there any night of the week that is better for you? Mackey - It depends on scheduling. Waite - It is going to take some negotiating. Nancy/Kim try to schedule as best as you can. Driver - No July since that will be the month for the Veterans Park dedication. Waite - Every other month would be good. We can shoot for a three hour minimum - more like a four hour total. • • • • V. HMR Budget Proposal Waite - This HMR proposal is going to City Council. There has been some changes on this. It required a decrease in the budget to roughly $900,000. We are postponing Greathouse bridge. There is a good reason for the postponement because the Core of Engineers is going to clean out the flood ways and make channel modifications. It would be premature for us to go in and build a bridge at this point. There are some modifications in the additional personnel. We will obviously not get them on board for the full year - so that was pro -rated over nine months. This brought us down. We voted on this as a subcommittee and now need to vote on it as a full committee now. Nancy - The number one item is the Walker Park Senior Complex and we have budgeted $225,000 for that facility and an additional $25,000 out of the green space funding to make a total of $250,000 commitment for that. Land Acquisition budgeted $250,000 used to place an option on a piece of property or to make a first years payment on a piece of property. Park improvements by lowering it to a eleven month budget - we came up with $193,000 for major maintenance projects and we have listed a few of those, but did not list the entire list because things come up and sometimes things cost more than budgeted for. Park maintenance - we are proposing that the City approve a 15% each years HMR's funds to be spent for additional maintenance equipment and maintenance personnel cost. That amounts to $132,000. Girls Softball Complex - $200,000 and the Advertising and Promotion Committee has committed $280,000 towards that. We also plan to use some green space funding for that Lake Fayetteville South - $50,000 to use for improvements to the trail. Community Centers - $50,000 to equip those buildings for use by the public. Driver - Did the Girls Softball Complex go out for bid? Clark/Dugwyler - It is still in the large scale development process. The plat review is Tuesday (tomorrow). Driver - I make a motion that we recommend this plan for the HMR Tax Expenditures go to City Council. Mackey - I second that motion. MOTION APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 7-0 Waite - When is the meeting scheduled for? Dugwyler - March 19, 1996 agenda • • • Vi. Other Business Waite - As I mentioned at the last meeting, we had a tour of the Weddington land adjacent to Leverett School. I did talk to school administration about that. At our last meeting, it was on low priority list because of the cost to develop that into any reasonable park. I contacted the school to see what their feeling were. Their feelings are much the same way. They are under a considerable amount of budgetary pressure themselves. They are not prepared in that endeavor right now. It might take a couple of years before they bring it up again. Ackerman - We are not interested and they need to seek other avenues. Waite - I will recommend that to them. Ackerman - On the tour we passed by the driving range near our Lake Fayetteville Park. Have we looked at that piece of real estate. it valuable to us? Clark - It has been a few years since we have addressed that piece of property. I can visit about that. Waite - I think it was very expensive. Clark I wanted to bring to your attention that City Council has a meeting tomorrow night. Their agenda has two items of ours on it - Lewis Street Soccer Complex concession/restroom and the renaming of Lake Fayetteville South to Veterans Memorial Park and pavilion. Total costs on those are right at $150,000 for both. James - Clark, you mentioned looking at the eastern side of the trail and get it marked. Clark - Last Wednesday. It turned out to be very cold so we backed out so we put it on the agenda for this Wednesday. Driver - It is supposed to rain Wednesday. Waite - Any other business? Meeting adjourned at 6:30 pm Minutes Approved en 3/9/9e) l��,' /sos Agcy 11E-c;TS CO A coq S