Santa Clara / River Road Draft Parks Plan

After over a year  of well attended Eugene Park and Open Spaces planning meetings we had a light crowd on hand at last Thursday’s SCCO meeting to review the city’s version of park proposals for Santa Clara and River Road.  Fortuneately, most of  what is in the draft plan is what we have been focusing on.

• Build a new community center and pool facility in Santa Clara
• Acquire additional land and develop Santa Clara Community Park as the community park for this subarea.
• Build six new neighborhood parks on land already owned and identified for parks (Wendover Park, Bobolink Park, Ferndale Park, Terra Linda Park, Ruby Park and Lone Oak Park).
• Add specialty recreation amenities to sub-area, including: a dog park , a spray play feature at Santa Clara Community Park, and a community garden.
•  Acquire three to five new neighborhood park sites in underserved areas and develop them.
• Seek opportunities to acquire and provide access to large natural areas providing habitat and transportation/trail connectivity on the north side of Eugene.
• Build new segments of paved shared use paths that connect to the West Bank Path and along Division Avenue, totaling approximately 2 miles. For locations see, the Eugene Transportation System Plan, Bicycling Projects Map.
• Build new soft surface trails, totaling approximately 10 miles. For locations see, Eugene Trails Plan:
  • Continue the West Bank Path, north of Beltline, in partnership with current property owners;
  • Seek opportunities to develop a “farm belt” bike/pedestrian corridor and destination site to connect Eugene with nearby agricultural sites. Explore options to provide farm-related programming at city-owned or partner site.
  • A running trail that runs parallel to West Bank Path; and
  • A running trail at Santa Clara Community Park.
• Acquire Willamette Riverfront property north of Beltline to increase recreation opportunities and access to the river and nature for residents in Santa Clara.

See the full Draft here.  This draft is as of Nov 7th.

Note that the final bullet point would honor the portion of the 2006 bond where bond money was supposed to include purchase of acreage along the Willamette north of Belt Line, and be used to purchase from only 60 to 100 acres of Ridgeline trail.  Arlie Park alone is 516 acres.

City staff will be finalizing drafts from six different areas of town and then presenting them to city council.  We will have more opportunities for input in the future.

Thanks to all who have attended  meetings, filled out surveys and otherwise helped in our park planning.  The draft plan looks good and now we need to see how it gets prioritized when it is combined with the other areas of Eugene.  All six sub-area draft plans can be found here.