Use of "Parcel A" and Furlong Park
Updated: Sep 15
Hi folks,
I'm adapting the skeleton newsletter from last week to just speak to this opportunity with Furlong Park. Thank you to the 20-30 neighbors who showed up to our community meeting last week! Please continue to read below for updates.
Katelyn
Community Discussion on New Parcel Use along Furlong Park:
The Salem Park & Recreation Commission is considering a proposal from Juniper Point Investments (i.e. the Riverwalk Condo Development) to invest in the city owned land between Furlong Park and the Riverwalk Condo development. This land is presently being used as a construction staging area and was previously park of the junk yard. It is, however, legally, part of Furlong Park.
The current proposal is to build a small, ~10 space parking lot for public use (see Figure 2, below). This lot would be for public use.
In preliminary discussions with the developer, members of the Park & Recreation Commission, and City Staff, as the Ward 6 Councillor I advocated that this decision be made with as much public feedback as possible. It was agreed that we, as a neighborhood, would meet with the developer to discuss his proposal, as well as other potential ideas for use of this parcel. The goal is that the people in our neighborhood have direct influence on how, or even if, this vacant public land be developed, and that together, we can guide this potential project and ensure that the resulting use will best serve our community.
This discussion is an opportunity for community members to learn about the the potential plan, provide feedback to the Ward Councillor (hi, that's me!), and to help inform the conversation that the Park & Rec Commission will have at their September monthly meeting on the topic.
Please feel welcome to RSVP via the Facebook even, here, but all are welcome, regardless.
For a brief dive into my thoughts on there proposal, please consider the following. If the developer puts up a parking lot, we'd get some new off-street parking spaces (in the neighborhood of 9 or 10), but every taxpayer in the city would be on the hook for the maintenance - just like we are for the rest of our parking and roadways. This small addition would not be a lot of money, but its also not nothing, and I'd encourage the city to find a way to reasonably charge the people using these hypothetical spaces for the use. i.e. it'd be paid parking. This makes sure that all of us who will never park a car here aren't paying for it anyway, and it'd likely discourage people from storing cars there long-term (to keep them usable). Something to consider is how tourists could end up utilizing this, as well as potentially the neighbors during snow emergencies. Nothing is set in stone, and there would be details to iron out on the implementation.
So, if the neighborhood really wants the extra parking I'm all for it... but I want to make sure we understand the cost. Maintenance costs & opportunity costs.
Personally, I'd love to see us utilize this space for another use. I serve as the Council Liaison to the Salem Food Policy Council, and I'm keenly aware of the issues around food access in our city. Even on former junk yard land, we may be able to put up some raised beds and utilize this land to grow free food, and/or herbs, for the neighborhood. Throw a gazebo in there and we could have a really nice, welcoming, space instead. I feel like we all deserve to have more of those.
Finally, and this is a really nit-picky point but I'm going to make it anyway, I think the location of the proposed path is in a useless space. Their proposal is the same in Fig 1 &2 and connects the river-walk pathway to the (new!) sidewalk on Franklin St. via the southern end of Furlong park (right beyond that stand of trees beyond the Left Field line). My thought is that, instead, we should be extending that path into Furlong Park and connect it near the pavilion. This is the main path through the park, and it would effectively connect the 2 river-adjacent pathways, rather than letting the ball field separate them. See Figure 3 for a visual of this proposal. Especially if we end up putting parking in there, I don't see people using the proposed pathway and it'd just end up being a waste of money.
Next Steps
On September 8th we had a community meeting at Furlong Park where 20-30 neighbors joined me, the Riverwalk Condo developer Marc Tranos, and the Chair of the Park & Rec Commission James Shea, to discuss the potential plan. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us!! After some discussion on the parking lot proposal, the group unanimously agreed that a parking lot is not the best use of this opportunity for the neighborhood. This is a clear statement from the neighborhood that I fully support, and will strongly advocate for to the Park & Rec Commission.
So, here's roughly what we're looking at for next steps:
We heard from James Shea that this topic would be on the agenda for the Park & Rec Commission on September 15th, however, after a brief discussion with the Superintendent of Park, Recreation & Community Services, I learned that there is some confusion with a legal dependency. I'm working to clarify this with the city's Legal department.
So, there will be an opportunity to speak on this project at the September 15th Park & Rec meeting, and pending my discussions with the Legal and Recreation Departments, it will likely be on the formal agenda for the October Park & Rec Commission meeting.
I have also strongly advocated that we, as a neighborhood, should be leading the process to determine what exactly this parcel opportunity ends up as. As discussed at the community meeting, my hope is that we can work with the Riverwalk folks, and the city, to create and implement a specific proposal for the space that serves us best. I'm working to identify relevant entities, organizations, and volunteers, that can provide resources for our neighborhood and help identify what's possible in this space.
Please stay tuned for updates as I have them!
