Residents of Springwater Park are closer to having a neighborhood park within jogging distance.
The City Council recently approved a conceptual design plan for a park in the Springwater area, west of Geneva Road. But residents won't be able to send their children off to play at the park any time soon.City Manager Daryl Berlin said the city does not have money set aside this year for building the park. It will be included in next year's budget for consideration. A typical park costs approximately $450,000 to build, Berlin told the Deseret News.
The five-acre park is bounded by the Springwater Park residential area on the north, and 1000 South, the road to the sewer treatment plant, on the south. A six-acre vacant parcel and landscaped buffers around the park will shield it from the plant.
Although the treatment plant isn't much of a visual eyesore, it stinks sometimes.
"When the wind's just right and they're doing some things, we can still smell it occasionally," said Gary Maag, who served as chairman on the neighborhood park design committee. "I'm real concerned still that the city's doing everything it can to keep the smell down."
The city plans to build a new sludge facility that as a side benefit will further decrease smells from treated waste.
Maag and other committee members worked with Recreation Director Jerry Ortiz over the past two years to design the park.
As designed it includes a softball field (which can double as a football or soccer field), a volleyball court, a basketball court, a toddler play area, two horseshoe pits and a tennis court.
The park also would include four small pavilions and one large pavilion. A walking/jogging path will loop around the park.
The plan shows an entrance to the park from Artesian Drive, a street that runs through the Springwater neighborhood. However, one council member pushed for a more public access to the park from 1000 South.
Councilman Keith Hunt acknowledged residents' desires for an essentially private park but said, "I think it's inappropriate to put public funds into a park where you've deliberately made it difficult to get to."
Mayor Stella Welsh agrees that the park will need a more public access.
Residents of Springwater Park adamantly oppose an access to the park from 1000 South because the road and the area around the treatment plant tend to draw carousing and misbehaving juveniles. Friday night, for example, police chased a person in a stolen car to the area; the person abandoned the car and took off on foot, Maag said.
"There were cops out there with spotlights," Maag said. "That happens quite a bit. I'd rather not not have a park if we had to have an entrance from 10th South."
Residents will be able to keep an eye on who's using the park if they're required to drive through the neighborhood, Maag said.