Staged shot: No actual child was disappointed in the production of this illustration of Lowell Elementary’s locked playground gates.
There’s so much Capitol Hill greenspace news that’s it’s practically becoming a CHS beat. Here’s a round-up of the latest news.
- Minus one more parking lot: Seattle Parks tells CHS that Friday is the final day for parking in the Diamond pay lot at Summit and John. At 3 PM Friday, the parking lot will be shut down and preparations for constructing the new park will begin. Parks couldn’t provide information on how the naming process for the park will play out. You might recall the controversy that arose after Parks announced that the new open space would be called Perugia Park.
- City Council vote on Federal/Republican acquisition: As CHS contributor tco noted here, the City Council’s parks committee last week discussed proceeding on the acquisition of the lot at Federal and Republican for a new Capitol Hill Park. We’ve been reporting on some of the difficulties Parks has faced in trying to work out a deal for the land that was once planned as an ‘urban townhome’ project. The full City Council will vote on the acquisition next week, Parks tells CHS. Community members are working to rally support for the acquisition and to get people to show up at City Hall and speak on the project’s behalf using this FedRep Park Yahoo Group.
Lowell playground access: We also got to the bottom of an issue that came up in the discussions about the Federal at Republican lot. Several of you wondered why neighbors no longer had access to the playground at Lowell Elementary School. We contacted Seattle Public Schools for the scoop. Spokesperson Teresa Wippel said the school had to work out a community solution for access to the playground because of what she called inappropriate uses. “In the past, the playground has been used by homeless and transient in non school hours who have left behind things like needles and condoms,” Wippel told CHS. “As a result of that, they got a combo padlock for the gate.” Wippel said that the school had worked out a plan for a person who lived nearby to provide the combo for neighbors and community members in the area. Wippel said a sign posted at the playground let people know how to gain access to the play equipment. Since then, however, Wippel said the sign disappeared and somebody took the combination lock so they school has resorted to locking the gate again. But there’s good news! Wippel tells CHS that Lowell officials would like to replace the combo lock — if they can find a neighbor willing to take on combo-keeper duties. Interested? Call the Lowell office at (206) 252-3020. Update: No more calls, we have a winner. CHS is told that the sign with access info will be replaced soon. Happy playground.- Seven Hills ready this summer: CHS last week featured a picture of the start of construction on the Seven Hill Park project at 16th and Howell. Parks awarded the construction contract to AGR Contracting. Construction started March 22 and is scheduled to be completed by mid-July.
Thanks much to Parks spokesperson Joelle Hammerstad for helping to gather the information in this update.
The fencing for the park is already up with a gate to let cars in and out. A ZipCar employee was there around 2 taking away their signs. Loots like this parking lot is really going….
Cool. Thanks for the update
Does anyone know the history behind the closure? I’m curious as to what other measures were taken before closing the playground and turning over the keys to a neighbor. Normally, when a park or playground experiences this type of issue it’s not closed but instead community and police involvement increases to combat the issue. I’m wondering what special circumstances are/were in play to make this the solution of choice.
Agreed: the land and the playground equip, according to one source, doesn’t belong to the school district at all.
So what’s the full story, CHS journalistas?
Got some news from parks dept. “The Parks committee of the City council was fully supportive of intent to acquire the property for a park. The legislation will go in front of the full council next Monday granting us the authority to acquire. Now we just need to come to agreement with the landowner.”
We’ve been capitol hill neighbors and lowell parents for 6 years. Before the gates/locks we would find human excrement, needles, condoms, broken bottles in the playground and courtyard. Some mornings we’d have to keep the kids off the playground while we called the police to remove a transient person sleeping there. We did ask police to step up patrols but they couldn’t be there 24/7 and it doesn’t take that long to shoot up, have sex or poop! It’s just too unsafe for kids in kindergarten through 5th grade who are very curious to have that kind of stuff around. I am glad that there is a neighbor who can open it up for local families and have it locked otherwise
I hate to see this playground locked. I’m all for fenced playgrounds, but locked isn’t right (and having that lock’s combo/key held ransom so only those with cell phones get to play in the park – seems, dare I use the word… elitist)
Hmmm I’m also worried about the weasel words. ‘local families’? ‘those kinds of things’? ‘police couldn’t be there 24/7’ [well of course not; that’s not actually their job] [and: All kids of all ages are curious.]
‘Park safety’, if we can agree to call the problems that, is actually solved fairly well by one part good design and one part proactive community involvment.
So,
What crimewatch/blockwatch meetings were there? What walkthroughs / community patrols were done? What activities were scheduled into late hours to keep the park/playfield occupied? What lighting was set up to discourage illegal activity [ or, was there in fact, opposition to adding lighting by the neighbors across the street? And opposition to late night sports for the same selfish reason? And no effort on the part of the neighborhood to do community patrolling (the way greenwood did during their arson problems)…?].
More practically: Don’t suppose anyone’s tried leaving it unlocked since…? Seems to me if it’s been locked for years, then the folks you’re blaming would be long out of habit of trying to use it (or for that matter, no longer in the neighborhood or passed on). Right?
See, the odd thing is, Miller playground, Cal Anderson playground, Montlake, etc aren’t having the need to fence off and lock the public open space/playgrounds. Why then this playground? Is there no lighting?
And again I must ask: what’s the real true facts on the ownership of this land? I can’t even find anything saying it’s owned by Seattle PS – It’s not, is it?
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/tellleoonce/4613210094/
Has the contact sign been posted and removed? Any word on who actually owns the land?