STEELE CREEK
Many Steele Creek residents say their community outgrew its neighborhood park at least two years from being built.
About 50 participants showed up Thursday at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church to hear plans for a public park in The Palisades, located on 110 acres directly across N.C. 49 from McDowell Nature Preserve. When they left, handfuls vowed everything from petitioning county commissioners and school board members to volunteering for county Park and Recreation committees.
“What about this area? Why are we coming up short here?” asked Jason Baker, president of the RiverPointe homeowners association.
Plans for The Palisades park shows two phases. The first, including an elementary school fronting N.C. 49 with a playground, play areas, three picnic areas and two walking loops - .75 miles and other one mile. A 2008 county bond referendum set aside $311,518 for that phase, initially planned for 2010.
“Right now we're sort of on hold with The Palisades' project,” said Paul Ornelas, capital program services with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, adding the earliest the school might open would be 2011. “We're kind of waiting like everybody else.”
The second phase includes a high school, football stadium, tennis courts and fields for baseball, soccer and multi-use. There is no funding or timeframe for when it might be complete.
“It's just a colored footprint on the site plan,” Ornelas said.
Both the 20-acre first phase and 90-acre second phase would be used by the community and the schools, however, park areas would be prohibited to the public during school hours. Half of the total property would be left undeveloped, with 100-foot buffers along each property line. The property came to Parks and Recreation and CMS from a 2001 Palisades zoning petition, with the land donated at no cost by now Rhein Medall Communities, Palisades developer.
“A neighborhood park is designed to be a walk-up park experience,” said Lee Jones with the Parks and Recreation. “There is a dwindling amount of space in Mecklenburg County. When we have areas that we hold near and dear to our hearts, we want to be really careful and be really good stewards of it.”
Many residents came with more questions than they left with answers, from why no more could be done with more than $300,000 for the first phase to whether skate parks or amphitheaters could be installed, or why the elementary school project took precedence over a new high school.
“You've got to feed all those people into somewhere,” said resident Joe Henderson. “You just keep feeding them into Olympic (High School). How old is that?”
David Nelson, project leader for Parks and Recreation, emphasized that little on the project is set in stone and the reason for Thursday's meeting was to hear community concerns. He also reminded guests that land for the schools and park came at no cost, meaning the project already exceeds what it would if his group had to purchase it.
“This is just a conceptual plan,” Nelson said.
Part of the expense for the first phase, said CMS senior facilities architect Vicki Saville, comes from the 70-foot drop in elevation.
“Everything we do we need to make accessible for everybody,” she said.
As for how the high school or football stadium might compare within the county, Saville knows no more than the residents.
“It hasn't been designed, so we don't know because it hasn't been paid for,” she said.
Yet residents discussed options like paying for park improvements themselves, hoping to avoid a “neutral impact” of a park no one uses.
More meetings about the plan will be scheduled, and project leaders say they want as much input as possible on what should be included. For more information, call 704-336-8455 or e-mail david.nelson@mecklenburgcountync.gov.
