Long-awaited Longview Park to include trails, playground

Larry Purvis said he and his neighbors are looking forward to the development of a park this spring in their west-Columbia neighborhood.

“We’re all pretty excited about it,” said Purvis, a six-year resident who is also president of the Longview Homeowners Association.

The Longview Park would lie along the eastern boundary of the neighborhood, which is south of Gillespie Bridge Road. Access to the park would be just west of the entrance to the city’s sewer treatment plant.

Plans for the park are a product of two neighborhood planning meetings that the city’s parks staff had in the fall of 2005 with residents of the area, Parks and Recreation Director Mike Hood said in a memo to the City Council.

“They had come out and given us their proposals,” Purvis said. “After three initial proposals, they decided to go with the one they have now.”

The plan includes trails, a small nonreversible picnic shelter, a basketball half-court, a small playground and an open playfield. The city staff is also recommending a temporary trail easement, which would address concern about access to the park, along the future extension of Lisa Lorane Drive that would serve as the primary access to the park from the west.

Hood said in his memo that delays in the development of the park stemmed from concern about designs that would have placed some parts of the park too close to neighbors’ decks and porches.

Purvis said a small number of residents in the 76-home neighborhood were concerned that walking paths would be too close to their homes, but feelings about the park overall are positive.

“All of the (residents) I’ve talked to about it are excited,” he said. “Only a couple were concerned.”

He also said that some residents thought people from other areas might come to the park. However, Purvis said city staff assured them that Longview residents would be the primary users because other people have parks much closer to them.

“Traffic would be my only concern,” said Gary Cramer, who has lived in the 2600 block of Gabriana Court in the Longview area for five years. “I don’t mind there being a park and trails. I’ll probably use them.”

It will cost about $124,000 to develop the park. Most of the money would come from the city’s voter-approved parks sales tax; city staff will build the picnic shelter, do the landscaping and construct the trails and basketball court.

The park proposal will come before the City Council for a public hearing and final approval on Feb. 19.