Community input on where to put such Dolores Park improvements as bathrooms, paths and picnic tables — or whether to make them at all — came to a close Thursday night with resounding agreement on one item: more bathrooms near the basketball court.
But decisions about how else to spend the $7.9 million in renovation funds set aside for Dolores Park will now move from the community to city planners. Their findings will be presented on August 25.
“We have 12 groups and 13 votes for a bathroom” next to the basketball court, said landscape architect Steve Cancian, who has been facilitating the workshop sessions since the process began earlier this summer.
No one could explain the extra vote, but a bathroom near the courts appears to be guaranteed. It was the only point of consensus after a two-hour-plus meeting of 100 park users at Everett Middle School.
Divided into 12 groups, members of the public who attended the meeting had a chance to discuss and promote their suggestions for the third time this summer. One contingent argued that, because the park has historical significance, any changes should be minimal. Others wanted radical change — a redesigned promenade, new tennis courts and pissoirs.
Here’s what the discussions sounded like.
“Bathrooms should go next to the playground. Kids gotta go when they gotta go,” said a mother of two.
“It would be a good idea NOT to have the drunks using the bathrooms next to the children’s playground,” replied a man.
And then there was the question of how to bring the park into compliance with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and make it accessible to all.
“Do we really need to make an ADA route through the north field? It will disrupt the frisbee players,” said one community member.
“We need to make the park ADA accessible, but I guess you can make an argument for people to go around it,” answered another.
“The hills around the park are too steep,” argued someone else.
An eyewitness countered: “I’ve seen people with power chairs go up those hills with no problem.”
Then it was back to the bathrooms.
“We should build a pissoir so there are more bathrooms for women,” said a woman.
“Our pissoir subcommittee will look at that,” promised Cancian.
There were moments in which chaos seemed about to erupt, but Cancian, a veteran of such meetings, kept fruitless arguments short by keeping public comments short.
Where paths and routes will be cut, picnic tables placed and porta-potties installed all remained a mystery at the end of the meeting.
One person’s view was another’s nightmare.
“Let’s discuss picnic tables on the west side of the park, there are excellent views there,” said a man. “Putting a picnic table there would be a terrible idea,” a woman said — although it wasn’t clear why.
“We just don’t want to have porta-potties, ever,” said another woman, and on that she appeared to have support.
Cancian and his planners will now try to parse what makes the most sense and what will make a majority of users happy. Their decisions, along with the designs for the Dolores Park promenade, will be presented to the public in late August.
I have to agree with Octavio, it was hard to see much community consensus at last nights Dolores Park workshop. We were working in a dozen small groups and turned in our results in two ways. Each group sent a spokesperson up to placed tokens on a common map. Sometimes we voted more then once. In the case of the restrooms, our group put a token near the basketball court and by the playground. And in the end we may have two buildings for restrooms in Dolores.
Each of the twelve groups turned in there own maps and worksheets. The architects would like to review all of these notes before coming up with alternative designs.
I believe we are make progress. What coud be improved is a more clear statement from the design team of how far we have come in the design process. I think the community is ready to see some proposed sketches.