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Originally Posted by Keith P.
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Thanks for sharing the link... I took a read through this morning (a bit annoying that you have to download each document separately). I didn't get the same sense for all of the items about which you have concerns:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
...
It would appear the desire of HRM Planning is to eliminate the existing ball diamonds, plant a bunch of trees, construct several buildings, force out the Bengal Lancers, get rid of the Public Gardens greenhouses, and create a "Great Lawn" among other things. A great deal of it sounds like changing things for the sake of spending money. Hopefully this will get derailed.
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I don't have a sense of how many diamonds are currently there and what the optimal number are. I get that there should be a balance - i.e. the Common should balance structured activities like cricket and ball leagues with unstructured activities - but I can certainly see how this might be alarming. The casual sense I have is that the ball diamonds are well used (at least for the brief period we have weather that supports it!)
Planting a bunch of trees doesn't seem heinous to me.
New buildings I saw included a replacement of the existing Pavilion, relocation of the greenhouses and maintenance building, and a new field house at Wanderer's Grounds... instead of "construct several buildings," it's replace five (the Pavillion, one maintenance building and three greenhouses) and build one new (the field house). The Pavillion needs replacement, and it looks to me like relocating the maintenance building and greenhouses makes some potential for better use of space by the public on the Wanderers Grounds.
I didn't catch the part about forcing out the Bengal Lancers.
Public Gardens' greenhouses are shown on the Wanders Grounds page... Note "5" in the legend is identified as "Parks Maintenance and Greenhouse Complex."
I assume the "Great Lawn" is part of the attempt to introduce a greater variety of spaces to support unstructured uses. The moniker is a bit eye roll-y at this point, but the only issue I see with this is related to whether the balance is tipped too far away from the structured uses of the Common.
A growing city needs a well loved and well used central space. I don't know if this gets there, but I'm glad someone's finally looking at it. It's undervalued at the moment (in my opinion) and deserves some investment (although, maybe we don't need 29 games tables at the northwest corner of the North Common?).