A grassroots group is actively working to breathe new life into a Porcupine park.
Tuesday, Timmins council approved creating two residential lots at Melview Park and support a community group's efforts to turn the "uninspiring" space into the Porcupine Commons.
Melview Park is located behind the Porcupine Mall and can be accessed from Michener Boulevard and Eric Crescent.
A section of the park has been declared surplus in order to create two lots that are 50 feet wide and 100 feet deep. The lots are on the west side of the park that fronts Michener Boulevard. That leaves about 86 feet on the east side to develop a parking lot.
There is no fixed price for the lots and they will be sold through a public tender process, said Dave St. Onge, community development planner.
“We do not have a lot of land available for developing within subdivisions right now so we anticipate there will be some demand for the lots, especially in Porcupine,” he said.
Friends of Melview Park is a group of residents who live behind the Porcupine Mall. They got together in the summer and were inspired to transform Melview Park into the Porcupine Commons, said Carly Stringer, who talked to council on behalf of the group.
The group's preliminary estimate of the cost for all of the features in the proposal is $420,000.
The city is not being asked to foot the bill.
“The idea is we want to raise the money, we want to be involved in the design, we don’t really want to handle the money and it’s a public asset,” Stringer told council.
The money would be raised through larger corporate donations and grant applications.
The ask of the city, said Stringer, is to support the vision, work where it's appropriate to obtain grants, have the city accept donations and write tax receipts, and follow the city bylaws to procure materials and services for the construction of the park.
Depending on when funding can be accessed, she said it could be a two-phased project starting in 2022.
“In the event we’re not as successful as we hope we will be, the nice thing about this is we can scale. If we don’t raise enough money, we don’t get all the nice shiny things we want. The idea is that we can proceed once we have a sense of what the funding is going to look like,” said Stringer.
What will it look like
Currently, Stringer said Melview Park is an "uninspiring public space". The vision for Porcupine Commons is an area inspired by nature that encourages long visits, social engagement and is accessible.
The proposal includes an accessible parking area, a trail with compacted gravel, benches, trees and shaded areas.
A community connections area would have a pavilion with small stage area and seating. There's a discovery area for junior visitors where the group envisions a slide built into a grassy embankment with stairs and an attached area with stepping stumps, she said. An adventure zone for older children would have a logjam climber, wobble boards, balancing bars, accessible rope swing with saucer, and a log swing that allows for a bigger group.
The existing basketball court and open space would stay and a sensory garden for neurodiverse visitors would be added.
The basketball pad was slated to be renewed in 2022, at a price tag of $150,000. That was delayed to allow for the full plan to be determined.
“We’re not proposing mowing the lawn around this. Part of the idea here is to allow weeds and wildflowers to thrive and feed local pollinators as well. Hopefully, there will be enough kids running over it that they’ll just trample all the weeds,” she said.
Maintenance
Wood structures have lifespans of 15 to 50-plus years, according to comments from the acting manager and projects supervisor of facilities management Gerry Paquette in the report.
“In terms of concerns around the cost of maintenance, we’re already maintaining the space. It’s an under-utilized space so at least, I think that cost per use will be a little better in a proposed scenario,” said Coun. Michelle Boileau.
Now that the lots have been declared surplus, a public meeting can be scheduled to talk about the proposed park development.
