Richmond Hill residents disappointed by changed park plan at Jefferson

Flood Farmstead Park is planned on a currently vacant lot south of Jefferson Sideroad

Yorkregion.com
May 29, 2019
Sheila Wang

The Spanos have been waiting for a park in their neighbourhood for a long time, but when it is finally happening, they realized it is not going to be the way they wanted it.

A brand-new park -- Flood Farmstead Park -- is planned on a currently vacant lot south of Jefferson Sideroad and west of Yonge Street as part of a new infill subdivision of Richmond Hill.

Having had to drive her four children to various parks to play tennis for years, Santino Spano, a 15-year Richmond Hill resident, said her family and the neighbours were excited about the park which would have picnic areas, playgrounds, a mulch trail, and most importantly, a tennis court.

The neighbourhood park, named after the Flood family who owned and farmed the property for 90 years, is among the six new parks that Richmond Hill plans to build in the near future.

Excitement turned into disappointment this March when Spano came across an updated park plan on the city’s website where the tennis court has been replaced with a basketball/multi-sports court among other things.

“Why?” Spano asked. “The community wanted tennis.”

She later learned that the changed plan was a result of public engagement last December.

The city conducted an online survey and an open house session in the neighbourhood, providing mockups of the new park and asking resident what they would like to see.

About half of them wanted a tennis court and the rest of them preferred a multi-use court, said Patrick Lee, Richmond Hill's director of policy planning.

“We kind of go back to best practices and procedures and standards when there is no clear neighbourhood directions for one use or the other,” he added. “It became clear from the efficiency standpoint to provide the basketball/multi-use court.”

Spano is not sold on it. Neither are the more than 100 residents in the neighbourhood who have signed their names on a petition to call on the city to keep the tennis court.

“The original plan was based on the survey result that shows that the community wanted tennis. This is a quiet local neighbourhood park that suits a tennis court and there are many children and adults in the area that play tennis,” Spano told The Liberal.

Back in late 2017, the city consulted the residents through an online survey during the predesign phase. The result indicated that a majority of correspondents would like to have a tennis court in the park.

“It’s more than just putting stuff in the park that residents want,” Lee said. “There is an attempt by the city that’s trying to provide an even geographic spread of various uses as well as understanding the needs of the local neighbourhoods.”

A tennis court can only allow two or four people to play at one time, and more people are able to utilize a multi-use sports court for a variety of sports such as basketball, road hockey and skateboard, Lee explained.

“Yet there is no demand there,” Spano said, citing the Richmond Hill Parks Plan which states multi-use courts “are to be installed at appropriate locations in response to demand."

Spano suspected the changed park plan was largely due to a petition submitted last December where 36 residents asked the city to remove the tennis court and replace it with a playground and basketball court and make changes on the seating area and trails.

However, the petition was “flawed,” and “misleading,” and did not represent the majority, she said.

To further prove her point, the longtime resident went above and beyond to seek opinions of the residents of two communities, the existing Townwood Community and the new Heathwood Community, from which Spano says she learned the majority were in favour of the tennis court as originally proposed.

“The city is not listening and city councillors and the mayor are not supporting the majority or helping us with this fight at all,” Spano wrote to The Liberal on May 8 after numerous attempts to ask the city to keep the tennis court in the park for the past two months.

The city did not budge. Construction is planned to start in July and the new park is expected to be complete by late fall, without a tennis court.

“We’ve made our decision. It was a tough one. We realize we’ll make half the people happy and half the people not happy,” Lee said.

“This is not acceptable and makes no sense. Why not leave the plan as it was and make the majority happy?” Spano said.