Community has passionate discussion about design of Stieper Park

In a community meeting last week, residents made a strong push for a new park on the Stieper family’s former property at 771 North Rengstorff Ave. that preserves the land’s natural wooded environment, with new gardens and the city’s historic Immigrant House.

Well over 50 people attended the meeting at the Senior Center the evening of March 5, and there appeared to be agreement that the 1.2-acre park should not have the parking lots and grass turf that is typical of most parks in the city. Even adding a children’s playground didn’t seem like a particularly popular idea.

Instead, residents said it would be better — even for their children — to preserve the fruit trees and gardens on the property, while adding more garden elements to the design with some benches and other features that would not detract from the place as a “wooded sanctuary.” Parents said they’d rather take the opportunity to educate their children about history and the way food is grown. And many said they wanted to save the bees — the Stieper family left many hives on the property, which are still active, city staff say.

Instead of a playground, resident Deb Henigson said “let me teach my daughter about all the trees” in the park, which is largely shaded by 164 trees, including those bearing apricots, figs, avocados, peaches, apples, oranges and plums.

After working to preserve the former home to her grandparents when it was located downtown on Bryant Street, Marina Marinovich was relieved that no one suggested using the small Immigrant House as anything but a period-correct display of life for 1880s migrant workers. The tiny structure is currently in a city storage yard and is slated to be restored and moved into the new park. She suggested it go to the rear of the site, facing north.

“I find a lot of wisdom in the way they laid out the property,” Marinovich said, in a sentiment echoed by many others. “This is going to be the easiest park you’ve ever designed, because it’s already there. Every inch of this property is like a precious jewel.”

“I would love to just go here and meditate,” Marinovich said. “Let’s let the bees be the busiest thing on the property.”

Many residents said similar things. One resident who confessed to trespassing on the property said he wanted to “try and preserve the character of what is already there” while another said he wanted the park to be “a 100 percent passive” space.

“We definitely don’t want lawn — we have that in almost every other park,” said resident Alison Hicks.

One person at the meeting suggested that parking would be necessary for people interested in helping with gardening, but many others immediately disagreed, saying the park should be mostly for the neighborhood and those who chose to walk or bike there. “I don’t want to add parking spaces, but it would be nice to add bicycle racks,” said one man. No one argued in favor of cutting into the wooded 1.2-acre space for parking after that.

Similarly, residents shot down a suggestion that the park include private garden plots, like those found in the city’s Willowgate “community garden” — which has a massive waiting list for plots — instead seeming to favor a a space for which the whole community could feel a sense of ownership.

The tendency among locals to use of the term “community garden” to describe private garden plots caused some concern during an exercise where residents were asked to vote for their favorite features to add to the park. Each attendee was given four stickers to place on a large chart. The stickers had the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 on them to signify point value. The more points each item had, the more participants valued it. “Community garden” was among the most popular features to add to the park (it got 57 points), but it was unclear if that meant private plots or a garden that anyone in the community could help to maintain, or something else.

After many people had already voted, somebody decided to address the lack of clarity by adding “demonstration garden” to the “botanical garden” option (that drew 60 points).

Other features included the most popular, which someone simply wrote in as “Sanctuary! wooded” (75 points). That was followed by “Immigrant House” (51 points), “bench/pathway seating” (44 points), “agrarian/unstructured play” (22 points) and “restroom” (16 points.)

David Ruben of Callander Associates is managing the park’s design, and presented several images of potential new park features, which included tables to play chess, a picnic area, bocce ball courts, whimsical children’s play structures, aesthetically-pleasing botanical gardens and an “indoor room” with benches surrounded by trimmed hedges for walls.

Neighbors whose apartments overlook the park said they enjoy the fact that is seems to be a haven for wildlife. Marinovich suggested that the park be certified as wildlife friendly by the National Wildlife Federation.

A restroom was a popular idea with several people. “This site would be so much better with a restroom,” Henigson said.

Several others said that a potting shed would be needed for the garden as well.

A few suggested that the Stieper house not be torn down and instead be re-used somehow in the new park. But few people voted to keep it.

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