May 18, 2024
The Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 Wednesday night to proceed with a bid for trails, roads and parking at Generations Park. Ken Martin, Rick Castranio or Virginia Anderson voted yes. Myself and Phil Walsh voted no.
Bids are expected to be reviewed at the June 19, 2024 meeting.
There were speakers for and against the proposal. As I listened to them I couldn’t help but think it really comes down to values. Those that value nature and those that value what they see as progress.
What you see in the photo is now slated to be paved with an 8 ft. wide trails and 12 ft. wide emergency access road. The paddock in the far background is slated to become a 350 person pavilion unless the C.S. Davidson Master Plan gets changed.
This $1,000,000+ phase will consume the ARPA grant and the last of the bond money. An accounting of the bond funds has yet to be provided.
Ken Martin and I have had some productive discussions on how to improve accountability and transparency going forward and I’m optimistic that will occur.
May 12, 2024
Trails, parking, and access road(s) for Generations Park are on the Board of Commissioners Agenda (as Item 7a) for the May 15 (Wednesday) meeting.
Township staff is recommending a bid advertisement for approximately 4,600 lineal feet of ADA compliant paved trails, 1,300 ft. stone access drive extension, 20 space stone parking lot and stormwater improvements as designed by C.S. Davidson engineers.
I offer the following information and personal opinion regarding what is now being proposed. Most of this information is not on the township website for whatever reason.
Trails are a popular feature at parks and I support developing them at Generations Park so people can become more familiar with the 59 acre farm site between Rt. 114 and McCormick Rd. We will all have better ideas for how the site should be developed once we can access it.
There are many trails previously identified that myself and fellow commissioners can likely agree on now so we can move forward using 2024 funds available; however, there are larger issues such as:
⁃ Transparency and accountability
⁃ Project management and scope of work
⁃ The priorities and order in which we proceed
⁃ Budget
⁃ Elimination of features with intensive parking needs and location of initial parking.
⁃ Elimination of redundant trails and roads so we can lower costs and keep the site as natural as possible.
Trail design has changed in recent years and the current recommended standard is for trails to be 8 ft. wide. This doesn’t mean every trail needs to be 8 ft. wide – or paved to be ADA compliant. Upper Allen has few trails this wide at other parks because they were built to earlier standards. Most other trails are 4-6 ft. wide.
Stone, gravel or similar materials are generally less expensive than asphalt and provide a more natural look. The issue with stone trails is they require more maintenance, can wash out, and are sprayed with herbicide per current UAT practice. For these reasons, UAT staff is asking for paved trails.
The 2024 trail work will mostly be on the North and West side of the farm and a (newly proposed) trail running parallel to McCormick Rd. The trail shown on the West side is really a road as it will be 12’ ft. wide and serve as emergency access drive (through the bird watching and butterfly meadows?) to the barn.
There are differences in the trails now proposed vs. those proposed in the 2022 County grant application. A trail parallel to McCormick Rd. has been added and boardwalk and trail near the Senior Area is now being omitted. This could be viewed as bait and switch.
The estimated cost of the 2024 work is $1,034,530 and it is to be paid for (mostly) using the $450,000 of grant from Cumberland County and $548,071 from the 2021 bond issue.
The cost of the prior Lisburn Entrance Road work was $447,131. The fees paid to C.S. Davidson for Generation Park work so far have been $220,162. By comparison, the township paid $1,100,000 for the entire farm in April, 2020 and total fees paid to Derck & Edson were $41,954.
One can see how UAT will easily spend $4 million just to establish infrastructure under the present course of over development. This would be before any money is spent on features such as renovation of the Barn or Senior Park. This ties in with previous estimates of a potential $20+ million cost for the entire park. Something has to give. It’s not too late to adopt a more passive design approach and save $ millions.
C.S. Davidson assumed design of the park in late 2022. Davidson’s specialty is civil engineering (roads, bridges, stormwater, etc) vs. Derck & Edson who specialized in landscape architecture, civil engineering and land planning. The difference in approach shows and the two plans now bear little resemblance.
The Derck & Edson plan was based on public input. The C.S. Davidson plan has been developed largely without public input. There has been no review of Davidson’s work at a full BOC meeting since June, 2023. It isn’t even clear what the current version of the Davidson plan is as several drawings are still dated May 1, 2023.
People who care about the character and beauty of McCormick Rd. should know C.S. Davidson is also working on a re-design of McCormick Rd. and parking at 500 McCormick Rd. This work is also being done with little public awareness or input. Davidson is approaching this as an infrastructure project as well.
Much of the current Generations Park design is based on erroneous assumptions about the need for a 660 seat Amphitheater and 350 person Great Lawn Pavillon.
These are not the passive type uses voted for by the public (using acorns) and they require tremendous amounts of parking. My view is that these features are being used as a trojan horse for an eventual turf field.
In studying the C. S. Davidson master plan (not shown on the township website) and its 547 parking space configuration, it becomes apparent that a soccer or lacrosse (turf) field could easily be placed on the indicated grass parking area in the future. See the area near the center with parking lines and parallel 8 ft. trails.
In studying the 128 page Derck & Edson master plan (not shown on the township website), one can read (on page 126) meeting minutes from an August 18, 2021 interview where Sean Cochran discusses Keystone Soccer’s “struggle with facilities” and “their wish list would be to send lacrosse out to the new farm property so they could use Winding Hills exclusively for soccer use”. At the time of the 2021 interview, the Keystone program was “up to 1,300 athletes with the Mechanicsburg population being approximately 420 of the 1,300”.
Despite my request as a Commissioner, township staff has failed to provide me with answers to 17 questions posed to C.S. Davidson. Per township procedure, board members are not to contact Davidson directly. All contact is to be through the Township Manager (Scott Fraser) who prefers communication with him be in writing.
Good design saves money. My request included component cost information from C.S. Davidson so that the Board could consider some design alternatives. No such information has been provided at the time of this writing. I also provided an alternative design (with notes) for consideration. Again, no response.
Even without response from staff or Davidson; it is clear that substantial $ could be saved by: minor changes to the entry drive, adding a roundabout, using pocket parking, eliminating a number of redundant trails, and using the former farmhouse driveway for emergency access to the barn.
Township staff has also failed to provide me with a requested accounting of approximately $2 million of funds from the 2021 Bond issue. This money was originally intended to “3) fund various capital projects of the Township, including the planning, designing, acquiring, constructing, furnishing and equipping of a turf soccer field and stadium…”
My understanding is that the township has been paying C.S. Davidson for Generations Park design work directly from the bond fund; however, we won’t know the full extent until we have an accounting. These payments likely exceed $200,000 and are not shown in the budget. The amount shown in the 2024 budget for Park Development Engineering (see pg. 83 of budget) is $10,000.
I notified the Solicitor about the failure of township manager to produce an accounting of the bond funds. The Solicitor expects my concerns will be addressed in “due course” and notes that he reports “directly to the Board of Commissioners as a whole, the Board President and the Township Manager”.
This can be the start of a beautiful park or a $20+ million boondoggle. Taxpayers will foot the bill either way. The true cost will be the loss of natural habitat and a place Upper Allen residents could go for peace and quiet.
My hope is that by making residents better aware of what is going on; many of you will attend the Wednesday meeting and offer your opinions and suggestions for a better course of action.
Links:
https://uatwp.org/i_want_to/read_download/plans.php
https://www.cumberlandcountypa.gov/5022/Cumberland-County-Recovery-Grants
Friends of the Farm 