Wellesley seeking input on “lofty” conceptual plan for parkland in the village
AN AMBITIOUS CONCEPTUAL DRAWING for a new park in Wellesley village was rolled out this week as township council met in Crosshill.
Drawn up as a college project, the plans include a long list of potential uses for the 40-acre site at the corner of Hutchinson and Queens Bush roads.
Rather than act as a plan for what a future park at the location would contain, the drawing was presented as a rough demonstration of the types of facilities the park might include.
“It’s very, very lofty,” director of recreation Brad Voisin said before the meeting Tuesday night.
He emphasized that the drawing included structures that the township might never build, depending on its preference.
The drawing is certainly quite busy. The conceptual plan includes a single-pad arena, community centre and gym, a swimming pool and splash pad, skateboard park, sports fields and two regulation softball diamonds, an off-leash dog area, naturalized children’s play area and a fair amount of open fields. Circumscribing the park and the facilities are a set of loop trails that cut through the clear and wooded sections of the lot alike.
There are no cost projections associated with any of facilities in the drawings just yet – Voisin says they are not that far along in the project at the moment.
The plan was produced by students at London’s Fanshawe College as part of a school project. The students had initially come out with 10 concept drawings that were presented to the community at an open forum for feedback. After listening to the residents’ ideas, the creative team at the college went back to revise their ideas and put together a single drawing.
Voisin says they are now hoping for feedback from the community for this newest proposal.
“We are looking for people’s input. We don’t just want to sit on this, we want to keep it moving along and keep it going.”
The drawing has been put on the Wellesley website (www.wellesley.ca), and he encourages people to take a look and contact him with new ideas.
The work stems from a township recreation master plan that identified the need for more parkland in Wellesley. The village site includes 32 acres purchased by the municipality for $905,000 and an additional eight acres donated by the seller.