Community takes a stand for parks and rec
On State St., Carlsbad has the Maxton Brown Park. It consists of one barbecue, 3 tables and 2 benches in an area of 1 acre.
Residents of northern Carlsbad have been expressing concern about the lack of open park space. The Buena Vista reservoir, located in the heart of a northern Carlsbad neighborhood, is available to provide either gardens or a park for the citizens to enjoy. The city considers the 3.1 acres of the reservoir as underutilized land along with land on either side of Carlsbad Village Drive near the Georgina Cole library. The city currently owns this land and is still in the process of deciding what to do with it.
Several Carlsbad residents who live near the reservoir are fighting to persuade the city not to sell the land to a private developer. These residents hope to create a balanced social environment in northern Carlsbad.
“I am supportive of the park because in this quadrant of Carlsbad it’s obvious that we don’t have as many parks as there are in other areas,” resident and local educator Jan Taylor said. “We don’t have any garden, passive-type parks to enjoy nature, and I believe that that would be good for all age groups.”
The situation is complex because this part of Carlsbad is considered infill, which means there is not enough land for developers to build subdivisions–which are required to include parks.
An additional factor is that the city is currently developing a thirty-year plan for the city. The period of time in which the public was invited to give their comments and ideas on this plan ended on June 20. The master plan currently indicates that the land around the Georgina Cole library and Fire station will be either residential or commercial, but petitioning residents hope the land may be designated instead as open land.
While the city is still drafting the master plan, certain residents are saying that Carlsbad needs more open space. As the City of Carlsbad website states, there are fives uses for open space land: preservation of natural resources; managed production of resources; outdoor recreation; aesthetic, cultural and educational; and public health and safety.
“We have made a petition that said we want to save, guard, and preserve that land as open space so that it can be decided for the future, for future generations, what it’s going to be for,” Taylor said.
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