Supervisors discussed the issue at its last August meeting and may give direction to the park board this month.
Imagine taking those popular children’s car play rugs and making it some real-life, Richard Scarry-ish experience at Foy Park in Lower Frederick.
Now children would have a traffic garden – a space of small-sized “streets” with scaled-down traffic features to learn and practice how to ride bikes, skateboards, roller skates and the like in a place free from traffic and cars. In some towns, they are called traffic playgrounds or safety towns.
The township Parks and Recreation Department wants to bring such a feature to the park, via aid from an $11,750 block grant from Montgomery County, and supervisors last month discussed the issues to overcome to bring it to fruition and whether or not to move forward on the project.
However, the county open space board, according to township Manager Jason Wager, has a requirement before it can happen: Spend an estimated $14,000 to remove the current, dilapidated – and some say, unsafe – playground, and another estimated $18,000 to remove an old concrete pad.
Wager said ARPA Covid funds could pay for the project.
“The traffic garden would be installed on the existing basketball court at the park, and an existing 4,300-square-foot pad to the east of the court would be removed and returned to its natural condition,” Wager said. “We would be bringing material in, grading and seeding and returning it to its natural state.”
The playground and pads, he said, were never originally supposed to be installed in that area of Foy Park, he said.
Supervisor Noelle Halter said the county did not actually ask to have the playground removed, just the pad in the flood zone and moving the traffic garden to the basketball court area.
Supervisors debated on whether or not the current playground is truly at its “end of life,” with some feeling that it serves as much-needed entertainment for the youth in the area of the park.
“I went there last Friday,” said Supervisors Vice Chair Chuck Yeiser, “and at least the area with the yellow slides and stuff is tired. The surfaces that you walk on that are metal and have a rubberized coating, the coating is separated .. and there’s corrosion underneath it. It wasn’t just one or two sections, it’s the whole thing. ”
“I can’t see how you can bring that back into compliance,” Yeiser said.
Supervisors Chair Marla Hexter asked if the township is liable if someone gets injured on the equipment.
“My concern is, if this is not up to snuff, whether it’s at the end of life or not, if there’s a potential danger to a child playing on this … we can’t replace it because we are not allowed to (by the county).”
Solicitor Peter Nelson said the township has certain immunity to actions of injury by the public.
“There are a specific set of circumstances if there is an injury on the playground on if it would fall under exemption or not,” he said. “The township is protected by sovereign immunity from most tort claims.”
Hexter said regardless if there is immunity or not, the township should not have equipment that a child can get hurt on.
“If it’s at that stage,” she said, “I don’t know what we’re waiting for.”
Regardless, a majority of supervisors felt it was important to look into the cost of repairing the structure as well, as it would serve as a complement to the playground.
Parks and Recreation Board Chair Pam Reich told supervisors the wear-and-tear at the playground is the result of decades of use.
“If we’re not going to maintain the equipment, it’s upsetting to decide to defer maintenance and then use the condition of equipment to trash a tot lot that is in use. I ask the township to look at costs of repairs. This is a use playground to the township and I don’t think you are doing justice to the community by trashing this thing,” Reich said.
Reich said the traffic garden proposal the supervisors see before them was not the same one presented to the board previously. She said the current project adds “extra money” to the township’s expenses and would impede the parks department from holding events at the location.
“We asked for guidance from the county going forward, and what would be allowed for the use of this park, and what we got was a statement that you can do a traffic garden, as long as you remove the pad. There’s been no other direction as far as the situation of the park,” Reich said. “It’s no longer that project. I’m not sure it’s a great project anymore and it’s certainly costing the township more money.”
Parks and Recreation Board Vice Chair Kate Lewis agreed with Reich.
“It’s a lousy deal for the township,” she said, “and it costs us money. They offered us a deal we can put in if we met conditions.”
