Patrick Murphy

1554 North Street

303-444-4358

July 19, 1999

North and Alpine Pocket Park.

The future pocket park at the southwest corner of the intersection of North Street and Alpine has not been maintained recently and has resulted in numerous complaints. The city has responded by contracting to have a quick and simple revegetation done at the site to hold the site until a more thorough plan has been designed. I offer the following design based on the following perceptions and objectives.

Perceptions:

  1. This park will not serve a large scale recreational purpose, but rather provide an aesthetically pleasant, environmentally efficient, cost efficient, and potentially educational addition to the neighborhood.
  2. There are some things that should be deterred as much as possible such as;

    3. Overnight camping at this site by transients.

    Accumulation of trash or dog excrement.

    Short- and long-term watering and maintenance costs.

  3. Establishing a more-or-less final plan for the site would be both time and cost efficient.

Objectives:

  1. Use a design that utilizes native plant species as a high priority in order to minimize long-term maintenance and watering demands.
  2. Create an initially simple design that can be modified as desired by the neighborhood residents.
  3. Do not install trash cans or dog excrement bags since this would tend be an on-going expense to maintain, and people need to be responsible on their own.
  4. Notify the neighborhood of the project and encourage input and a long-term effort to help maintain the park.

Reality Check:

  1. There will be an initial expense and an initial intensive maintenance period for the city.
  2. There will be a long-term maintenance requirement for the city.
  3. The site is best maintained by neighborhood volunteers who are willing to make an effort to do the little things that are necessary to maintain the park. People are hard to motivate.
  4. The plan is scheduled to be implemented in March 2000 in order to maximize the use of relatively reliable rainfall in April and minimize the need for supplemental watering. This means that the site will only be mowed until that time.
  5. The native species will need to be kept constantly moist during germination and establishment, this may require some neighborhood volunteers to share the responsibility.

This information has been distributed to the residents of Alpine and North Streets west of the site to 13th Street. Please let me know what you think of the plan and are willing to contribute in time (no money is requested). I will provide an 11"x17" color copy of the plan upon request. I realize that the plan is only marginally legible in the 8.5x14" format on the back of this sheet.

Thanks - Pat