The future of North Street Veterans Playground was examined and debated by residents and officials. - Photo by Ashley Taylor

By Ashley Taylor

The City of Somerville is planning to renovate the North Street Veterans Playground, the small play area, picnic area, and basketball court bordering on the North Street Housing Development.  At a community meeting Saturday morning, residents, city officials, and landscape architects discussed their hopes for the new playground. The meeting started at the West Somerville Community School, then moved to the playground.

The main question discussed at the meeting was how to create a playground that is safe and appropriate for both teens and young children.

“Maybe there should be a younger area park and basketball, for the teenagers, and that separation, but kind of connect it,” suggested Somerville mom Ruth Dolan.

Sheina Joseph, of Groundwork Somerville’s Green Team, the group of teens who maintain Groundwork’s schoolyard gardens in the summer, offered her solution:  “I think since it’s such a small compact area that they should change it to a young adults park, because there’s already a few parks surrounding it that are for little kids, and teenagers have nowhere to hang out.  Some parents think it’s so wrong for young adults to be playing at the same parks as little kids, maybe they should just switch it to a young adults park.”

People also discussed safety concerns, though they sometimes hesitated to specify exactly what made them feel the park was unsafe.

Gretchen St. Pierre, a mother from the North Street Housing Development, bashed the park: “I don’t like my son going to that park because there’s nothing that I can say is nice about it.”

“It’s dirty,” she continued.  She has the impression that the park is “where kids want to go to fight.”

At one point, Dolan complained that, “there’s a lot of activity that goes on around there, and it frightens me, actually, the security part.”  When probed to be more specific, she just repeated her general description of worrisome “activities.”

Exhi Popa, of the Green Team, suggested adding more features for young adults in order to discourage such activities.  She commented, “A lot of times kids who go there, they sit at the picnic tables because there’s nothing else to do—they will not go on the slide, they kind of grew out of it—so there’s nothing to do, they sit at the tables, and maybe do illegal activities or do something else which makes the parks not safe.”  No one said the words drugs and sex, but they outlined them in footprints.

Two Somerville police officers attended the meeting to address security concerns. West District Commander Captain Paul Trant reported that the police have never found any hypodermic needles at the park.

Arn Franzen, Director of Parks and Open Space for the City, said that people have been requesting to have the park renovated for several years. This past summer, the city secured funds for the design phase.  Weston and Sampson Associates and Paula Meijerink, of WANTED Landscape, are collaborating to design the new park.

Franzen said that the City has submitted a proposal for a state PARC (Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities) grant to fund construction, which could begin as early as July 2012, when the grant funds would be available.

Ward 7 Alderman Bob Trane hosted the meeting.  In an understated political moment, the two candidates for the November Ward 7 Alderman election, Joan Puglia and Katjana Ballantyne, also attended the meeting.

The next step in the playground design will be another community meeting at which the designers will present a preliminary design proposal based on the community feedback they have received so far.