While the splash pad and new skatepark at Rockmosa Park have the quintessential look of summer, there is a flurry of activity just a few metres to the southwest, as preparation continues for the park expansion.
Right now the area looks largely unchanged, other than a large pile of dirt at the southwestern end of the park and a roller machine working on the north side compacting soil.
Beyond the park, to the north, Charleston Homes is also preparing the adjacent site for the 215-home Bonarrow subdivision.
Parks and recreation director Robin Milne said the slope of the land usually dictates what will be built and constructed at a park. However, because Charleston is changing the land grade for the subdivision, the park grades must also be raised to avoid drainage issues.
“That’s part of making it look like it’s all done under one umbrella if you will,” Milne said. “What you don’t want is the park to look like it was thought of aside from the development.”
Last winter the township arranged for fill to be delivered, at no charge, to the park for grade matching and the creation of a toboggan hill, Milne explained.
“However, once spring came around the plentiful supply of fill dried up as suppliers found sites closer to their operations,” said Milne.
He added the township is “bringing in about 4,000 truckloads of fill … in total,” noting it’s impossible to buy that much fill due to the expense.
“Right now we’re just doing a cut and a fill, so that means anywhere in the site where the elevations are higher than we want them to be we’re going to cut that down and put that material where the elevations are lower than we want them to be,” he said.
The park also has a beneficial relationship with Charleston Homes, with the developer contributing excess fill to Rockmosa.
“That excess top soil is coming to here, to the toboggan hill,” said Milne.
He is optimistic the township will have all the required fill by the end of August, in order to install storm servicing and grade and seed the entire park, including the off-leash dog park, by the end of October.
He said he wants to avoid using sod unless absolutely necessary for something like erosion prevention.
“If we can grow grass it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than putting sod down and it’s a lot less maintenance and the long-term viability of and just the vigor of it is way better,” he said.
However, for the grass to grow it needs a year’s rest to fully take root.
“We would mow it, we would fertilize it, we would irrigate the Sports fields, we’d cut it but there would be no public use on it,” he said.
If all goes as planned, next year, while the fields are resting, the municipality would consider installing the 3km paved accessible trail that can be used for a variety of activities like jogging, pushing a stroller, longboarding, biking, walking, roller blading or skateboarding.
“It just gives a lot of options and it’s a lot less maintenance,” Milne said of paving the trails.
“The up front cost is a little bit more but in terms of long-term maintenance … the gravel trails that we have, after every storm we have we’re out there because there’s washout and whatever else.”
That trail will include a 400m track that Milne hopes will be used for track and field by local schools.
“Or when Sports teams come to do warm-ups or training they can use that 400-metre track as a training opportunity for timing or those sort of things,” he said.
“It’s just a neat addition and it becomes part of the trail network but at the same time it can also be used as a stand-alone 400-metre track.”
The other features on the Rockmosa master plan are waiting for funding, he said.
“You’re planning for 20 years down the road so you’re planning for things that you know you don’t have the money for at this time,” he explained.
“So as municipal government goes, you wait for federal and provincial funding or until you collect enough from [development charges] or maybe a community group will spearhead a capital campaign or something like that.”
