by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
A mayor’s office plan to pay about $2.6 million to fill in the gaps in the City’s park property took a significant step toward City Council approval Tuesday. But several Council members questioned the need for more property and the prices the City was going to pay to get it.
Shortly after receiving the Finance Committee’s approval, Preservation Project executive director Mark Middlebrook said the 368-acre purchase would likely be the City’s last significant park land acquisition. He said the Preservation Project’s focus would shift entirely to improving the parks, turning them in Mayor John Peyton’s words “from the country’s largest park system to its best.”
The ordinance still requires the full Council’s approval. But shortly after emerging from the Finance meeting, Middlebrook said he thought the plan had just cleared its most significant hurdle.
“This was going to be the tough one,” he told a group of supporters.
From Middlebrook’s point of view, the four tracts of land don’t even qualify as acquisitions. The City needs the land, he said, to make some of its existing parks accessible and more user friendly.
“This isn’t land acquisition. This is park improvement. This adds to the utility and accessibility of the parks,” said Middlebrook.
That’s where the mayor’s office perspective parts company with those of Council members Warren Alvarez and Lad Daniels. Alvarez told Middlebrook that he viewed the plan simply as a land purchase, and an overpriced one.
The City was overpaying for about six acres at Camp Shaw, said Alvarez. He said the owner bought the land last year for $125,000 and was now selling to the City for $350,000. The appraised value of the land exceeded $360,000 with all the appraisal information supplied by the owner, Alvarez said.
“It’s a waste of taxpayer money to continue to buy land that’s overvalued,” said Alvarez.
Middlebrook said prices went up as the City developed.
Council member Lad Daniels joined Alvarez in expressing opposition to the purchases. He said the City was “buying above appraised value for land with dubious uses.” The ordinance passed the committee 4-2 and now needs approval from Technology and Recreation committees before the full Council can consider it.
Alvarez said he thought the City could do without the land. After stockpiling about 88,000 acres of park land, Alvarez said the money could be better spent.
“I don’t know how many miles of horse trails we need. At this point if you send someone from the Equestrian Center out there, I guess they’re not going to come back for a month and a half.”
But Middlebrook said the new purchases represented the City’s only means to connect several isolated tracts of existing park land.
“We wouldn’t ask the taxpayers to pay for land that wasn’t necessary,” said Middlebrook.