Elmhurst Park District seeks ideas for 2 new sites
Elmhurst residents can offer ideas for how to develop two new park district sites - including a former trailer park - during a public hearing this week designed to solicit community input.
The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, July 27, at the Butterfield Park Recreation Building, 385 E. Van Buren St.
"This will be the first but not the only opportunity for input," park district Executive Director James Rogers said.
The possibilities for outdoor recreational uses at the sites range from trails to natural areas to creation of a dog park - all needs residents identified in a recent park district survey.
"We're in the absolute infancy steps of planning," Rogers said.
By far the larger of the two sites is the 3.4-acre property that once housed a trailer park at 0S761 Old York Road.
The second covers less than a half-acre at 207 N. Hampshire Ave. abutting the northeast side of East End Park.
The Hampshire Avenue property, which includes a house that will be razed, probably will serve as a simple extension of the existing park, Rogers said.
The size of the Old York Road property, however, provides more possibilities. Vacant for roughly the past decade, the acreage is wooded and overgrown.
"It'll take some work," Rogers said, "but what we do will depend on what's chosen for the site."
The park board approved the purchase of the Hampshire Avenue property in January and voted earlier this month to approve a $1.55 million contract for the purchase of the Old York Road site as part of an agreement with the city that calls for the municipality to pay for the land.
The district's interest in the larger property can be traced to April when it deeded a portion of its Golden Meadows Park to the city as part of an intergovernmental agreement to address stormwater retention issues in east-central Elmhurst.
Because the district originally paid for Golden Meadows with grant money from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the state required it to replace the land with other recreational open space as part of what's called a "conversion process."
The Golden Meadows land was appraised at slightly more than $1 million and, as part of the intergovernmental agreement, the city agreed to pay up to 1½ times that amount for the replacement property.
The trailer park site came in safely below that mark with a closing date tentatively set for Sept. 13 and a district option to extend it until Nov. 1.
Residents who attend Thursday's session will hear a brief description of the properties and see what they look like now, Rogers said. There will be no fancy diagrams or renderings, he said, because the district wants to collect input before heading too far down any one path.
"There aren't any plans yet," he said. "We have some possible ideas for it, but first we want to get input from folks on how they'd like to see us utilize both sites."