A final concept plan was pitched to the City of Warren Parks & Recreation Commission during Tuesday’s meeting.

Matthew Lokay with Mackin Engineering, the firm hired to complete the plan, laid out three priority projects.

The first constitutes park drive and parking improvements.

“This is just updating the infrastructure of the park, formalizing some of the parking,” he said.

Times Observer file photo

In addition to addressing drainage and road quality issues as well as installing a kiosk, a total of nine parking spaces would be created at the cul-de-sac at the end of the drive.

“(There is) no rhyme or reason to how it works,” he said. “It’s informal.” The size of that space would be increased and a concrete pad would be installed for a handicapped parking space.

A second phase would focus on overlook improvements and, Lokay said, “provides more opportunities for a greater variety of users with different abilities.”

The cul-de-sac would be paved with concrete sidewalks, a waterless restroom and a 1.2 mile crushed limestone walking loop among other improvements.

This phase “improves upon the overlook,” he said and is “just a low impact way of kind of enhancing that amazing view that you have.”

The third phase would install three additional trails — two open to mountain biking and a third to include Autism-friendly play stations on the phase two trail loop.

One of the trails open to mountain biking — 1.35 miles — would connect to a city-owned parcel on W. Fifth Ave.

“It would not be a trailhead,” he said, and the area on W. Fifth “does not provide any parking. (Users) would have to access it either by bike or walk.”

The other shared-use trail — 1 mile — would be focused on the eastern edge of the 65-acre tract.

“This is how a trail system could work in your park,” Lokay said.

Commission member Kirk Johnson, who has been adamantly opposed to all development at the park, raised a privacy concern.

“Your right on top of the back yards of those houses” with the trail proposal, he said. “I just think it would be kind of creepy to have people biking and walking up that slope.”

The total projected cost for all three phases is approximately $825,000.

Lokay called his estimates conservative and said they “may seem high but that’s the cost of building something right now.”

Price tags for the specific phases included $316,000 for phase one, $233,000 for phase two and $276,000 for phase three.

He provided a breakdown of the costs for the various trails — $152,000 for the trail that connects to W. Fifth, $104,000 for the upper park segment and $20,000 for the Autism-friendly component — but cautioned that “work can be completed by volunteers at a significant savings.

Department of Public Works Director Mike Holtz said the city does this type of project pre-planning so that “if the grant were to appear, the city would be able to put together a decent application for funding.”

He said the city wouldn’t receive $850,000 at first but that the plan “gives you a starting block,” explaining that funding agencies like to see the entire plan when considering a project.

A resident of W. Fifth Ave., Danielle Flasher, told the commission about the presence of several sexual offenders in the area where the access to the trail would be and highlighted recent criminal issues in the neighborhood..

“What are we going to do for the safety of the youth?” she asked.

“I don’t want foot traffic in my backyard,” she added. “Whose to say people are going to stay on the bike trail?”

“The worst situation you can have is what you have now,” Rich Hatfield told the committee — identifying the park as an “underutilized asset” where people — as Flasher stated — are throwing tires and bottles down the hill.

He said areas are stabilized when people are around.

“This totally changes that,” Hatfield said of the project. “(It) would be an enhancement with increased use.”