Village park exploratory committee update

Two stories on yesterday's Flat Rock village park exploratory committee meeting. First, from the Hendersonville Lightning:

An advisory group exploring options for a proposed Highland Lake Park wants a new entrance that would divert traffic from the current entrance to the golf course.

The committee also edged closer to deciding on amenities at the park — walking trails, a playground, open space, a gazebo, picnic shelters, a pavilion and a gathering place around a central feature like a fountain.

The new road into park would be off Highland Lake Road several hundred yards west of the current entrance into the golf course, which also leads to the Highland Golf Villas development.

The Highland Lake Park Exploratory Committee is serving in an advisory role only, its members emphasize, its recommendations may or may not come to pass. The committee has yet to attach cost estimates to a menu of options; it is expected to begin doing that at a meeting next week.

The committee's role is to say "here's what we think needs to be in the park," committee chair Ginger Brown said. "The village can decide what's in it and in what order. They're the people that are in charge."...

A plan drawn by two committee members, landscape architect Ed Lastein and retired architect Doug Johnson, showed a gazebo, a pavilion, a picnic area and a fountain in the upland part of the 67-acre property, a paved trail around the upper part and a longer soft trail, about a mile and a quarter, winding around the parkland. Flat Rock residents said during a forum last month and in an online survey that they want a park, Brown said, although she cautioned that the survey was not scientific. The committee also has heard concerns about traffic, the potential for crime and the cost to taxpayers....

Read it all, and take a look at the Times-News as well:

Based on ideas presented by the public last month, a Flat Rock exploratory committee Wednesday continued fleshing out what a municipal park at the Highland Lake Golf Club might look like and cost.

Two members of the Highland Lake Park Exploratory Committee, retired planner/architect Doug Johnson and landscape architect Ed Lastein, presented a schematic design for the proposed park that incorporates features the public most supports.

“From everything we’ve gotten, people do want this to be a passive space,” said Ginger Brown, committee chair. “They don’t want big ballfields or big soccer fields. They want that, I think, because Flat Rock is a small, quiet community and those things cost money to maintain. They’re also available elsewhere in the county.”...

The architects also recommend gating the golf course’s current entrance on Highland Golf Drive and building a new park access farther west on N. Highland Lake Road. They said the new entrance is necessary to avoid a “death trap” for drivers at the existing entry, which would still be open to emergency vehicles....

Read it all.