Centerville park, town center designs unveiled

Community members and city officials got a look at master plan concepts for a Centerville town center Tuesday.

Representatives of the Clark Patterson Lee architecture, engineering and planning firm showed four possible plans for a park on land the city owns. The land is located in the northeast quadrant of the intersection of North Houston Lake Boulevard and Church Street.

The firm’s representatives also showed larger, more speculative designs for a potential future area that would straddle North Houston Lake Boulevard and become a true town center that would combine commercial, residential and recreational spaces.

One of the representatives, Rebecca Keefer, addressed the planning that brought about the concepts. It included a variety of public input through a Middle Georgia-wide community survey, community steering committee and stakeholder meetings, general public meetings and city council presentations.

Keefer said the various proposed concepts and information, plus the opportunity to still give input, is available by visiting a Facebook page for Center Park at Centerville. The link is available on the city’s website, www.centervillega.org.

She said current public input shows that features wanted in a more immediate park space include a playground and open family activity space, restrooms, a splash pad and possible decorative fountain, multi-purpose space and landscaped garden areas, sidewalks and multi-use trails. Also, sections of the survey indicated an amphitheater, festival space and pavilions were among the most desired features for a park.

The firm’s documents showed 101 people responded to written surveys.

Another firm representative, Tim Pulver, presented four park concept designs and four extended town center concept designs. The most favored design is labeled “A.” All the designs are available for viewing at city hall and online.

The primary ingredients are similar in the designs, but placement of some features and a road differ in the designs.

Some of the features of what Pulver called the most favored design are a road that splits the park in half that can be closed to traffic to make a pedestrian space during special events and festivals. Also included is a band shell and lawn amphitheater, open lawns, gardens, a gazebo, a playground and splash pad, restrooms, pavilions and other features.

An open house is scheduled for Sept. 20 at 4 p.m. with an additional presentation about the designs set to be given at the 5 p.m. city council work session. Comments still can be submitted online.

During a question and answer period most comments were favorable toward the park, however questions were raised about concert noise from the band shell. Those questions were answered by Kevin McOmber, another firm representative, who said the band shell-amphitheater would be built in such a way to minimize noise.

Questions also arose about the usefulness of the park for different age groups and the possibility of basketball courts and a skate park.

There was no discussion during the presentation about potential costs for each of the designs.

Also Tuesday, in a 4-1 vote, the council adopted a financial policy and city expenditure measure that city accountant Carol Harrison said mainly concerned communication between department heads, the council and her office regarding spending and procedures, The new policy requires department heads to submit unbudgeted expenditures over $1,000 to the council for approval.

Councilman Edward Armijo voted against the policy.

Mayor John Harley said it’s primarily a housekeeping measure that replaces old policies that had never been “taken off the books,” but had mostly been replaced by newer policies.

After the meeting, Armijo said he felt $1,000 was too much for a department head to spend at their discretion and he favors the greater financial accountability a $500 cap would give.

He said while he did not question current department heads’ judgment or, for the most part, past expenditures, he said he’s more in favor of a lower spending cap.

In other business, the council:

▪ Gave final approval to a millage rate of 11.972 as was discussed in prior meetings. The rate is the same as last year’s and, according to Harley, represents a tax decrease since it is slightly lower than the millage rollback rate suggested by computations from the county tax digest figures.

▪ Centerville Chief of Police Ronald Rodgers introduced five new officers: Jason Couch, Anthony West, Jeremy Mashuga, Delane Hill and Jonathan Simpson.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Centerville park, town center designs unveiled."