Glendale Council OKs City’s First Mini-Park

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday approved construction of a mini-park, the first in a proposed series aimed at providing open space in the city’s increasingly crowded southern neighborhoods.

The park, to be built on two residential lots covering about a fifth of a block at Wilson Avenue and Adams Street, is the first of four to six mini-parks proposed by the city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Development Department for apartment neighborhoods south of the Ventura Freeway.

“It does exactly what we intended,” Councilman Carl Raggio said. “It provides open green space for the youngsters to move around.”

The proposed mini-parks will fill the need for additional green space created by the population explosion the city has experienced in the last few years, said Nello Iacono, the city’s parks, recreation and community development director.

“We’ve been trying to keep up the ratio of open space to population, but lately it’s been difficult,” he said. “We need open spaces if we are going maintain Glendale’s quality of life.”

Beautification Program

The park will cost the city $750,000, including land purchase and improvements. It will be funded by the Neighborhood Beautification program, which combines federal and city resources to improve southern Glendale, the least affluent and most crowded section of the city.

The proposal for the mini-parks was first put before the council in 1977 by then-Parks and Recreation Director Bob McFall, who said mini-parks would help create “a balance of residential areas to open park spaces.” Last year, the city followed up the proposal by paying $620,000 for the property where the first mini-park will be built.

On Tuesday, Iacono and Carl Heimberger, the landscape architect responsible for the project, introduced a model and artist’s rendition of how the park would look.

After praising the project, the council approved the park’s design by a 4-0 vote. The council’s fifth member, Ginger Bremberg, is on vacation.

The park, Iacono said, will provide recreation for children and space for neighborhood gatherings. A rectangle 102 by 150 feet, the park will have what Heimberger described as a “Frisbee range,” meaning enough open space for children to freely toss Frisbees and balls.

Picnic Tables

It will also have picnic tables and benches to induce neighbors to use the park as a center for social gatherings and community events. On the street corner, a portion of the park lawn will cut through the sidewalk and extend to the curb--a landscaping device aimed at drawing people into the park to stimulate its use.

Iacono said that security was inherent in the park’s design: Not only will the park’s minimum size deter outsiders from using it, he said, but the entire facility will be well lighted at all times, the trees will be pruned to provide visibility from outside the park and there will be no enclosed spaces.

“We didn’t feel we needed a bathroom facility because the park is designed to serve the immediate community, and it might create some areas to hide behind,” Iacono said.

Iacono said the city will evaluate the success of the mini-park, which is expected to be completed by spring, before purchasing new sites for the same purpose.

“We will have to see if the community makes use of this mini-park and enjoys it before we move on to the next one, but I really believe in the mini-park concept and I’m quite confident it will work,” he said.