Edgehill residents are celebrating a small victory. After a private developer took over most of a neighborhood park in Music Row, they complained the move was a new level of intrusion. But now, plans have changed.
It’s a happy ending for the Edgehill neighborhood that — without any notice — saw their little community park get gobbled up by a big developer. Metro Parks had given Panattoni Development the right to take over Tony Rose Park for at least a year, using it to store equipment while building its $35 million office next door.
In exchange, Panattoni said it would make $90,000 in park improvements. But it never consulted the neighbors. And suddenly, they were being given a volleyball court they’d never asked for.
Rachel Ziljstra is the board president of the Edgehill Village Neighborhood Association. She says despite the initial tension, the developer was more than willing to listen.
“I think that by coming together and agreeing to reset, and reset with good faith, and to move forward, we have really created something that we can be unabashedly proud,” she says. Adding that it could be a model for the city moving forward.
Today, thanks to neighborhood input, the park area the developer needed for staging is half the size it was a few weeks ago. And the proposed volleyball court has been replaced with a plan for more green space as well as a bike route and a picnic shelter.
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