Granite Quarry allowing citizens to provide feedback on future of Civic Park

Published 12:05 am Thursday, February 1, 2024

GRANITE QUARRY — Granite Quarry hosted a community drop-in meeting on Tuesday to receive input on what the community would like the future of Civic Park to look like. The meeting also allowed the town share with the community what goals it envisions as priorities during this process.

Those goals included a continuation of the park as a civic center and improving its ability to host Granite Fest, acknowledging and improving the natural features of the park such as the stream, improving parking and access to the park and integrating the history of the town of Granite Quarry into the park itself.

The town opened up an online survey and sent postcards to houses within a half-mile of the park back in November of 2023. During the community meeting, the results of that survey.

One question was what people wanted the town to redesign or improve upon. Thirty percent of respondents said the playgrounds or play areas, 12 percent said paved trails, nine percent said tennis or pickleball courts and eight percent said the main picnic shelter.

While the most common answer was no response for what the community believed the future of the American Legion building should be, 27 percent said that it should be left as is and rented out and 24 percent said that it should be renovated or replaced. Five percent believed that the town should consider different usages for the property the building is on.

Tuesday’s meeting also asked people to let the town know what facilities or programming they most wanted to see in the park. Popular options included a splash pad, paved paths or greenways, a pollinator garden, climbing walls and a slide hill.

According to the town’s presentation, the contractors handling the planning process will now take the information gleaned from the survey and create a draft of the Civic Park Master Plan. The organization will then review the draft plan and recommendations. That process will include a public meeting to allow an opportunity for citizens to review that same draft.

Anyone who was not able to make the meeting and who has not participated in the survey but wants to can find it at www.surveymonkey.com/r/GQcivicpark.