A goal of the Waukegan Park District is to eventually have a park within a 10-minute walking distance for every resident. For many people, the goal has been met, but not yet for everyone.
Jay Lerner, the Park District’s executive director, said the 10- minute guideline is one the National Recreation and Parks Association recommends for urban areas like Waukegan. Proximity to parks provides a variety of benefits.
A neighborhood that lacks a park within a 10-minute walk is the area around the Brookside campus of Waukegan High School. Lerner said the Park District owns land in the area and hopes to remedy the situation.
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“It’s one of the few neighborhoods left that’s not a 10-minute walk from a park,” Lerner said. “It’s been on our list for a while.”
Since the 1970s, Quincy Bejster, the district’s director of parks, said it has owned two acres of land roughly bounded by Brookside Avenue, Evergreen Avenue, Monroe Street and Metropolitan Avenue. It is the next scheduled major park project.
Lerner, Bejster and other Park District officials hosted an open house at the proposed site Wednesday near the southwest corner of Brookside and Evergreen, showing the public plans for the land and soliciting their ideas.
Much of the two acres is wooded, but Bejster said roughly half the trees and other plants will be removed as recreational elements are installed. The removal will be environmentally friendly.
“A lot of what you see are invasive species,” Bejster said. “The buckthorn and other invasive species will be removed. Some new native trees will be planted. We’re going to keep as many trees as possible. We’ll be planting new trees too.”
June Stetter, a neighbor who has lived near the proposed park for 40 years, said the last thing she wants to see is the two acres barren of trees and other vegetation. She has seen too many wooded areas in the area destroyed.
“I don’t want them to clear-cut the land,” Stetter said. “The trees and the animals who live here should be protected. I’m glad to have a park in my neighborhood, but I want it to be about nature and the environment.”
As a smaller park, Bejster said a neighborhood playground is planned as well as a quarter-mile walking path, a game table with a board for chess or checkers, a soccer target game and a small fitness area.
As the Park District surveys the community, Lerner said the most popular facility people want to see is a walking path, followed by health and fitness equipment.
Living four blocks from the proposed park, Waukegan Ald. Juan Martinez, 4th Ward, said he is glad to have a park walking distance from his home. It will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.
“This will be a good place for people to congregate,” Martinez said at the open house. “I’d like to see games for children and an area for soccer.”
Tom Stonis teaches U.S. history at the high school’s Brookside campus a block away. He said at the open house Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 owns the land immediately south of the proposed park.
Stonis said he hopes to see a partnership between the park and school districts for educational purposes. He foresees an outdoor classroom for students in the civics and environmental science classes.
Bejster said the Park District successfully obtained grant funding from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for an Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) grant for the two most recent park renovation projects — Dugdale Park and Roosevelt Park. The Park District plans to apply for an OSLAD grant to pay for the new park.
Lerner said the district owns between 40 and 50 acres of undeveloped park land of varying sizes in Waukegan. There are no specific plans for those properties at this time.