Community weighs in on future of Camas’ historic Crown Park

Community members in Camas are letting city officials know what they believe is most important when it comes to revamping the city's historic Crown Park. More than 1,300 people participated in an open house survey focused on the future of Crown Park, and over 1,000 people weighed in on a survey on the possibility of building a new sport court at the park. Crown Park, located at 120 N.E. 17th Ave., near downtown Camas, hosts a bevy of city-sponsored events, including the annual Easter egg hunt and the Camtown Youth Festival, which resumed this month, on June 4, after a two-year hiatus during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Camas Parks and Recreation Director Trang Lam told Camas Parks and Recreation Commission members on June 22, that the public outreach was part of the city's 30% design process -- the first step in fulfilling a Crown Park master plan OK'd by city officials in 2018. The 30% design process, Lam said, involves gathering community input on proposed, major-features options such as an interactive water feature, sport court and inclusive playground. Later this summer, city staff will incorporate that community input -- as well as direction from the Parks Commission -- to come up with a 30% design package, Lam said, before adding in directions from the Camas City Council and attaching cost estimates to those designs. Lam said she plans to discuss the results of the Crown Park surveys with the city council later this summer, before bringing more information back to the Parks Commission. Some preliminary survey results show community members: would prefer to see a sport court with both basketball and pickleball inside Crown Park -- 51% said they wanted a shared, multi-sport court; 31% wanted just pickleball; and 18% wanted just basketball. The majority (58%) of the 1,057 sport court survey respondents between the ages of 35 and 54, while 5% were younger than 20, 13% were between the ages of 20 and 34, 12% were 55 to 64, 9% were between 65 and 74, and 2% were 75 and older; want city officials to think about water conservation if they build an interactive water feature -- 60% said water conservation was of "high importance" while another 30% said it was of "medium importance" and 10% ranked it as "low importance;" would like to see interactive water features have elements such as ground sprays (29%), elevated spray features (18%), a creek bed (17%), bubblers in rock (13%), a hand-pump activator (11%) and a water table (9%); want to see a blend of natural and formal elements in an interactive water feature --- 48% wanted a blend while 35% preferred a natural theme, 11% wanted a more formal theme and 6% wanted something other than a natural, formal or blended theme; preferred nature elements over sensory panels and musical instruments when ranking sensory play items that could be included in a future inclusive, all-abilities playground; and would like to see other elements incorporated into a Crown Park remodel, including: benches/seat walls (29%), picnic tables (25%), shade areas (23%), open lawn areas (17%) and bike racks (4%). Lam said about 23% of the survey respondents (302 out of 1,300) answer an open-ended question at the end of the survey. "I read through all of the written feedback and took the time to categorize (the comments)," Lam told the Parks Commission members. Though some Camas community members have been very vocal about the need for city officials to replace the former outdoor swimming pool at Crown Park -- which city officials closed and demolished in 2018, after weighing the high cost of bringing the pool into compliance with state health and safety codes against the benefit of having a pool that was open to the public for 10 weeks out of the year -- Lam said this sentiment was not reflected in the recent Crown Park outreach. "I tagged 373 items and, out of all of that, 5 percent were about a pool," Lam said. "And about 30 percent of (that 5%) wanted a pool at Crown Park. The rest just wanted a pool." Lam said 69 out of 1,300 respondents mentioned a pool in their open-ended survey comments and, of that number, about 20 wanted to see a pool inside Crown Park. "So that tells you something. We hear a lot on social media but when it comes down to it, (having a pool at Crown Park) is important to a small group of people," Lam said, adding that the Crown Park Master Plan, which does not include plans for a pool, "is meeting a lot of people's needs." Lam said she plans to have a larger "Camas pool" conversation with members of the Camas City Council later this summer and warned that -- even if the city partnered with a nonprofit like the YMCA - it could be another decade before Camas had a public swimming pool. In the November 2019 election, Camas voters overwhelmingly (90-10) knocked down the city's proposal to build a $73 million community-aquatics center that would have added an indoor recreational swimming pool as well as a competition pool to the city's public facilities. Since then, a group of vocal community members and even some city officials -- including Councilwoman Leslie Lewallen, who said "Camas deserves a new Crown Park pool that will bring the community together," during her campaign in 2021 -- have said city leaders need to reconsider a scaled-down plan to build a swimming pool in Camas. "The pool discussion is slated for the Council's July 18 workshop," Lam said, adding that the discussion will be very preliminary, with the Parks director sharing research and data with city officials. "Council just needs to know at this juncture what it might take (to build a pool) and give us a headnod if they want to invest in this conversation." Other comments gave general positive feedback on the master plan designs (7%), talked about protecting trees (1%), said restrooms at Crown Park were important (2%) and gave additional design element feedback (11%). Less than 1% -- "maybe five people," Lam said -- said they wanted city leaders to "keep it the same" and nix the design plans. Survey-takers' diversity shows city's 'interaction, engagement is working' Lam said she was pleased by data showing survey participants represented "a sprinkling of the various populations that live here, which means we're getting out there and reaching people. Our interaction and engagement is working." The survey demographics showed similar representation of Camas' population when it came to race: 84% of respondents were white (compared to Camas' overall population, which is 80% white), 5% were Asian or Asian American, 4% were multiracial, 2% were Latino or Hispanic, 1% were Black or African American, 1% were American Indian or Alaskan Native, 1% were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 2% checked the "other" box. There were a few demographic gaps, however. Although 52% of Camas residents identify as female, the vast majority (83%) of those who responded to the surveys identified as female -- another 14% of the respondents identified as male, 2% identified as non-binary, genderqueer or third gender, 1% identified as "other" and less than 1% identified as a transgender person. "This is typical," Lam said of the fact that females were more likely to fill out the Crown Park surveys. "I saw this a lot working in Portland Parks, so it's nothing unusual here. I think men tend to not answer certain (surveys)." Likewise, the survey participants did not reflect the city's youth or elder populations. For instance, while 12% of Camas' population is 65 and older, only 8% of the survey participants were in that age group. And although 18% of Camas residents are 18 or younger, just 4% of the survey respondents were under 18. The participants were evenly distributed across Camas' neighborhoods, and 18% of respondents did not live inside the city. The majority of those who weighed in on the Crown Park surveys were parents: 22% said they had one child; 22% had two children; and 19% had three or more children. "So 55 percent are parents and kids and 18% are multigenerational," Lam told the Parks Commission about the people who filled out the Crown Park surveys. "Another 18 percent went with friends ... and some went alone. The majority are there at least once a month." Though 7% of respondents had not been to Crown Park in the past two years, most of the people who filled out the surveys said they come to the historic park at least once every two months: 25% said they visit between one and six times a year; 23% said they visit between six and 12 times a year; 23% visit between one and four times a month; 16% visit between one and seven times a week; and 6% said they visit Crown Park less than once a year. Asked about their reasons for visiting the park, the respondents said they came to enjoy the park's playgrounds (22%), walk through nature (22%), gather with friends (17%), go to special events (15%) use the picnic shelter (12%), use the tennis courts (5%) or play pickleball (3%).

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