CITY OF NORTH LAUDERDALE

PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT

TO: Mayor and City Commission

FROM: Richard D. Sala, City Manager

BY: Michael Sargis, Parks and Recreation Director

DATE: May 8, 2007

SUBJECT: Broadview Park

Prior to the annexation of the Broadview/Pompano Park area in 2003, the Broadview Park was designed and built by the County using the FRDAP Grants. Since this project was done prior to the annexation, the City was not involved in the process and most of the input came from the Broadview/Pompano Park Homeowners Association. After the annexation, the City entered into an agreement with Broward County to operate the Park.

This park is approximately 2 to 3 acres in area and consists of only 8 (7 regular + 1 handicap) parking spaces. The also park offers the following amenities:

• Play Structure
• Restrooms
• Hockey Rink/Score Board
• Site and Court Lighting

In addition, a jogging path is located on the eastern most section of the park on a property leased from the FPL for an annual fee of $2.500. This lease has a life span of 10 years and strictly prohibits any type of renovations to the land. After 10 years, the lease agreement could be re-negotiated unless FPL has a need for the land.

Since the park was built with only 8 parking spots, it significantly reduces the possibility of providing any structured programs that would draw crowds. As mentioned above, the park features a Hockey Rink but in order to run a youth hockey program, we would need a minimum of 30 parking spaces - based on 10 players per team for that activity alone.

In order to activate the Hockey Rink, we did explore the possibility of building additional parking under the FPL power lines a few years ago and the County offered to help offset the cost by contributing $90,000 (for 25 parking spots). Upon research, we found out that this property (under the power lines) was owned by the Player Place Homeowners Association and not by the City.

Subsequently, the previous City Manager, Public Works Director, and I met with the President of the Players Place Association and requested the use of this property for additional parking spaces. In return, the Association demanded that the City maintain the property, install sidewalk lights on the Association’s property at Players Place, and install a wall along the entire back side of the homes facing Rock Island Road. It was estimated that all these improvements would cost more than $500,000 - thus making it a fiscally infeasible project.

In addition, the fact that the proposed land was designated as a retention area, it limited the amount of cars that could be parked on the land. Also upon further review, the County’s Transportation Department raised numerous concerns about putting a parking lot that close to a very busy intersection (Rock Island Road and McNab Road).

Along with making an effort to build a parking lot, the staff also searched for a group that would be interested in running the Roller Hockey program at this location and found out that were very few Youth Roller Hockey leagues in existence in the area. Youth Hockey has one of the highest programming costs for youth sports due to the expansive safety/playing equipment. At one time, hockey was popular sport activity in the area but that is no longer the case. Some of the surrounding cities which originally offered this program are now either not running it anymore or are searching to find someone to run the program with no luck.

Along with lack of parking, the park has been a constant source of vandalism and other nuisances since the opening in 2003. Some of these problems are listed below:

Play Structures:

• Shade Structure – Less then one week after the installation of the playground structure, the shade top was sliced by the kids beyond repair. The total structure cost was $30,000 and the cost to replace the shade top was estimated at $9,500.00. Being fearful that the shade may be destroyed again, the staff never replaced the top.
• Vandals have broken numerous small pieces associated with the playground structure.

Restrooms:

• Interior - Since the opening of the park, the restrooms have been vandalized on numerous occasions – examples of the vandalism include: stuffing of toilets with paper/sand and or rocks to make them overflow, ripping the toilets or toilet parts, urinals, sinks, paper towel holders etc. off the walls and graffiti on the interiors walls.
• Exterior – Broken security lights, graffiti on the building on numerous occasions, ripped off a sign board made by a resident for an Eagle Scout project less then 24 hours after installation.

Hockey Rink/Score Board:

• Graffiti on the rink floor as well as on the walls, broken scoreboard after it was repaired from Hurricane Wilma damage, constantly find broken beer bottles all over the court surface as well as in the penalty and player boxes, penalty and player boxes used as restrooms, find used condoms in boxes.

Grass Area/Picnic Area

• Broke picnic tables, fencing has been replaced on 2 different occasions – waiting on a quote to repair it for the third time, graffiti on park signs and walkways, irrigation system has been vandalized with irrigation heads being stolen and valves broken. Someone even stole the American Flag from the flag pole and tied the rope in knots.

Site/Court Lighting

• Site lighting fixtures have been broken on numerous occasions. Three court lights were also broken.

In short, this park is by far the worst when it comes to vandalism and these acts of vandalism occur during different hours - ranging from after school to after hours. With 18 parks in the City, placing a staff person at each park is virtually impossible. Every park is visited at least once a day by a cleaning crew with more visits if the park is being worked in. Along with daytime stops, the Department’s night staff is responsible for patrolling all parks between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM. Assigned staff’s log reveals at least 2 visits to the park every night, and very rarely it mentions finding people in the park after hours. On at least 2 occasions I have given my business card to the homeowners who live next to the park and have asked them to contact the police department if they see anyone in the park after hours.

We believe that the main reason for vandalism at this park is the fact the park has limited use and therefore attracts wrong type of crowd. Our intention is to develop a plan that would attract more people who will come to the park to enjoy the park and use it productively. We feel this can be accomplished simply by dismantling the existing roller hockey rink and converting it into a basketball court that will attract neighborhood crowd who will come in to play. In addition, we plan to increase the visibility in the park from Rock Island Road by eliminating a great deal of landscaping between the park and Rock Island Road The court could be lit at night a few days a week with the hope that the positive influences in the park would eliminate the problem.

The estimated cost to transform the hockey rink to a basketball court is between $7,000 and $10,000., which is less than what we spend in a year on constant repairs and re-painting of the facility due to vandalism. Funding for this transformation is available in the Department’s Capital budget and could be accomplished within the next 60 days. With Commission’s approval tonight, we can initiate the transformation process immediately. If the projected cost exceeded $10,000, we will bring the item back to the Commission for additional funding approval.

RECOMMENDATION:

The City Administration recommends Commission’s motion to approve the transformation of the Hockey Rink at Broadview Park to a Basketball Court using funds in the Parks and Recreation Department’s Capital Budget.