Another Bad Park?

Michelle Jarboe writes today that Starmount Co. has abandoned plans to develop 5 acres of underused property across from Friendly Center, and will instead donate it to the city for use as a park.

Oh, boy.

Starmount had wanted to develop the property for offices, which would have been a very sensible use for that location. It's near a busy retail center, and some of the office workers could have lived nearby in Starmount Forest, giving them short or non-existent commutes. The office workers could have taken advantage of nearby retail and grocery stores. Efficiency and convenience all around.

But the neighbors were gearing up for a rezoning battle, and I think their attitude toward non-residential development in the area is best summed up by the tall brick wall that was built between them and the Shops at Friendly along Friendly Avenue.

Starmount Co. had also considered townhouses at that location, but spokesman Ron Wilson said that the idea didn't "trip his trigger." Since Greensboro's single-family homeowners tend to treat new townhouse developments as if they were invading Huns, I can understand his attitude.

However, the neighbors' hostility to commercial development isn't entirely unjustified. Car-oriented office and retail as it has been practiced in Greensboro -- that is, strip development -- is typically ugly and neighborhood-unfriendly. Only a few places so far have mixed uses successfully, namely Southside, the Village at North Elm, and soon Willow Oaks, and Starmount Co. was not involved in any of these.

Still, before the city accepts this "gift" from Starmount Co., it should take into consideration that good parks are expensive to maintain, some in Greensboro costing several hundred thousand dollars per year.

And bad parks, which cost less, are often underused, or worse, attractors of neighborhood problems. Do the Starmount Forest neighbors want the city to pay for the upkeep of a convenient gathering spot for the many petty criminals that naturally gravitate to Friendly Center? A quick and incomplete search of police records returned 19 arrests or incidents there in the last month. Does Greensboro have the police and Parks & Recreation resources to keep this park crime free? I don't think it does.

This part of town is already rich in parks and open space. Within a 1-mile radius of this location are the Lake Daniel Greenway, the long park between East and West Greenway Drives, the Arboretum Trail, the Market Street Park, the Starmount Natural Area, the Bicentennial Garden, the Bog Garden, and the Guilford Hills Natural Area.

Finally, would this park have the features for success that the Project for Public Spaces identifies, such as good pedestrian connectivity, an image and identity, a seasonal strategy, and good management?

In a word, no.

Greensboro needs to grow up, both literally and figuratively. It has hundreds of acres of underused land that should be usefully developed --vertically -- to make efficient use of our existing infrastructure and increase our tax base.

And its developers and neighborhoods need to stop bickering like children over their narrow interests, and start negotiating toward the kind of infill development that will serve future generations.