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Nipomo park possibilities: Opposing factions agree on community center alternatives

By Mike Hodgson/Associate Editor

The selection of seven possible alternate sites for a community and recreation center may represent the first time in six years people from the opposing camps met to calmly come up with mutually acceptable ideas.

Jan Di Leo, county parks planner, presented the alternatives last week in a report to Nipomo Community Services District directors.

“Jan and I were reminiscing about when this whole process started close to six and a half years ago. I had nary a gray hair on my head,” said NCSD Director Larry Vierheilig, president of the Nipomo Native Garden adjacent to the park and a member of the group that hammered out the common goals.

Until now, the 140-acre park’s only amenities have been barbecue and picnic areas, horseshoe pits, ball fields, basketball and tennis courts, a children’s play area, restrooms and an off-leash dog park scattered around 22 acres of open grassy areas shaded by oaks and pines.

A large portion of the park is relatively untouched open space consisting of oaks, wild grasses and chaparral with a few undeveloped trails winding through it.

But when the County Office of Education decided to sell the North Frontage Road site of the Nipomo Recreation Center in 2002, the Nipomo Area Recreation Association began a push to build a new, bigger center in the park.

Because the rec center would be staffed daily by the association, its members wanted the county to turn management of the park over to that organization, which would schedule events and collect use fees.

From a simple recreation center, the proposal grew into a community center with more and more amenities added as groups and individuals piled on the facilities that interested them.

That included rooms for meetings and classes, teen and senior centers, preschool, gymnasium with lockers and showers, theater, handball courts, multipurpose sports fields, swimming pool, a skate park, two amphitheaters, gazebo with an informal stage, additional off-leash area, equestrian staging area and multipurpose trails linking the park with the Nipomo Native Garden on Camino Caballo.

Parking for more than 700 cars was added to accommodate all the people who would use such a concentrated mix of uses, all of it illuminated by dozens of lights.

That potentially intensified use drew a groundswell of opposition, especially from people living nearby who wanted it to remain a passive park with a minimum amount of development.

Minds meeting

Since then, the community center and associated facilities have polarized the community.

“For some reason, every public hearing (on the plan) held for five years turned into an angry, confrontational meeting,” said NCSD Director Jim Harrison, also a member of the group that proposed the alternative sites.

A member of the equestrian trails advocacy group Ride Nipomo and the Nipomo Parks Conservancy, which was organized to oppose a recreation and community center in the park, Harrison said he’s at neither extreme of the issue.

“There are groups who want nothing put in the park, and there are groups who want everything put in the park,” he said.

“Some believe the park should be used in some areas and should not be used in some areas because there are things over there that should not be covered with parking lots and concrete and asphalt,” he continued.

“That’s where I am — somewhere in the middle.”

The ongoing clash of ideas prompted Harrison and other individuals to ask Di Leo if she would serve as a go-between for the two groups.

Di Leo assembled a group of 10 people from both sides of the issue — representatives of Nipomo Recreation, park neighbors, youth sports and others.

“My opening statement to them was, ‘I want us to have a civil discussion ... if we can’t do that, we’ll cut it short and walk out of here,’” Di Leo said.

Instead of rancor and arguments, the group met three times for calm discussions.

“We actually sat down and talked,” Harrison said. “We set the ground rules that we would not talk about what was in the park but what should be in the recreation center, what should be in the community center, and should they be together.

“I think it went a long way to establishing that all of us believe there should be a recreation center and a community center or the two together somewhere in Nipomo. ... We need something for the kids.”

Di Leo said based on the amenities everyone agreed upon, a consulting firm designing the park master plan said at least 2 acres would be needed for a recreation and community center — a little less if the center shared parking with another facility.

That led to the seven proposed alternative sites.

But whether a community, recreation or combined center is constructed in the park will depend upon potential environmental impacts and whether they can be mitigated; whether adequate funding is available; and, most importantly, the desires of the community, said Pete Jenny, county parks manager.

“Once we complete the park master plan, if we don’t see some community consensus that a community center there is a high priority, it will go elsewhere,” Jenny said.

“If there is no other good option, I could see it rising to the level of the next thing we did in the park,” he said. “But we always listen to the community. This is not my park; this is not the Parks Department’s park; it’s the community’s park.”

mhodgson@theadobepress.com