It’s the age-old debate when it comes to a park. Active or passive? Is it all ballfields and playgrounds or walking paths and gardens? In a small, landlocked town such as Oak Park, it’s always about finding a balance between active and passive.
In its most segmented form, you balance a totally active park like Ridgeland Common with its pool, ice rink, multiple ballfields, sledding hill and dog park with a totally passive park like Austin Garden with its wildflower garden, benches and meadow.
Mostly though you create parks which reflect both active and passive demands and you attempt to integrate them thoughtfully. As Oak Park continues its decade-long remaking of each park in the system, there is now a request from local youth soccer acolytes that the master plan for Taylor Park, Ridgeland and Division, be reopened with an eye to installing a full-sized artificial turf playing field.
The always deliberate park board has taken the matter under advisement and is mulling the possibility of an overall study of how athletic fields are currently being used across the village. To us such a study seems out of proper order since the park board is about to sign off on a master plan for the last of its parks, Stevenson, very shortly. A study of how many and what sort of athletic fields are necessary ought to have happened at the start of the process, not the end.
In any event, given all that we have reported and observed over the years, it seems clear to us that a turf field — and does anything scream “active” more than artificial turf? — would be a necessary upgrade when looking at the totality of our parks. Ever-increasing demand for field space is not going to dissipate. Endless complaints over soggy, lumpy field conditions will not evaporate.
Promises from the AYSO soccer community that they will help fund this expensive installation are welcome. This is a specialized park use and finding ways for the users to carry a portion of the cost makes sense.
As always when you get down to it, these discussions come down to location. A turf field was considered and rejected for Lindberg Park. AYSO says Taylor is the only park with the right dimensions for the full-size, not-shared-with-baseball field they seek. But if you live near Taylor Park, any such plan is going to raise concerns over parking and heavy use.
We’re supportive of a turf field in town. We recognize its placement is problematic.