Meade Mitchell, PLA

Thank you for the kind words. It is a very good question. That the question is asked, might be a strong testimony on how “real nature” has been removed from the normal occurrence, that it would be considered similarly to some industrial site, as far as safety and benefits to a community. As far as an “attractive nuisance”, we have not yet run into any complaints. I have hope that a wetland park with flowering plants, water falls with improved pathways, boardwalks and shade structures would never be categorized as a nuisance, or the profession of landscape architecture is in trouble. All kidding aside, we have taken care to have well positioned signs and having a hierarchy of paths that create some boundaries of use, if not explicitly stated, at least implicitly stated what is appropriate for interacting. In addition, we tried to make the “rules” signs and “warning” signs more about information on what we want users to do, more than about what you “can’t” do at the park.

Yes, the adjacent houses in the area are more of a standard suburban layout. Sort of related I would add, this is a park that is hopefully bigger than right next door users, and our goal is to connect everyone we can to natural amenities. The park was publicly funded and is a public amenity for anyone to enjoy. We hope that this park is not just a place for the immediate neighbors, but many other close neighborhoods. I digress, ultimately and unfortunately, we don’t have a voice in this community’s single family architectural style, but we have made great strides in changing the community’s definition of what is a beautiful park, in changing it to be more habitat and nature driven. Maybe that will lead to natural backyards!