Article Courtesy of The Palm
Beach Post
By Kristina Webb
Published August 28, 2018
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WELLINGTON — The village could turn a busy cut-through into a park, with a goal
to curb speeders in a multi-family home community.
But some residents fear the park is being pushed through without adequate input
from those in the neighborhood, leading one to address Wellington’s council at a
recent meeting.
If approved, the section of Folkestone Circle between Yarmouth Court to the
south and Carlton Street to the north would be shut down and converted to green
space with the possibility of basketball courts, pavilions, a playground and
other features. The budget is about $300,000, Assistant Village Manager Jim
Barnes said.
Wellington’s Community Services and Engineering departments will have an
informational meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the proposed park site. |
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It was a notice about that meeting that drew concern from Andy Hermida, who
represents the homeowners association for his multi-family home on the Yarmouth
Court cul de sac just east of where the park could be built. The other three
homeowners in his building called him after recently finding the notice on their
doors.
“Once they came home from work and they got these fliers, they lit up my phone,”
Hermida said.
He told the council at its Aug. 14 meeting that residents felt the notice
indicated the park was a done deal. “The wording on here, it says that there is
going to be a new neighborhood park constructed,” he said. “That’s the wording
that kind of got my residents going.”
His HOA opposes the project because it will “take away one of our access roads,”
Hermida said.
The project’s goal is to cut speeding through the neighborhood, Mayor Anne
Gerwig said. “But we’re not looking to shove a solution into your neighborhood
that your neighborhood doesn’t want,” she added.
The council has yet to vote to approve the park, Gerwig said, and residents
still have time to provide input at the upcoming meeting. “We put things in the
budget for discussion, but we did not vote to build that park,” she said.
The village wants input on the project, Village Manager Paul Schofield said. But
he acknowledged that no project has 100 percent support. “If the neighborhood
doesn’t want it … generally they don’t really give people things they don’t
want,” Schofield said.
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