Skinner Butte Park Master Plan - Laserfiche WebLink

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I j I ~I j ~ ' Why a Master Plan? ~ ~ Resource Without a Vison ~ Skinner Butte Park, as it exists today, has While it is true that most infrastructure may never been the subject of a comprehensive be repaired and replaced as necessary, a i public involvement and planning process. repair and replacement strategy does not i__ Over 30 years ago, in 1969, the last major take into consideration changing needs in planning effort for Skinner Butte Park was the community, shifts in use patterns, or the undertaken. This was mainly a visioning slow attrition of interest and vitality. As the ` process involving acity-wide request for community changes and grows, therefore, ~ ideas and suggestions for "what to do with so too must the park proactively transform the butte". Unfortunately, the focus of this to keep pace and provide for the effort did not encompass the entire park, community's recreational and and the plan lacks the element of public psychological needs. consensus that we now consider essential. i Some plans developed prior to 1969, For the park's natural areas, however, the including drawings from the 1920s and situation is more complex and urgent. 1930s, show a broader vision that included Since Euro-Americans settled the region, - , more of the area now considered to be the vegetation patterns in the park have Skinner Butte Park, however they still lack traveled a course of irrevocable change. ' analysis, public involvement and The forestation of native meadows, and consensus. One result of an absence of most importantly the extremely rapid shared vision is that the park begins to lose spread of invasive plants has forced us to ` its identity. Without the strength of identity, make a decision about how these areas the park is much less likely to capture the will be managed. It is clear that failure to attention, or the resources, that it needs to make a decision will not only result in the ~ serve the community. homogenization and extinction of many \ native plant and animal species within the Aging Facilities, Changing park, but will create a new set of issues to E Environment be addressed, such as public safety and Why do we need a vision for a major maintenance. Clearly, some action is metropolitan park? What are the necessary. What is required, therefore, is consequences of not having a vision? A a template for the degree to which this visit to Skinner Butte Park todaywill quickly natural progression of events will be tell the tale of an aging infrastructure and a allowed to continue, to be halted, or to be ' rapidly changing environment. Many of the reversed through restoration and d_ 1 ~ processes atwork in Skinner Butte Park are reclamation. understood well enough, but change From the pre-historic use of Skinner Butte happens slowly and the current condition, by the Kalapuya Indians as a lookout and ' although degraded, becomestheaccepted ceremonial area, to the contemporary ' norm. popularity of hiking and birding, to the ' necessity of providing respite from the urban condition, the natural areas of , ' Skinner Butte Park • Master Plan 2001 1