Three major factors affect the recreation facilities that Palmer should provide. These are the type of programs that will be provided, the faci1ities and land needed for unprogrammed activities and the suitability of the available land for different facilities.
TYPES OF PARKS
There are five main types of public recreation areas, based generally upon the standards of the National Recreation and Park Association, as follows:
"Regional Parks" - These are large, primarily passive parks typically of over 200 acres that are developed by the County or the State. The nearest examples include the Jacobsburg State Park & Environmental Education Center and Louise Moore Park .
"Conservancy Lands" - These are passive lands that are set aside primarily to preserve important natural areas, and not primarily for recreation. These usually include creek valleys and wooded steep areas. The size of these areas will depend upon the amount of these resources in a community.
"Community Parks" - These are parks typically of over 20 acres that include a wide variety of active and passive recreation, and that emphasize facilities for organized recreation programs, such as athletic fields. These parks mainly serve a large portion of a municipality. This type of park usually includes three or more good quality athletic fields, two or more picnic pavilions, three or more tennis courts, basketball courts, trails, woods, volleyball courts and children's play equipment. The Palmer Athletic Complex on Green Pond Road serves as a community park.
"Neighborhood Parks" - These are parks of typically 3 to 12 acres that primarily serve the surrounding neighborhoods and that emphasize more informal "pick-up" recreation as opposed to organized programs. These parks typically include a youth athletic field, basketball courts, volleyball courts, a picnic pavilion, benches and children's play equipment. LaBarre and Old Orchard Parks serves as neighborhood parks.
" Tot lots" - These are small play areas averaging one acre in size that mainly serve small children from nearby homes and that are built around children's play equipment. An example is the Stephen’s Street Playground, west of Route 248.
EXISTING PARK AND RECREATION FACILITIES
The tables on the preceding pages list the major recreation facilities in Palmer Township . Recommendations concerning many of these recreation areas are included in the "Recommended Recreation Improvements" section at the end of this "Recreation Facilities" portion of this report.
FACILITY NEEDS AND REOUESTS
Numerous methods provide insight into what types of recreation facilities are most needed and desired by residents. These include requests by residents and groups, comparisons with national standards, types of existing and planned recreation programs and actual current use of facilities. An additional alternative would be to conduct a resident recreation survey, which would most probably involve a "mail-back" survey of either all households or a random sampling of residents.
The best way to determine needs is to look at the actual amounts of use that different facilities receive, and how many requests for facilities that cannot be met. As new facilities develop, their amount of use should be monitored so that plans can be revised in response if needed. In addition, the distribution of recreation facilities is equally important.
According to the 2000 U. S. Census, Palmer Township had 16,808 residents. It is estimated that in year 2020, the population will increase to 20,169.
Based upon standards of the National Recreation and Park Administration (NRPA) a community should have between 6.75 and 10.5 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. If the recreation areas of the Palmer and Tracy Elementary Schools and Easton Area High School are included but not private recreation areas, the township has 405.87 acres of parkland. This is more than sufficient to meet current needs, according to the NRPA standard suggesting between 113.47 and 176.51 acres, as of 2000. To accommodate the Township’s eventual “build out” population, according to the standard, Palmer should have a total of 136.15 to 211.79 acres of parkland. It currently has sufficient parklands to satisfy the national standard through year 2020.
The NRPA guidelines recommend the following for fields and courts:
- softball/baseball fields - 1 per 5,000 resident
- football/soccer fields - 1 per 20,000 residents
- basketball courts - 1 per 5,000 residents
- tennis courts - 1 per 2,000 residents
- volleyball courts - 1 per 5,000 residents
The township inventory indicates that there are more than sufficient fields and courts to satisfy the national standard. However, the reality of the township’s needs with respect to the organized athletic association and adult leagues, etc., indicates that additional fields may be needed in different parts of the township. Future population statistics will dictate the number of new fields and courts that may be needed in the future.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SPECIFIC TYPES OF FACILITIES
Athletic Fields - Additional athletic fields are needed. Fields should be intended to be easily adaptable to softball, football and soccer. The fields need to be oriented with careful attention to the angles of the sun.
Pavilions - There is extremely strong demand in Palmer for additional picnic pavilions. Pavilions are especially important to provide shelter from both rain and the Summer sun, especially for large group picnics. Pavilions function best when they are adjacent to restrooms, children's play equipment and informal play areas. A major question with pavilions is whether alcohol should be allowed.
Sledding – Formal steep sledding areas are not encouraged because of liability concerns. However, it may be possible to incorporate modest sledding hills within Township parks for sledding by small children, provided that the downhill area is completely free of obstructions.
Pools – The Palmer Pool is grandfathered at present time with regard to the design. At some time in the future, the pool will have to be reconstructed to incorporate overflow recirculating gutters along with a new wall configuration in the diving well and a handicapped ramp. This work would be extensive and the township should pursue a grant to cover the costs.
Fencing – Fencing should surround any area intended for use by small children, especially between play areas and major roads. Proper backstops are needed not only to protect players, but also spectators. Movable fencing should be considered to make it easier to use the same fields for both football/soccer and outfields for baseball/softball during different seasons.
Tennis Courts – It is preferable for several public courts to be concentrated at one or two locations so that people can have easy access to them while waiting for one to become free, instead of having to go between several locations looking for an open court. It also is much more cost effective to construct (and periodically repave) a few courts at one location than to do the same work at single courts at many locations.
Play Equipment – Play equipment should be available within a relatively safe walking distance of all of the denser neighborhoods in the Township.
Support Facilities – It is important to provide certain support facilities as part of any major park. These include restrooms, water fountains, benches, bleachers for spectators, security lighting, trash and recycling cans and paths or roads suitable for use by emergency vehicles.
EDUCATION/RECREATION CENTERS
The Palmer Elementary, Tracy Elementary Schools and the Kunkel tract should continue to be thought of not only as a place for young people during the day time, but also as a center for both education and recreation for the entire community.
As a general concept, the Township and the School District should continue to regularly work together to seek the fullest use of all school facilities by responsible, supervised groups during hours of the day, week and year when they are not needed for school activities. It is recognized that most of the senior high school facilities are in almost constant use just for school programs. The school district currently makes the gyms, multi-purpose rooms and athletic fields available to the Athletic Association and other groups when they are not needed for school district activities. Officially, the facilities are only available to groups that predominately include residents of the school district. A written application and school board approval is needed for use of the facilities. Religious activities are not allowed. In addition to any fees for use, the group is also required to pay for any overtime for custodians. Custodians must be present unless the school principal certifies that adequate adult supervision will be present. The district generally requires that the organization using the school facilities have insurance for bodily injury and property damage, with the insurance covering both the outside organization and the school district.
The education/recreation concept is economical because it serves two important public programs with only one area of land and one set of improvements. Because of careful planning for multi-purpose use, the taxpayers buy maximum education and recreation. They get almost twice the value for their tax dollar as compared with the cost of providing two comparable separate facilities.
Joint use also helps in holding down maintenance costs and in making it easier to provide security. Also, it is much easier to provide recreation programs at a few key central sites, instead of
Widely scattered sites. This also makes it easier for families to deliver their children to the sites of recreation programs, and makes it easier for entire families to enjoy recreation at one location.
The schools have many of the facilities needed to efficiently and safely provide for public recreation. These include parking, security, equipment storage, maintenance personnel and equipment, restrooms, lighting, public water and sewer hook-ups, and water fountains. If Township recreational facilities are not adjacent to a school, most of these support facilities must be duplicated.
DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS
The "Open Space Plan" of this report addresses ways development regulations can be used to help provide adequate open space, recreational lands, conservation and recreation facilities.
As part of this planning program and to comply with changes in state law, several revisions to the Township's Subdivision and Land Development ordinances are needed to assist in providing needed recreation. These include the following suggestions:
- require larger amounts of land per dwelling if land is only suitable for passive open space;
- base the recreation fees on the average value of the amount of land that would otherwise be required; this is important to ensure fairness among developers, so that one developer is not required to dedicate very valuable land while another developer is only required to pay a small amount in fees;
- establish a system to ensure fairness among developers who dedicate floodplains or wetlands versus those who dedicate prime developable land;
- establish a system to ensure that recreation fees are spent in an area that will be accessible to residents of the development that paid the fees except where a centrally located specialty recreation area is provided and;
- require or strongly encourage developers of any development of townhouses or apartments to provide children's play equipment; this is important because each family will not have room for recreation on their own lot.
The largest expense in development athletic fields is often grading the land. The Township should consider allowing developer to accomplish grading on existing Township owned land, in return for reducing the amount of open space or fees that must be dedicated. Any such agreement should require the work to follow a detailed grading plan.
PROPOSED RECREATION IMPROVEMENTS
The “Recreation Plan Map” shows major existing and proposed recreation areas. These include approximate example locations of where it may be appropriate for a developer to be required to provide future recreation areas. These locations are meant to be for general planning purposes, and are not intended to define exact boundaries.
