Talk of two big parks and recreation projects possibly coming to Lower Makefield Township made for some lively and sometimes heated discussion at the July 20 board of supervisors meeting.
An agenda item regarding several proposed projects turned mostly into a back-and-forth about possible development of the Snipes Tract near Dolington Road and Interstate 295 and possible improvements at overused Macclesfield Park on River Road, a facility with many athletic fields.
The two are kind of woven together, some of the supervisors said.
“We should take a step back and do a more holistic approach to parks and recreation analysis,” board member Daniel Grenier said. “We need to look at how we can best use Macclesfield before starting the planning and design for Snipes.”
Several plans, most heavy on sports fields, have been drawn up for Snipes since the township acquired the 30-plus acre parcel in 2000. None ever came to fruition for various reasons. Two concept plans from 2018 made with the help of Grenier and fellow Supervisor Suzanne Blundi were much less fields centric and include more of a bent toward passive recreation elements. Those plans never went farther than the concept stage because of lack of funding.
Many nearby residents have expressed and continue to express concerns about Snipes being developed mainly as a complex for organized youth sports leagues because they fear the added traffic, noise and other negatives they feel it would bring.
A tentative timeline for possible Snipes development laid out by township Parks and Recreation Director Monica Tierney at the July 20 meeting calls for holding public workshops in August to get a lot of public feedback on how it should be constructed, engaging an engineer in September for work on design concepts, and having the supervisors vote on a preferred concept plan in November or December.
“We need a master plan for Macclesfield Park,” Supervisor Fredric Weiss said. “If we know how we’re going to change Macclesfield, that will impact what we do at Snipes.”
An email sent out several weeks ago by a parent/coach with Yardley-Makefield Soccer, one of the township’s largest organized youth sports leagues, evoked concerns from some residents and supervisors.
The email urged YMS members to respond to a township survey on recreational needs in a way that indicated they felt more athletic fields were a high priority. Some residents and board members said no one should be “coaching” others on how to respond to a survey, and Supervisors Chairman James McCartney said he felt the email “tainted” the survey.
Yardley-Makefield Soccer President George Schlieben said the YMS board did not sanction the email and that he “shut it down” soon after finding out about it. However, he added that he felt the woman who sent the email was only trying to “advocate for children.” Blundi made comments indicating she tended to agree with Schlieben.
Greinier argued with Schlieben over the supervisor’s feeling that organized leagues like YMS monopolize use of township fields to an excessive degree.
“We’re not here to build sports complexes for leagues,” Grenier said earlier in the meeting. “We’re here to build community facilities.”
Schlieben responded that he felt organizations like YMS serve an important role in the community, and that the league wants to work closely with the township on solutions to recreational problems.
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