SHELBURNE - The Town of Shelburne is hosting a public workshop on Wednesday, June 13, at the Community Center on King Street to discuss the results of a recent survey on the future use of the Roger Grovestine Memorial Recreation Complex and how to move forward towards future development of the recreational property.
“The main thing we’re trying to do right now is get the community to weigh in,” said CAO Dylan Heide. “Do they value the Roger Grovestine Complex as it today and what they might want to see in the future in terms of maintaining what we have, or doing something different, or doing both. We haven’t really put anything on or off the table because we’re really trying to find out what the community needs.”
Currently, less than half of 14-acre town owned property is used. Heide noted not all of the property would be suitable for field use but could be used for trails. As it is, the recreation complex consists of a ball field and tennis court.
“Both of them are getting on in years,” said Heide. “The ball field is really well used. The tennis court is not as well used as it could be, and as a result it is in need of some maintenance.”
Heide said the town received 62 responses from residents to a survey on the Roger Grovestine Complex.
“Some people commented about some of things they would like to see so there’s a wide range of ideas, some of which are more realistic than others,” he said. “Sometimes you get ideas that might not be suitable to a property but its always good to inform the council what the community might be after.”
Trails, a dog park, more outdoor facilities for kids, outdoor workout type areas, and improvements to the washroom and canteen facilities were among the suggestions put forth by residents in the survey, said Heide. People also said they would use the tennis court more if it were fixed up.
Heide said the town is hoping for a good turnout for the June 13 meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
“We want to work with people to figure out how we can get support and get people mobilized around any of these options and what is exciting to people,” he said. “I encourage people to come out to the session. We will review the results of the survey and then we’ll talk about how we can move from there to something that can actually take place in the next two or three years. This is not something we’re trying to break ground on yet, but are trying to figure out what people want, get funding in place and move from there.”
