WINDHAM — The town is proposing a community park on Gray Road that would be built in phases, adding a playground, basketball courts, sand volleyball courts, amphitheater and more parking to the site that already includes a skate park and community garden.

Dan Diffin of Sevee and Maher Engineers gave an overview of the Windham Community Park plan during the Windham Planning Board’s July 23 meeting, and said the project would be completed in stages on the nearly 13-acre town property where the Windham Public Safety building is located.

Currently, a paved skate park is just off a small parking area near the public safety building and the Windham Community Garden is located on the other end of the parcel.

“The rest of the property is not really utilized for much at this point,” said Diffin, who added that the proposed park project would encompass roughly 4.6 acres of the total property.

Under the proposal, the current skate park and parking area would be combined to create larger parking are for more than 50 cars. A new skate park would be positioned farther back on the site, and basketball and volleyball courts would be placed between the parking area and community garden. A small playground area would be added between the parking and public safety building.

“Construction is scheduled for spring of next year for the skate park and to start moving some dirt around,” Diffin said.

Windham Parks and Recreation Director Linda Brooks said the first phase would involve moving the skate park and doing site work between the skate park and garden to clear the land and prepare for future phases of the project.

Brooks said the total cost for that work would be more than $304,000 and that the town has received more than $168,000 in federal Land and Water Conservation Fund support. The town will cover more than $181,000 of first phase costs through a combination of impact fees and the profits of a sale of the town’s Gambo field property, Brooks added.

The town will continue to explore other grant and fundraising opportunities, Brooks said, including in-kind donation. She did not have an estimate of the project’s total cost between all of the phases.

“That’s still in the works,” said Brooks, who has been working on this project since shortly after she joined the department in the summer of 2015.

Diffin said the proposed amphitheater would consist of a “grass slope with maybe some informal seating” and would not have a sound system. The plan would not change the size of the community garden, “leaving the footprint that’s there.”

Planners appeared mostly receptive to the plan last week, voting unanimously to conduct a site walk and hold a public hearing, as yet unscheduled.

Planning Board Chairman David Douglass questioned the proposed parking configuration, which includes a second parking area for 12 cars by the community garden.

“I like this project, but I’m struggling with the parking, and I’m struggling with the orientation of a lot of the components,” said Douglass, who asked about potentially combining parking for both the park and the public safety building.

“It ruins the whole plan, in my opinion,” he added about having the parking the middle of the site.

Diffin said that mixing the public safety and park traffic could be problematic both for the town’s public safety personnel and people using the park.

“That conflict is an issue, I think, for both users,” Diffin said.

Planning Board Member Bill Walker added that, as someone who has spent time volunteering in the fire department, he thinks mixing traffic from families using the park and emergency vehicles responding to calls would be a “huge public safety issue.”

Douglass indicated that he understood those concerns and was hesitant even asking the question, but wanted to raise his misgivings about the parking layout as proposed.

As part of the proposal, the town is also asking for a waiver related to the number of curb cuts off Gray Road onto the property. Town zoning allows for two curb cuts off of the same road in the farm residential zone where the property is located. The property currently has three curb cuts: two for the public safety building and one for the skate park. The town would like to add a fourth for the community garden parking area, and planners must sign off on that waiver.

“This is one of the busiest roads in town, and this is one of the fastest roads, this section, heading over out of town,” Douglass said about traffic and speed on Gray Road.

While several members of the board indicated support for granting the curb cut waiver, Douglass and Walker both said they could “go either way” on the request and would need to look closer at the proposal and traffic implications.

Matt Junker can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 123 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @MattJunker.

The Town of Windham is proposing to build a community park next to the town’s public safety building.