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Date: 7/13/2021
SOUTHAMPTON – The town of Southampton is conducting a multi-phased park improvement plan within Conant Park to help improve the park’s accessibility, enhance amenities, and bring local communities together.
As part of this plan, Southampton is seeking input from neighboring cities – including Easthampton, Holyoke and Westfield – through a Survey Monkey prior to making the improvements. The goal is to see what residents may want to see added to Conant Park as part of the improvement plan.
According to Dan LaValley, a member of Southampton’s Park Commission, Conant Park is the oldest of the two parks that reside in Southampton.
“If you’ve been to Conant Park in the past year or two, the playground equipment in the park is mostly roped off,” said LaValley. “It’s pretty dangerous.”
Because of this, LaValley and the rest of the Park Department conducted conversations a couple of months ago to figure out ways in which they could, not only revamp the children’s playground, but also the entire park at large.
The first step in this process was to receive input from Southampton residents and residents from surrounding communities of what they want to see in the park. The town received input from Southampton residents through the Open Space and Recreation Plan earlier this year, but they created this survey to see what residents from those other communities may want added.
LaValley and Kate Swistak-Rooks, who is a member of the Ad Hoc Grant Committee, went out and conducted in-person surveys as well with Easthampton and Westfield residents specifically. They are also looking to receive more in-person input from Holyoke.
“It’s interesting; different age groups have different interests in what they get out of a park,” said LaValley, regarding what they have found so far in survey results. “How can we incorporate activities in an upgraded Conant Park that would be good for all those types of age groups?”
According to LaValley, seniors seem to be most interested in walking paths and scenic views, whereas parents are more likely be interested in playgrounds for their children. Exercise is also a major reason why many people visit parks in the area.
The town may also investigate the possibility of adding an exercise station within the park, depending on how the rest of the survey results turn out. “There’s lots of options of what you can do in a park,” said LaValley. “We want to try and get data from as many people as we can and implement things in that master plan over time.”
The goal is to implement these improvements in stages over the next five to 10 years and work with the town’s Ad Hoc Grant Committee to hopefully acquire grants for these future improvements based on the top few amenities residents voted for in the survey.
According to Swistak-Rooks, who is also a member of the Board of Health, the Grant Committee and town at large are looking to implement a long-term plan for growth and improvement through low-cost means, especially since the town’s budget is not as large as other cities.
“Part of our goal is to encourage more people to go to Conant Park for its amenities,” said Swistak-Rooks, who added that the town was in the process of applying for the PARC Grant. The goal of this statewide grant is to help communities acquire and/or develop land for park and outdoor recreation purposes. The deadline for applying was July 14.
The survey, which will be open to those surrounding communities until at least the end of the month, will act more as a reference for long-term improvements.
“One thing that we noticed is that most people are willing to drive to park,” said Swistak-Rooks. “Most people said that if our park had amenities that they liked, then most people said that they would be willing to drive to a neighboring community in order to seek out those amenities.”
As of press time, Swistak-Rooks said that the town still needed to input the results of the 60 interviews that they did in person. As of press time, 40 out of 140 who participated in the Survey Monkey so far said that they did not take care of children. Many residents said that they took care of children between the ages of 0 and 18. The walking paths are the most valued so far based on the survey, with 87 percent of residents choosing those as desired amenities.
“This is just one of potentially several steps in our phases and making improvements to Conant Park,” said Swistak-Rooks, with regard to the Survey Monkey. “Our goal is the bigger vision.”
Depending on what happens with funding, Swistak-Rooks and LaValley both think that this process will involve two or more phases. The hope is to develop a master plan after the survey process is complete.
Residents from Westfield, Easthampton, and Holyoke can complete the Survey Monkey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/X9C8G3F.