Palmer should invest in more park space

I live surrounded by kids.

Each morning, two school buses full of elementary school children are picked up in my neighborhood, and the school district estimates it transports 283 students from the residential area that is bordered by the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, the Glenn Highway, Helen Drive and Irwin Street. Add to that the number children who are home-schooled, attend private schools or are too young for kindergarten and you come up with one of the highest neighborhood densities of children in Palmer.

And the number of kids is destined to climb. With continued new home construction in the works for both Hidden Ranch and Brittney Estates, we might well be the fastest growing area within the city’s limits.

When it comes to parks or recreation infrastructure necessary for healthy communities and healthy children, my kids — and my neighbors’ children, and my future neighbors’ kids — get the short end of the stick. We have one park, Daron Street Park, which is a grassed city lot with a sandbox.

To access a bike trail, a playground, a sports field, the ice rink, the library or any recreation facility, my pre-schooler on training wheels would have to push his bicycle across one of the two busiest thoroughfares in the Mat-Su Borough.

The kids in my neighborhood get a lot of their outdoor play in the street. The only sidewalks near our house run along Felton Street, which is slated for upgrades this summer to allow even more traffic to drive even faster past our houses.

Experts in child development stress that outdoor play is important for the physical, social and emotional health of children. Outdoor play can help combat childhood obesity and have positive long-term consequences for their health. Outdoor play satisfies their needs for physical challenges such as climbing, sliding, jumping and running, allows them to test their social skills and contributes to their emotional well-being.

I’m happy that with prudent financial planning and an unexpected windfall of revenue, the city of Palmer finds itself with $800,000. I propose that the city use a small portion of those funds for two things:

1. Install the new playground equipment already in its possession at the Daron Street Park location. This will upgrade the existing grassy spot to a more multi-functional park.

2. Advance its plans to create a 1-acre park in the Brittney Estates Subdivision. The land has been in the city’s possession for at least two years, and while the subdivision still has some construction to be completed, there is no reason why site preparation for the park should be delayed. In fact, since play structures require the installation of a safety surface, we don’t need to wait for grass to grow to get a playground up and running this summer — yes, this summer.

Parks are not just good for kids. Access to parks and green spaces improve property values and, hence, increase property taxes. More property taxes means more revenue for the city to invest in other projects.

Completing these parks in my neighborhood would also help support local home sales and construction, support local jobs and transform the number of barren homesites-in-waiting into homes, neighbors and even more kids.

There’s no doubt city officials have a plethora of options for spending its cash windfall. I think the 300-plus kids in my neighborhood deserve just a little benefit from our collective wealth.

Cassandra Stalzer lives in the Brittney Estates Subdivision of Palmer with her two children.