Stop Taking Away Our Open Spaces Please

To Whom It May Concern,

We are very disappointed that our beautiful open spaces within Southern Walk appear to be in the process of being taken away (again). We live near Mill Run and are under the understanding that the plants that were planted in front of the school in the large open space were to prevent organized sports from ruining the grass. What was promised to be a 'beautiful forest' has turned into an area that is very displeasing (to put it mildly) to the eye due to weeds, dying trees, mulch strewn about, etc. Not to mention that they can't mow between it easily because the tractor no longer fits between the rows of beds that were planted. I personally watch a female custodian from the school struggle to mow between the rows. The beds are not being maintained and were not installed properly in the first place. I even attempted to weed it myself because I am tired of looking at it every day, and I can't even get the weeds out of the ground. I have had numerous people ask me, "What is up with whatever is planted over there? Who did that? It looks terrible." (Quotes from various people) It would be helpful for the person responsible for planting this area to put together a maintenance team or committee for this area to better maintain it.

It appears that round two may be in the works, as well as the common space near the doggie station on Ridgeway. This is where many children enjoy playing frisbee, kick a ball or just simply run around and play.

Our yards are not large here and our kids need room to run around. If the intent is to discourage organized sports teams (i.e., football, flag football, soccer, etc.) from playing and ruining the grass in these areas, couldn't we simply post signs in the areas in question including in front of the school stating "No Organized Sports Practices, Please"?

So sad to see people discouraging our kids from getting out and getting fresh air and exercise in our own neighborhood by taking away the few spaces they have to play safely close to home .

 

I would also add that the area in front of Mill Run was just mulched so it does not look like it usually does.

 

My spouse gently pointed out that I might have come across a little harsh in my first message which was not my intention. I am just very frustrated with the thought of losing open areas in which to play and certainly do not mean to point fingers at the school, as I know someone outside of the school planned the design.

If anyone has any information as to what might actually be happening in these areas and who we could talk to about it, please let me know. I may have jumped to conclusions based on conversations that we had last year, but it looked as if the same people involved last year were out possibly discussing plans today in the same areas in question. I could be wrong, though.

 

Right behind Mill Run is a field that you can do all the things you mentioned and more.

 

I would like to respond to this post to provide some facts.

Wildlife Habitat's committee have worked with Mill Run Elementary School Administration, and installed the Virginia native trees and plants to add additional tree canopy to the school property in an area that was approved by the principal. We provided this to the school in an area that it was NOT marked, RESERVED or should be ASSUMED as an OPEN SPACE for the community. I would like to remind you that it is a SCHOOL property not owned by the Broadlands Community.

In regards to the large space between 2 homes across from Mill Run, I would like to also inform you is that all the proper required process has been in the process by the committee. This area was chosen because it wasn't MARKED, and/or RESERVED as an OPEN SPACE area owned by HOA. Nevertheless the current plan will not take up the entire space and will include open space in that area.

I personally appreciate not to be presented with public posts as if we are "Taking Away" open spaces from the community without going through proper process.

As a committee, our goal IS to promote healthier and more sustainable outdoors and landscapes. We have done many projects and work in our community that has been recognized and appreciated throughout. We do RESPECT and REALIZE that having open space for sports and play is also needed.

Respectfully,

 

Thank you for your clarification.

 

I appreciate the PM apologizing for jumping the gun without knowing what was taking place.

I would like to further clarify that, at the time of this plan being considered, the residents immediately around the open HOA area were surveyed. In addition, there was an announcement in the newsletter asking for feedback.

We received no objection but some of the feedback from home owners strongly encouraged us with our proposal. They realized that this would be an enhancement of this particular space. This post was also published on our committee website. I believe there was also a post about it in this website.

It will be a false interpretation to say our project is discouraging the kids from being outside. In contrary we do encourage them to be outdoors and connect with nature with programs, posts and information we provide. We don't have any objection or interest to discourage them from doing sports activities as well. I would like to add that to find open grassy area which is mentioned above:

There is still flat area 4 or more times bigger than our planted area at Mill Run on each sides at the front of the school.

There are also grassy very large stretch of spaces both sides of the school which is not used for team practices.

There are also much more grassy areas all around Eagle Ridge MS.

With that said, I am not aware of restrictions on if/how/when residents can or can not use the school properties. I am sure the teams have permissions.

Recently I posted on Mill Run ES thread asking for volunteers for this project but there were no response.

Originally, the project was installed at MRES with volunteers obtained by the school's PTO's call for volunteers and student volunteers.

We have provided the list of the plants to be used for educational purposes for identifying Virginia native trees and plants which was part of this project.

Later in the fall, additional plants will be installed for replacement of dying plants.

Again, if anyone is interested in participating in maintaining and enhancing this area can contact me directly.

Thanks.

 

In my 'private' apology, I should not have used the term that I 'jumped the gun' because in my initial posts before you responded, I used the terms 'appear' and 'I could be wrong', which were not accusatory. I should have only specifically apologized for the title I used for this post, because I know could have worded that in a better way. Last year, we did in fact follow correct protocol and contacted both the HOA and the principal.

The root of why we are upset is because we were specifically told last year that these spaces were being planted on to discourage the use of the space by organized sports teams. I am not making that up in my head. It seemed very unfair to us that these areas would be planted on for that reason and would not be usable by the rest of the community. That is why we suggested placing signage last year to keep the teams off the grass that supposedly was being torn up. After reading the two posts in response to your post that you gave us the link to, the posters feel that grass is a waste of space and resources. I guess this where there are two schools of thought...I've seen numerous kids/parents playing with their children in the HOA area in between these two houses who would disagree that this is a waste of space and resources. We obviously realize that there are other open spaces around the schools, but this is a safe place where our children do not have to cross a very busy street.

As for the area you already planted, it probably would have been a good idea to have a maintenance committee in place before you did the project. It is often very hard to get a crew together after the fact, especially when nobody really sees that area up close for any length of time on a regular basis except for my family.

We are not against beautifying the neighborhood. And for us to assume that the open space between the two houses on Ridgeway was open common ground on which to play is not an unrealistic idea since it has a sidewalk leading to a bench where you can sit and watch your kids play. I believe the average homeowner would think that this a designated HOA commonground open space.

As far as your plans on planting a nature garden with native plants in this space, it is obviously too late for us or any of our neighbors to change the course of action. So, I hope that it is planted in a much more aesthetically pleasing manner than what was planted in front of our house and that is maintained for the sake of all the neighbors surrounding it.

(As far as being aware of the project, I was not on the lookout for anything in the newsletter or on the forum pertaining to these areas because I was told last year by you and the HOA that you went through the HOA board and it was approved, so we knew it was a done deal. When nothing was done last year, we thought the project may have been dropped, but when we saw you out there again, we knew something was going on but not exactly what.)

While we appreciate your volunteer time for this community (we both, too, volunteer hours and hours within and outside of the community) and for teaching children about nature which is important, I suppose everyone has their own ideas about what a good use of space is and what a properly planted/maintained landscape looks like, so I am closing the discussion on this forum on my end.

 

Just confused about the 'private apology' part...... Seemed like a pretty public way to reiterate your position.........

I need to venture over to that part of the neighborhood more often!

 

True dat!!!

 

I would like to add a clarification:

1. Mill Run Elementary School space was planted to add wildlife habitat, to include additional tree canopy by the committee as a project to also include educational native tree/plant area. It was school's feedback that they also needed help to stop team practices at this location. It wasn't the committee's objective to do this project for the purpose of stop team planting.

2. The second location between 2 homes across the school is also will be a garden to add additional wildlife habitats with native plants. We have first confirmed that this spaces was not reserved to stay as is. Our committee's plan or intention is not stop any sports activities but we have been told by few of the homeowners immediately around this space told us during the survey that they were negatively impacted by kids playing sports in that space as their additional concern. This concern was not the purpose of our plan. We collected information from the homeowners we were able to contact who live in the immediate area. If not able to contact information was left at their mail boxes.

3. We believe our project will provide an area where families and kids will still be enjoying as a beautiful habitat and be able to spend time and explore. That has been one of the goal to our proposal where young children especially will be able to learn the basics of nature appreciation through their own window into the natural world. In addition, the bigger objective is to provide a professionally designed and maintained display garden where homeowners can find how they can create beautiful gardens and habitats with native plants and all the information about this garden will be provided online. I would like to remind you that as a Certified Wildlife Habitats Community by the National Wildlife Federation this project also supports the requirements for maintaining our certification.