Mt. Lebanon applies for grant to improve unused park
On the eastern edge of Mt. Lebanon, next to Seton-La Salle High School off McNeilly Road, is an undeveloped wooded area that actually is designated as a municipal park.
If the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources comes through with funding, McNeilly Park could be home to a series of highly accessible walking trails.
Mt. Lebanon commissioners voted April 10 to approve submitting an application to the DCNR for a park rehabilitation and development grant, with the possibility of the state matching a $210,030, commitment from the municipality.
Plans call for trails inside the 23.5-acre park to be built with driving surface aggregate.
“If we would at some point in the future have the capacity to fund fields, the trails are able to be easily relocated.” – Keith McGill
“Basically, it is the highest ADA-accessible trail material that you can use,” Ian McMeans, municipal planner and assistant manager, said with reference to requirements of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. “We’re taking advantage of the existing sort of walking pathways through the park and covering them with this DSA material that then makes the park accessible for people of all ages and ability levels.”
The high quality of the material contributes significantly to the project cost, McMeans said, but the accessibility factor is key to receiving consideration for state financing.
The project also calls for building an access road from McNeilly Road and a parking area, with two of the 10 spaces fully ADA-accessible.
“It’s an overall minimal disturbance to the park, itself,” McMeans said, noting that the affected area would be 0.95 acres. “So most of the park space will remain in its natural condition.”
A small rain garden is to handle runoff from the parking area, fulfilling the DCNR requirement for natural storm-water management, “which is one of the points that they like to see on the grant application,” McMeans explained.
He said that municipal staff members have discussed the project with state officials, who have expressed interest.
“They indicated that they wanted to see some kind of recreation usage in McNeilly Park before they would consider other applications in the municipality,” he said. “Not only does this project accomplish opening up an underutilitzed park space, which now has no public access to it, but once it’s completed, it may also open opportunities for DCNR for other parks projects.”
Municipal manager Keith McGill said that the department usually announces grant awards late in the year.
“If DCNR comes back with less than the full 50 percent match for the project,” he said, “we have the opportunity then to have a conversation with them to modify scope, to reduce our financial commitment.”
Mt. Lebanon’s capital planning long has called for athletic fields at McNeilly Park.
“We just keep pushing it out, because really there never has been sufficient funding to move that forward. I think the last estimate was somewhere in the $4 million range,” McGill said. “If we would at some point in the future have the capacity to fund fields, the trails are able to be easily relocated. It’s not like you’re moving a building or something more substantial.”
The municipal public works department has gated off access at the edge of the property because of incidents of illegal dumping.
“This will actually open it up where it will be visible from McNeilly Road,” public works director Rudy Sukal said about the improvement project. “That was one of the goals, to make sure we can see what’s going on there from the road.”