Winchester Park A disc golf course and walking trails are likely to be the first additions to an expanded Winchester Park, Tyler consulting firm Planning Concepts told The Statesman.

“The design provides a balance of active and passive recreation items to provide year-round use of the park,” Mark Priestner said. “Our next step is to create a budget of all the items proposed and match them up with potential funding sources. I anticipate the trails and disc golf course as being the first items to be implemented.”

The Chandler City Council on June 8 approved Priestner’s conceptual plan for Winchester Park, including the development of 29 acres near Martin Street. New access points and a three-building government complex are part of the concept.

“The access connections on the north side of the park are a recommendation based on sound planning principles,” Priestner said. “The greater number of access points you have in any given development, you improve traffic low within the development and reduce the amount of traffic at each of the access points.”

In a pair of city meetings since April, residents who live near Winchester Park expressed concerns about privacy and too-easy access to their properties, Priestner said.

“With regard to the streets on the north, by con- necting the streets to the proposed park drive, you eliminate confusion created by the dead-end streets,” he said. “One of the issues we heard from the neighbors is that they don’t like folks parking on the street. If the streets are not connected, you will have people meander through the neighborhood with the perception that they can get into the park.

“Without the access, those users will simply park their cars and walk into the park rather than turn around and drive back to a parking lot. The additional parking strategically located throughout the park goes hand in hand with the connection points.”

The conceptual plan also includes a city complex near Martin Street that would replace the cramped space on State Highway 31, where City Hall, the Chandler Police Department, Chandler Community Center, and Chandler Brownsboro Chamber of Commerce are housed in a single building. Priestner’s drawing shows a group of three buildings that would form the complex on the Martin Street property.

Priestner said the complex is a key component to the park expansion.

“There is a growing trend to include municipal facilities with parks and open space,” he said. “Frankly, it is shown most cities were laid out 100 years ago. Chandler has the opportunity to explore this type of development due to the size of land purchase and its location in the community. The most natural fit is a new community center.”

By building a community center in the park, it creates “a destination-based center which opens up both indoor and outdoor opportunities,” Priestner said.

“The more the buildings are consolidated, the easier they are to maintain and thus operate more efficiently. In this way, the citizens of Chandler will get the most bang for their buck both with construction and maintenance costs. Most importantly, we wanted to ensure the integrity of the open space and recreatonal aspect of the site. By designing the complex into the site, we have accomplished this.”

The complex, with vehicular access on the perimeter of the site, would be connected to walking trails.

“While this design concept is not unique to Chandler, Winchester Park will be. There will be identity features designed into the natural landscape that will create a sense of place and sense of community unique to Chandler. The goal is to create a destination that cannot be duplicated elewhere.”

Other features could also be added to the park, including spray pads, playgrounds, ballfields, and other attractions.

Chandler acquired 29 acres from Stanley McCurley in April. He received a down payment of about $200,000, and the title was transferred temporarily to the Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation.

The remaining $385,000 will be paid at 6 percent over the next 10 years. If the city satisfies the debt in five years, the early-payoff penalty would be about $18,000.

The land includes a house, swimming pool and other buildings. Eighty to 90 percent of that land, offi- cials have said, will be used for park development.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department programs offer money to state municipalities and counties with populations under 20,000, providing 50 percent matching funds, with the maximum amount awarded $750,000.

The state agency allows the assessed value at purchase to be used as matching funds in a parks grant. However, state law prohibits Chandler from using that program if it owns the property.

Park land usually remains with the foundation for five years. The cost to use the program is $100 a year.